35. One &...

Lyrics

I can't remember anything
Can't tell if this is true or dream
Deep down inside I feel to scream
This terrible silence stops me

Now that the war is through with me
I'm waking up, I cannot see
That there is not much left of me
Nothing is real but pain now

Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please God, wake me

Back in the womb it's much too real
In pumps life that I must feel
But can't look forward to reveal
Look to the time when I'll live

Fed through the tube that sticks in me
Just like a wartime novelty
Tied to machines that make me be
Cut this life off from me

Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please God, wake me

Now the world is gone, I'm just one
Oh God help me
Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please God, help me

Darkness imprisoning me
All that I see
Absolute horror
I cannot live
I cannot die
Trapped in myself
Body my holding cell

Landmine has taken my sight
Taken my speech
Taken my hearing
Taken my arms
Taken my legs
Taken my soul
Left me with life in hell


During its first minute or so, this is a pretty great song. Then the actual singing starts and it is all pretty much downhill from there. As I wrote in my piece on Nothing Else Matters, I am no fan of Metallica or heavy metal. I am glad though that they have made it so easy for me to link a movie to their song. Metallica has incorporated scenes from the 1971 movie Johnny Got His Gun in their official video clip for this pro-euthanasia song. This makes sense, since the lyrics are basically a short plot summary of that movie.

The Movie: Johnny Got His Gun (Dalton Trumbo, 1971)

As you may have guessed by now, this is not a particularly cheery, upbeat movie. It is about Joe, a patriotic soldier, who on the last day (That's what IMDB says, but I don't remember the movie mentioning that it was the last day) of WWI gets hit by a mortar shell. He does not die, but he loses his arms, legs, nose, eyes, ears and mouth. He is basically just a brain with a chest. What makes it even more horrific is that he has a conscious brain. So he can still think, remember and dream stuff. He is pretty intelligent, so he deduces pretty quickly that he has nor arms or legs. The scenes in which he does this are rather weird. They are pretty horrific, because we can hardly bear to imagine how horrible it would be if this would happened to us. The problem is though that the scene in this movie is 'acted' rather clumsily by Timothy Bottoms, who plays Joe. Of course he can do only voice acting; the movie wisely doesn't show his destroyed body, or his face, keeping him under a blanket during the scenes in which he is his horrible state. This was Timothy Bottoms' first role and it is one of the hardest acting debuts one can imagine. So it is rather understandable that he 'overacts' (overscreams?) quite a bit when he has to find out that he has no arms or legs. But while it is understandable, the effect is unfortunately that his screaming sounds a bit like it belongs in a Monty Python sketch. The scene is thus unintentionally (though maybe thankfully) less horrific then it could/should have been.

That is not the only scene in which Bottoms seems to have some trouble with his voice acting. Luckily for him though he also gets to act 'normally' in the movie. The movie visually shows Joe's memories, dreams and thoughts. It is during these scenes that the movie is really great and interesting. While watching the scenes involving Joe's memories of his childhood, I realized that I cannot remember ever seeing a movie dealing realistically with the life of American teens/children at the beginning of the twentieth century. It actually felt quite astonishing to see, in an American movie, a kid bathing itself in a wooden barrel, because there was no shower at home. And there is one scene which is so utterly unimaginable in a modern movie, that it is simply astonishing to see it existing. It starts when on the last day before Joe goes to war he is kissing his girlfriend Kareen. They are kissing in Kareen's living room, until Kareen's father sends them away to Kareen's bedroom. As modern movie watchers, we now think we pretty much know what's going to happen. Well, it doesn't! And it doesn't in what seems, to us moderns, the most awkward way possible. Kareen goes to bed, hides under the sheets and pulls out her clothes. With her blanket covering her breasts she asks Joe (her 20-year old long time boyfriend, remember!) to give her, her nightgown. He does so, protesting a bit  unconvincingly that, he can't see her breasts. Since it is their last night, before Joe goes to war Kareen tells him, he can see her naked if he wants. He says that if she is feeling uncomfortable doing it, she doesn't need to do it. She doesn't feel that uncomfortable though and stands naked in front of him, only to return to bed, and under the sheets immediately. She does tell Joe, that since she showed her nude body, he has to do it too. So he does this for a moment and then he too returns to bed and under the sheets. They now simply lay naked on he bed, each on their own side, with the sheets over their interesting parts. They talk something and after a while finally decide to do something. So they gently let their heels touch each other. After a while of touching heels, they finally decide to kiss, without ever getting rid of the blankets. Now I didn't write this to make fun of this scene, the movie, or the norms and values of that time. I just wanted to show how completely unnatural this scene (and some other scenes too) feels. It's utterly unimaginable that we would ever see such a scene in a modern movie. It feels not only from another time, but also from another world.

In the previous entry I complained that Terry Gilliam failed to make the hallucinatory, unreal scenes very interesting or imaginative. That cannot be said of this movie. But besides besides being quite imaginative during its dream scenes, through his dreams and memories the movie also manages to make clear how horrific and sad Joe's fate is. Not only could he have had a wonderful life, he also realizes he could have had a wonderful life and that there is absolutely nothing he can do to have a normal life again. It is also worth noting that I've never seen a movie convey so precisely how we dream.  Dreams do not follow a logical pattern, they don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. There is also no clear sense of time and place in dreams. The best example of this comes when Joe is told by his nurse that it's Christmas. She does this by spelling 'Merry Christmas' on his stomach. When she leaves he starts dreaming. We see him in a bakery, where he worked before he went to war. There all kinds of people waltzing together. And in the corner there is some rich man repeating constantly 'Merry Christmas!, champagne!' There are other weird people in the scene including a black woman looking for her son. We find Joe dancing with Kareen, only to see Kareen go and dance with someone else. Eventually Joe goes out of the bakery and into same sort of cave, which seems in no way to be connected to the bakery. He meets his father (who died even before Joe went to war) there. They talk a bit and then Joe leaves the cave. We now see him running through some fields he obviously remembers from his childhood. It's day, but it suddenly becomes night. He also suddenly hears and sees Kareen, goes after her, but loses her. He then suddenly meets his father again, seemingly forgetting that he was searching for Kareen. His 'father' gives him the idea to communicate through Morse code with his doctors. He can do this by banging his head against his pillow.

Before I discuss this, it is worth noting that two of Joe's weirdest and most unexplainable dreams involve Donald Sutherland playing a hippie version of Jesus. I never used to think much about Sutherland, but he actually is one of the most interesting actors of the 70's and 80's. He was choosing interesting, slightly odd movies and always played interesting characters. In 1971 alone he was Jesus in this movie, a hippie priest in Little Murders (one of the weirdest and most anarchistic American movies I've ever seen) and Klute in Klute (I haven't seen that one, but it considered one of those classic American 70's conspiracy movies). Furthermore he has been in movies like MASH, The Dirty Dozen and Don't Look Now. I haven't seen these three movies, but based on what I know of them I really hope I'll see them some day. (Of course. due to my studies, I've had to watch/analyze the famous opening scene of Don't Look Now at least three times). Despite all this Sutherland seems often a bit overlooked. He has never been nominated for an Oscar, but he should have been for his great role in Ordinary People.

After Joe finds out through his dream that he can communicate through Morse code, he tries to tell his doctors what he wants. At first he is unsuccessful, but eventually his doctors realize what he is doing. And what he wants is to be exhibited outside so that he can fresh air and people can see him and learn from him. Naturally the army doctors refuse this. So he requests to be killed. The army refuses this too. Now in the last 10 minutes, the movie suddenly turns into a anti-army, anti-war film. While I can quite agree with these sympathies, these scenes don't really fit this movie. This was a movie about the horrific fate of a single individual, not a movie trying to make any grand statements, or trying to expose the hypocrisy and stupidity of war, nationalism and armies. Besides, the fate of Joe, was quite enough to make us understand that war and nationalism aren't very good thing. These extra scenes feel a bit tacked on. Just like the final quote we see in the credits: 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.' This means 'it is sweet and proper to die for one's country.' Of course this quote is intended as cynical and ironical, but the Joe we saw being portrayed in the movie would agree unironically with this quote. Of course, it is quite probable that exactly because of these last scenes Dalton Trumbo wanted to make this movie. This is the only movie he has directed, but he has written several other great movies. Unfortunately he could never really revel in the successes of those movies because he was blacklisted. So Dalton Trumbo had quite good reasons to make an angry movie about the hypocrisy of American patriotism. Especially in 1971. While the war portrayed in the movie is WWI, Trumbo of course had the Vietnam War on his mind. 





    

    

34. Comfortably Numb &...

Lyrics

Hello,
Is there anybody in there
Just nod if you can hear me
Is there anyone at home
Come on now
I hear you're feeling down
I can ease your pain
And get you on your feet again
Relax
I'll need some information first
Just the basic facts
Can you show me where it hurts

There is no pain, you are receding
A distant ship smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying
When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain, you would not understand
This is not how I am
I have become comfortably numb

O.K.
Just a little pin prick
There'll be no more aaaaaaaah!
But you may feel a little sick
Can you stand up?
I do believe it's working, good
That'll keep you going through the show
Come on it's time to go.

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
And I have become
Comfortably numb.


To me, this song combines the best and worst of Pink Floyd. I don't like the first and third couplet, with the semi-mysterious recitation. Everything else about the song is pretty brilliant though. It is also interesting that while many rocks songs of the 60's and 70's make veiled references to drug use, Comfortably Numb isn't interested in hiding anything. This song pretty openly says that drugs are fun and make you feel wonderful. So the movie I chose to link it to is a movie which intends to have the same message.

The Movie: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Terry Gilliam, 1998)

There is a reason I said that this movie intends to have the same message, and not that it has the same message. While it is indeed very open about using drugs (pretty much nothing else happens in the movie), it completely fails to make it seem like a wonderful experience. As I said in my piece on Riders on the Storm & Pulp Fiction, I have never tried and probably will never try drugs. I am quite terrified by them. But I have no moral objections against them and It is a fact that people can really have wonderful experiences using drugs. It's probably hard to study in Amsterdam and think otherwise. That also means that I don't have anything against movies promoting drug use and showing that it can be really fun. Pulp Fiction of course comes to mind, but also the great comedy Pineapple Express, by David Gordon Green. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas wants very much to make us believe that drug use is great fun, but fails miserably and almost convinces of the opposite. I think pretty much the same of Easy Rider, which I find to be very dull. There are probably many people who can function great on drugs, but Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper aren't one those people. Every second of that movie, when Jack Nicholson isn't on screen, is a lifeless drag. In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro certainly don't lack any energy. They act like a bunch of manic idiots. For both of them this is their worst performance and especially Depp's is one of the most ridiculous performances I've ever seen. But at least their performances are bad without being dull. Which cannot be said of the rest of the movie.

The movie mostly consists of scenes in which a miserable Del Toro and Depp take drugs, feel miserable and yell boringly at each other. In between there are some scenes that are interesting and some scenes that are weirdly uncomfortable. It makes sense that a plotless movie about people hallucinating drug addicts should be directed by Terry Gilliam. He is a director who is not very much concerned with plot and mostly want to create wonderful images and scenes. I had seen only two other movies of him before this one: Twelve Monkeys and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Both of them are very good. Unfortunately Gilliam doesn't do very much here with his visual imagination. A couple of times we see a face changing shape, at one point we see the floor bubbling. And once we see a shot from Depp's POV, and we see that he temporarily sees other people in the shape of a (pretty boring looking) reptile. We get lots of weird close-ups of high faces. They are a bit funny, especially because Depp constantly has a joint in his mouth. Gilliam also tries to makes scenes more interesting by filtering color, so everything that happens in a scene is seen through red or green light. That is a nice trick, but in most scenes nothing really happens. There are small cameo's by other famous actors, including Cameron Diaz and Tobey Maguire. But they are on the screen for such a short time that they don't really have a chance to shine. Ellen Barkin is only in the movie to be humiliated by del Toro. Which wouldn't be that bad if she was humiliated in an interesting way. Only Gary Busey has some fun with his role as a rather weird policeman.

Admittedly, as I wrote earlier, there are some interesting scenes. The reason Depp is in Las Vegas, is because he is a journalist who has to report a motor race in the Nevada desert. In order to this, the journalists have to ride jeeps, so they can follow the racers. Because of the sand though no one can see anything and the journalists mostly follow each other around in their war jeeps. The scene becomes a nice parody of a typical scene in a war movie set in the desert. The two best scenes come near the end though. There is a scene in which Gilliam finally lets his imagination go for an extended period. Depp is hallucinating again and we see him having a large lizard tale and roaming through his utterly and absurdly broken down hotel room. But my favorite scene was a scene in which Depp and del Toro attend a conference of narcotics agents. Sitting in the back row they happily smoke their joints. That contrast alone makes the scene pretty funny, but it gets better. One of the agents gets up to speak and talks about the dangers of drugs. He poses as an expert who has charted the phases a drug addict goes through. The attendees are clearly impressed, asking him silly questions in a serious manner, even though he is talking utter nonsense. He ends with a hilarious movie about the dangers of drugs, that is modeled on those propaganda movies in the 50's that warned Americans about the dangers of communism. The scene's point isn't very subtly made, but it is made well and it it is funny. Which unfortunately cannot be said of most of the rest of the movie.

33. School &...

Lyrics

I can see you in the morning when you go to school
Don't forget your books, you know you've got to learn the golden rule,
Teacher tells you stop your play and get on with your work
And be like Johnnie - too-good, well don't you know he never shirks
- he's coming along!

After School is over you're playing in the park
Don't be out too late, don't let it get too dark
They tell you not to hang around and learn what life's about
And grow up just like them - won't you let it work it out
- and you're full of doubt

Don't do this and don't do that
What are they trying to do?- Make a good boy of you
Do they know where it's at?
Don't criticize, they're old and wise
Do as they tell you to
Don't want the devil to
Come out and put your eyes

Maybe I'm mistaken expecting you to fight
Or maybe I'm just crazy, I don't know wrong from right
But while I am still living, I've just got this to say
It's always up to you if you want to be that
Want to see that
Want to see that way
- you're coming along!


The studio version of Supertramp's School cannot be found on YouTube. It can be heard on this site though: http://mp3skull.com/mp3/school.html. While School is the most popular Supertramp song among the Dutch, I cannot remember ever hearing it before now. This despite the fact that I quite like Supertramp, especially Breakfast in America and The Logical Song. After hearing School, those previous two are still my favorite Supertramp songs. School is quite weird though. It feels like a mix of what I expect from Supertramp and some poor version of Pink Floyd. The lyrics are also pretty interesting. There are many songs (and books and movies), which criticize a school for being old-fashioned or too collectivist. But most of them imply that the particular school could change for the better. This song on the other hand seems to imply that the whole institution called 'school' is bad. That there simply cannot be a good school. So the movie I chose to link it too is a movie I knew not much about, only that it was a pretty insane 80's comedy that looked very irreverently at a high school. I expected it to be a funny, very raunchy comedy. It turned out to be so much more.

The Movie: Heathers (Michael Lehmann, 1988)

I haven't often been so pleasantly surprised by a movie as I was by Heathers. This is not only an incredibly funny film, full of great dialogues and great scenes. It is also quite wonderfull stylistically and has a truly great performance by Winona Ryder. But what I liked most is that this is quite a vicious satire. And it actually satirizes two things at once, both eqully brilliant and succesfull. It not only satirizes high school life, but also our media's (and culture's) tendency to sensationalize death and destruction. And the satire is really vicious. I mentioned that the movie is funny, but the humor is some of the darkest I've ever seen in an American mainstream movie. I am now also quite fascinated by the director Michael Lehmann. I've seen two movies of him now, Heathers and Hudson Hawk. In both of these movies he is doing Tarantinian things, before Tarantino. Both of these movies were ahead of their time. By sheer coincidence I saw Heathers just a couple of days after the horrible shooting in the primary school in Newtown, Connecticut. It really felt like Heathers could just as easily have come out in 2012 without changing much. At one point a character is even encouraged to tweet(that's the exact wording!) her frustrations.

Heathers is brilliant from the opening shots. It starts like some David Lynch movie. On the soundtrack we hear a slightly odd version of Que Sera Sera. We see three perfectly groomed young women play a game of croquet in a perfectly cultivated garden of an obviously wealthy family. All these three women call each other Heather. First we think that it is some sort of a weird cult they are in. It turns out that they simply really all are called Heather. During this game of croquet we see them at point hit Veronica's (Winona Ryder) head with a croquet ball. This wouldn't be very weird if it wasn't for the fact that Veronica has her body underground, with only her head sticking out. This makes it seem like this is a dream sequence. But it is never presented that way. After this scene, the movie simply goes on without acknowledging the weirdness of the scene. Besides there is a dream sequence later on in the movie. And in that case it is explicitly made clear that it is a dream sequence.

These Heathers and Veronica are the most popular girls at high school. This fact is acknowledged and respected by everyone at their high school, even though no one seems to really like them. Being popular as Veronica says is their job. One of the funniest things in this movie is how everybody in this high school seems to have a role assigned to them that they have to play. Now, most movies set in a high school/college have geeks, tough guys, popular girls, fat kids, etc. But I have rarely seen a movie in which these roles are made so explicit. And in which everyone behaves so much as if the role they play is completely natural and unchangeable. The high school in Heathers seems to have a natural hierarchy that can olny be changed by doing something radical. All of this is made clear near the beginning of the movie in one wonderful and funny scene in the school cafetaria. Everybody working on the film is on the top of his/her game in this scene.

Veronica is tired of her job as the popular girl and is afraid that the only way to quit it is to kill the leading Heather (yes, there even is a hierarchy among the popular girls). She befriends (and more) J.D. (Christian Slater, who tries to imitate Jack Nicholson, but is ufortunately completey outacted by Winona Ryder). J.D. is a complete outsider at the high school, because he seems, at first, to be the only normal three-dimensional person in the high school. But he doesn't have a role, which makes him a threat and an outlier. In his first appearance, in the cafetaria scene, he is threathened by two senior football jocks. Before threathening him though, they first discuss what they should do as senior football jocks. The very much want to beat the shit out of him, but they can't do that because they are too old. Their current role only allows them to scare him. This doesn't end up well for them, as J.D. shoots blank bullets at them. He is suspended for a week, but Veronica is smitten. So she teams up with J.D. to do some small harm to Heather. J.D. has bigger plans though. So he cons Heather into drinking cleaning chemicals and she dies. From here on the movie becomes really great.

Veronica and J.D. are shocked by Heather's death, though they are more shocked because of the consequences her death might have for them. So they make it look as if it is a suicide, complete with a suicide note in which Heather claims to have a 'myriad of problems.' The use of the word myriad here provides one of the best jokes in the film. Another great joke in the film is the use of mineral water as a connotation for homosexuality. That's how J.D. and Veronica make their second murder in the movie look like a suicide. They now kill the two senior jocks who previously tried to humiliate J.D. Though the reason they are killed is because they were annoying Veronica. While all these scenes are pretty funny, the movie is really great because it is not really about J.D. and Veronica doing bad things and trying to get away with them. Though it is quite successful in doing that too. When they are nearly caught after killing the two jocks, the movie manages to achieve quite some suspense, because we are actually rooting for J.D. and Veronica to get away. But to get back at what I was saying, the movie is really great because it uses this murders/ 'suicides' to viciously satirize the tendency in our media and culture to sensationalize tragedies, for all kinds of reasons.

 While J.D. and Veronica go to pretty great lengths to make their murders seem like suicides, they really don't have to. As J.D. says 'Society nods its head at any horror the American teenager can think upon itself. Nobody is going to care about exact handwriting."  In the film, everyone's reaction to the deaths of the teens serves only to achieve personal gain. The media are very eager to interview crying teens. Emotion sells. Most teens crying for their dead  'friends' here only do so to show that they were mingling with the popular crowd and that they are really decent, caring people. For the hippie teacher these deaths are a good opportunity to sell her ideals to the school and the rest of the world. 'Eskimo' a word J.D has randomly underlined in the Moby Dick copy of one of his victims, is being used by the priest to explain the (mental) state of the dead teen and the world as a whole. Hereby of course sounding very intelligent and powerful. And the editor of the high school newspaper sees the suicides as a great opportunity to make his newspaper popular. He is quite elated that not only did Heather commit suicide, but she committed it during a time that the song 'Teenage Suicide, Don't Do It, is a hit on the radio, making his story even more relevant. A story on food shortage in Africa will have to go for his story on Heather. In the process the dead teens are glorified. Even though no one really liked them alive, as Veronica writes in her diary, their 'suicides' have given them a heart, a brain and depth. And this is dangerous, because it may lead to truly troubled teens committing suicides. In the most daring and somehow darkly funny sequence, the only decent person in the movie, a really fat girl without friends who is being bullied by everyone tries to commit suicide, by walking on the road hoping to get hit by a car. The suicide fails (apparently, we don't see this) because she is too fat and the car didn't have to much power to run her over. It is a testament to the greatness of the movie that this works as a joke and not as a very tastefulness scene. After hearing about this the teens come together excitedly to inform each other what happened. And afterwards nothing really happens. The fat girl is completely forgotten. Everyone is too busy paying attention to the dead people. That is the easiest way to show that we are deeply caring good people.

Lastly, I was looking at what other movies came out in 1988 and it turns out that was a great year for comedy. Besides Heathers, Coming to America, The Naked Gun, Bull Durham, Midnight Run and A Fish Called Wanda (probably my favorite comedy) were released.





  

32. Goodnight Saigon &...

Lyrics

We met as soul-mates
On Parris Island
We left as inmates
From an asylum.
And we were sharp
As sharp as knives
And we were so gung ho to lay down our lives.

We came in spastic
Like tame-less horses
We left in plastic
As numbered corpses
And we learned fast
To travel light
Our arms were heavy but our bellies were tight

We had no home-front
We had no soft soap
They sent us Playboy
They gave us Bob Hope
We dug in deep
And shot on sight
And prayed to Jesus Christ with all of our might

We had no cameras
To shoot the landscape
We passed the hash pipe
And played our Doors tapes
And it was dark...
So dark at night
And we held on to each other
Like brother to brother
We promised our mothers we'd write

(Chorus)
And we would all go down together
We said we'd all go down together
Yes we would all go down together

Remember Charlie?
Remember Baker?
They left their childhood
On every acre
And who was wrong?
And who was right?
It didn't matter in the thick of the fight...

We, held the day,...
In the palm of our hands
They, ruled the night
And the night, seemed to last as long as six weeks
On Parris Island
We held the coastline
They held the highland
And they were sharp
As sharp as knives
They heard the hum of the motors
They counted the rotors
And waited for us to arrive

(Repeat chorus)


I am a fan of Billy Joel. Both this song and Piano Man (his best) are some of the most unironic and shamelessly sentimental songs ever made. But Billy Joel makes them work. And he is also great when making more conventional pop and rock, like She's Always a Woman or We Didn't Start the Fire. There have been made many movies about Vietnam, but there cannot be any doubt which movie should be linked to this song about the experiences of a soldier in the Vietnam War.

The Movie: Platoon (Oliver Stone, 1986)

I once followed an elective called 'Vietnam as a political analogy'. My final paper for this course was an analysis on how Oliver Stone's Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July represented America's experience in Vietnam. (Unfortunately I can't find this essay). During this course I had seen Platoon twice, after having already seen it once before. Seeing Platoon three times, means that I have seen Platoon once, or perhaps even twice too many times. As you can see, I am not really a fan of the film and I chose not to see it again before writing this piece. I actually am a fan of Oliver Stone. Born on The Fourth of July is a really great film, and JFK is only slightly less. And I think that W, Stone's film about George W. Bush is really underrated.

Coincidentally, I followed this elective on Vietnam around the time that Charlie Sheen had his famous meltdown (I am a rock star from Mars!). Watching Platoon around that time, I had the feeling that you could make one of those silly quizzes in which you make people guess which line is said by Charlie Sheen during his meltdown, and which line is said by Chris Taylor, Sheen's character in Platoon. Some of the dialogue and narration (Sheen is the narrator) in Platoon is simply insanely and incredibly pretentious and meaningless. Some examples:
 "Maybe I finally found it, way down here in the mud. Maybe from down here I can start up again. Be something I can be proud of without having to fake it, be a fake human being".
"I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy; we fought ourselves. And the enemy was in us. The war is over for me now, but it will always be there".
"Day by day, I struggle to maintain not only my strength but my sanity. It's all a blur. I have no energy to write. I don't know what's right and what's wrong anymore. The morale of the men is low. A civil war in the platoon. Half the men with Elias, half with Barnes. There's a lot of suspicion and hate. I can't believe we're fighting each other when we should be fighting them" These lines are even more unconvincing, because Charlie Sheen just isn't a very good dramatic actor. (I actually do think that he is a pretty great comic actor). Thus the movie sometimes comes very close to becoming a parody of itself.

But the lines aren't the only problem. It often seems as if Oliver Stone somehow thinks he is making very subtle points about the Vietnam war. But there is no subtlety in this movie. Almost every shot is filled with incredibly obvious symbolism. This is most obvious in the famous death scene of Sgt. Elias. Neither Sgt. Elias (Willem Dafoe) or Sgt. Barnes (Tom Berenger) are ever really presented as normal human beings. They are the epitomization of respectively good and evil. And Chris Taylor, who is torn between them is of course America. Although to be fair, that is slightly less obvious and he is a bit more of a human being. Thus when Elias dies, at the hands of Barnes, it is very obvious that Stone wants to say that goodness died and evil prevailed in America during the Vietnam war. But this seems to be not obvious enough for Stone. So he makes Dafoe strike a Jesus-like pose when he dies. And it still isn't enough for Stone. So he ramps up the sentimental music and shows Dafoe's death repeatedly and in slow motion. It must be said though that the constant struggles and fighting between Elias and Barnes (good vs. evil!) did provide the most entertaining parts of the movie. Dafoe and Berenger are good actors and it is quite enjoyable to see them go at each other. It is quite unfortunate that both of them are a bit forgotten now.

Besides all this Oliver Stone's message here is quite questionable. He doesn't actually say that the Vietnam war was bad, because it was morally wrong, and because many Vietnamese and Americans died. This movie hardly cares about the Vietnamese. Stone claims the war was wrong, because it divided Americans and made America lose its apparent innocence. I do not think that this was his intention, but it seems a bit as if he is saying that America killed a lot of Vietnamese for the wrong reasons. But if the reasons for killing the Vietnamese had been good, the Vietnam war would have been a good war. And that the highest cost of the war, wasn't the fact that many people died, but the fact that it made some Americans mad at each other.

31. Nights In White Satin &...

Lyrics

Nights in white satin,
Never reaching the end,
Letters I've written,
Never meaning to send.

Beauty I'd always missed
With these eyes before,
Just what the truth is
I can't say anymore.

'Cause I love you,
Yes, I love you,
Oh, how, I love you.

Gazing at people,
Some hand in hand,
Just what I'm going thru
They can understand.

Some try to tell me
Thoughts they cannot defend,
Just what you want to be
You will be in the end,

And I love you,
Yes, I love you,
Oh, how, I love you.
Oh, how, I love you.

Nights in white satin,
Never reaching the end,
Letters I've written,
Never meaning to send.

Beauty I'd always missed
With these eyes before,
Just what the truth is
I can't say anymore.

'Cause I love you,
Yes, I love you,
Oh, how, I love you.
Oh, how, I love you.

'Cause I love you,
Yes, I love you,
Oh, how, I love you.
Oh, how, I love you.

(+ in the extended version)

Breath deep
The gathering gloom
Watch lights fade
From every room
Bedsitter people
Look back and lament
Another day's useless
Energy spent

Impassioned lovers
Wrestle as one
Lonely man cries for love
And has none
New mother picks up
And suckles her son
Senior citizens
Wish they were young

Cold hearted orb
That rules the night
Removes the colours
From our sight
Red is gray and
Yellow white
But we decide
Which is right
And
Which is an Illusion 


This is a good time for movie fans to live in. There is more access to more movies than ever before. Besides that, there are more possibilities than ever before to read, write and talk about movies. There are countless of interesting blogs with interesting articles about movies. And let's not forget IMDB. Many movies I discuss in my blog I found through IMDB and these blogs. I am quite certain that I wouldn't have known of some of this movies if it weren't for the internet. One of these interesting websites/blogs is www.murielawards.org. Each year on this site several bloggers come together to rank their top 10 movies the year, the top 10 actors, top 10 actresses, etc. All these votes are then accumulated and you get a definitive list, based on the lists of all these bloggers. It's not very complicated and there are probably dozens of other sites where such things happen. I just happen to know this one. In 2011 the particpants chose The Tree of Life as the best movie of that year. But the reason I'm writing all of this here is an interesting result in the category 'best cinematic moment.' The winner was the creation sequence in The Tree of Life, but in 8th place was something called 'the Nights in White Satin dance' in House of Pleasures, a movie I didn't know anything about.
Before starting my piece on the movie it is worth noting that I've hardly wrote anything about the song itself. There is not much I can write about it. I don't like this song and I don't know anything about the Moody Blues.

The Movie: L'Appolonide (House of Pleasures) (Bertrand Bonello, 2011)

I was quite interested to see this movie. I had found the 'Nights in White Satin' scene on YouTube and I found it an interesting, intriguing sequence. I also found Roger Ebert's 3,5 star review of the film, so I had some high hopes. Unfortunately though I must say that I didn't like this movie at all. Perhaps I should've seen it coming. This is a, what one would call, arty-farty French drama about a high class brothel in 1900. That is not really my cup of tea. But I believe that this wouldn't be a good movie in any case. The director doesn't seem to have an idea of what kind of movie he wants to make, or what to do with the characters and the setting.

The 'Nights in White Satin' scene is indeed the best and most interesting scene in the movie. The mood of the song does actually seem to fit the movie, at least when the movie is blurring the lines between reality and dreams and intends to be a melodramatic story about the melancholy, sometimes romanticized lives of the prostitutes and their clients. Sometimes though the movie wants to be a realistic, stark portrayal of life in the brothel. These two approaches don't mesh at all. But, back to the sequence. We see the prostitutes dance with each other mysteriously, while on the soundtrack we hear Nights in White Satin. They are mourning because one of their 'colleagues' had just died of syphillis. The sequence has a surrealist feel from the start and becomes only weirde. After a while we cut to a woman in a another room and the music stops. We assume a new scene has just started. But then we follow this woman as she goes to the saloon, where all the women are dancing. And as she approaches the saloon we hear Nights in White Satin clearer and clearer. And when she finally enters the saloon, we hear the song as well as at the beginning of the scene. This implies that the song is diegetic, meaning that it comes form within the world of the film. This is obviously weird considering that the song is from 1967 and the movie takes place in 1900. After this sequence the movie goes into full surrealist mode and becomes quite interesting and absurd. Unfortunately this is too little too late. All of this happens in the last 15 minutes of the film. And the movie manages to ruin even this by ending on a completely false note. I'll talk later about this.

Before this sequence the movie is incredibly dull and dreary. The problems start with the depiction of the brothel. The movie wants to present the brothel as a claustrophobic, mysterious place. Thus for the first hour or so, we never get a sense of the geography of the brothel. Scenes take place in seemingly random rooms and we hardly have an idea what the purpose of most of these rooms is, or how big the brothel really is. This is quite disorienting, but to not much effect. Besides that we hardly see the rooms where we are in. The characters inside the rooms are often the only ones who are well lit. The rest of the room is usually in darkness. This invites us to focus mostly on the characters, but they are quite uninteresting. The movie has an often weirdly romanticized view of prostitution, while at the same time making both the prostitutes and the clients so uninteresting, that it almost makes you wonder how anyone ever could go to a brothel for pleasure. The prostitutes talk uninterestingly and repetitively about their daily lives in the brothel. They are sometimes unhappy, but the prostitutes are mostly presented as living quite happily. They love each other and their madam, and sometimes they do enjoy pleasuring their clients. We only exit the brothel once. The prostitutes are on a day out near some lake. And while I was grateful, that the movie finally cut away from that darkness, that scene exemplified exactly what's wrong with the movie. Like many other scenes, this scene follows another scene, in a completely random way. Besides that the scene seems to have no clear purpose or reason to be in the movie. It's just plain pointless and dull.

There are scenes that are even more problematic. One of the prostitutes, Madeleine, has been the victim of a masochist, who cut her face during one session with her. The movie seems quite unimaginative in showing her afterwards. She is basically made to look like the Joker from The Dark Knight. This resemblance is at times so enormous, that it seems that the movie did this deliberately. I find it hard to believe that no one involved in this movie could have been oblivious to this resemblance. Her appearance therefore often seems like some kind of sick joke. But it gets even more problematic. Due to her appearance Madeleine now can't get any clients, but the madam still lets her work in the brothel, doing the laundry, making breakfast, etc. After a while though the brothel has financial problems. So the madam sells Madeleine to some wealthy French aristocrat who has some sort of brothel for freaks. Here Madeleine has to have sex with people who aroused by her disfigurement. The movie seems to condemn this, yet it pays lots of (loving) attention to this sex scene. This is quite an exploitative scene. Now, I don't have a problem with exploitative scenes. I just found it strange that the director doesn't see that he is doing exactly what he condemns.

I did really dislike the final scene. In the last seconds of the movie, we suddenly cut to the present time. We see an unhappy, utterly unglamorous prostitute walking on the street. Then we see a car drive by and stop. Out of this car comes another unhappy, unglamorous prostitute. This feels like an elaborate attempt to make some sort of stupid point about our current times. This scene is totally unsupported by the movie that preceded it. Besides what exactly is the point the point that it wants to make? That prostitutes now are treated like trash and have horrible lives? As opposed to, what, the great lives they had in the 1900 when prostitution was all fun and games, and they were all treated with respect? Really? That's quite possibly the most stupid and idiotic point the movie could make.

30. The Last Resort &...

Lyrics

She came from Providence,
the one in Rhode Island
Where the old world shadows hang
heavy in the air
She packed her hopes and dreams
like a refugee
Just as her father came across the sea

She heard about a place people were smilin'
They spoke about the red man's way,
and how they loved the land
And they came from everywhere
to the Great Divide
Seeking a place to stand
or a place to hide

Down in the crowded bars,
out for a good time,
Can't wait to tell you all,
what it's like up there
And they called it paradise
I don't know why
Somebody laid the mountains low
while the town got high

Then the chilly winds blew down
Across the desert
through the canyons of the coast, to
the Malibu
Where the pretty people play,
hungry for power
to light their neon way
and give them things to do

Some rich men came and raped the land,
Nobody caught 'em
Put up a bunch of ugly boxes, and Jesus,
people bought 'em
And they called it paradise
The place to be
They watched the hazy sun, sinking in the sea

You can leave it all behind
and sail to Lahaina
just like the missionaries did, so many years ago
They even brought a neon sign: "Jesus is coming"
Brought the white man's burden down
Brought the white man's reign

Who will provide the grand design?
What is yours and what is mine?
'Cause there is no more new frontier
We have got to make it here

We satisfy our endless needs and
justify our bloody deeds,
in the name of destiny and the name
of God

And you can see them there,
On Sunday morning
They stand up and sing about
what it's like up there
They call it paradise
I don't know why
You call someplace paradise,
kiss it goodbye


While this certainly is not a bad song, The Eagles have never made a song even remotely as good as Hotel California. Still it is undeniable that they are very intelligent. Many bands write songs critical of society. But they are aren't usually this intelligent and serious. You get the feeling that the Eagles really know what they are talking and that they really care about it. According to Eagle member, Don Henley this is a song criticizing America's decadence. It was fairly tough to link a movie to this song. While there is lots of symbolism in the lyrics, the song takes a very clear, unironic critical look at American society. There aren't many (American) cultural objects that do this. It may be surprising that in the end I chose a very recent movie. But it is a movie about American entrepreneurs buying land in order to create civilization. It is also a movie about the often damaging influence of God on American society. And lastly it is a movie that in the end claims that decadence will eventually ruin the even the richest and most powerful men. It is also one of the best movies of this century.

The Movie: There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)

I am a fan of Paul Thomas Anderson. Boogie Nights is one of my favorite films. That film cares so much about its, sometime, tragic and flawed characters, while at the same time being one of the most joyous and energetic films I've ever seen. It is obvious that everyone working on that film gave his absolute best effort and had a lot of fun doing it. There Will Be Blood is no Boogie Nights, but it is a flawless, great film. I would say it is the best film of the 21st century after Inglourious Basterds, 25th Hour and A Serious Man. Now that I am listing films I'd say Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the no. 5. 

One of Anderson's main interests seems to be working class people. He deeply cares about people who do not necessarily have great jobs or great lives, but try to live the best life they possibly can. They may have no great luck or great minds, but they do their best. This was true for the porn people in Boogie Nights, more specifically it was true for the Don Cheadle character whose lifelong dream is to sell radios. Porn may not be an honorable business, but it's work. And these people are good at what they are doing. It provides a living for them and their families. The same was also true for everybody, but especially for the cop and nurse in Magnolia. And it is very true for Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood. The film starts audaciously with 15-20 minutes without dialogue. We just see Daniel, and other workers, working hard, digging for oil in California. This is not just a gimmick, but it is important for the rest of the film. It establishes right away that Daniel is a tough man, willing to do hard, dangerous work. One of his colleagues even dies. It also makes understand better why, when he later on in the film becomes rich, he is a bit arrogant and doesn't have much patience with many people. Nobody has to work as hard, as he had to do at the beginning of the film. It's quite understandable that he doesn't have much use for complaints.   

After this sequence we cut to 5 years later, with Daniel being a relatively successful oilman. He is helped in this by the son of Daniel's dead colleague. After his colleague died Daniel adopted his orphaned son and now uses him as a prop to make oil deals. He establishes trust by pretending to be a family man. This is obviously not very nice to do. But in most reviews I've read about this film, it was basically a given that Daniel Plainview is an evil man. I remember, since this film came out at the same time as No Country for Old Men, there were lots of fun and serious articles comparing Daniel to Javier Bardem's Anton Chigurh. When I first watched this film I was utterly surprised by this. Now that I've seen it a second time, I am even more surprised. I even think that Daniel Plainview is a very good person, who is unfortunately driven to do some evil stuff. To explain this means that most of my review will be about Daniel Plainview.

It is true that Plainview uses his son, H.W., to gain the trust of the people. But he does not lie. When he tells them that they run a family business it is quite true. He treats his son as if he is his real son. Even though, admittedly, Daniel doesn't tell H.W. that he is not his real son He always explains to his son what and why they are doing and his son does really helps him a lot. And it's quite obvious that Plainview loves him, even though he is not technically his. And the son obviously loves what he is doing and he loves his dad. He surely has a better life now then if Daniel left him alone. It is quite obvious that for H.W., this the best and perhaps only chance at a good life once his father has died.

In the middle of the film Daniel is greeted by Henry,  a man who claims to be his 'brother from another mother.' This eventually turns out to be a lie, with horrific consequences. In his conversations with his 'brother' it becomes pretty obvious that Plainview does miss his family, but he comes from a poor upbringing so he can't go back there. Certainly not now he finally has a better life, after working so hard. He does care deeply about his brother though. So despite the fact that Henry has a criminal, vague history, Daniel not only offers him a job, but Henry basically becomes Daniel's assistant and confidant. When it turns out that Henry is a complete fraud and that he is impersonating Daniel's real now dead brother, Daniel kills him. This is bad, but we understand Daniel's fury. This revelation comes at an especially bad time, since H.W. has just been sent away to the big city to learn sign language. In an unfortunate accident involving the oil rig, H.W. has gone deaf.

During one of Daniel's conversations with Henry, Daniel confides to him that he hates people. In many reviews this was seen as an example of Daniel's evilness. But he is drunk when he says this. Besides actions speak louder than words. Through Daniel's actions in this film it is clear that Daniel cares a lot for people. He just doesn't have much patience for irrationality, blind faith, laziness and dishonesty. And there is a lot of that in this town. Worst of all is Eli, a priest who preaches a lot of irrational, potentially dangerous nonsense. He might not even believe it himself, but his followers eat it up. Daniel's workers meanwhile work less hard then he ever did. Yet some of them feel exploited and most hope God will one day save them from their troubles.  But they are a lot better off with Daniel then without him. Sure Plainview doesn't work himself in the rigs and he earns most of the money. But his workers have better conditions then he ever had. And yes, these better conditions aren't all there because Plainview loves them so much, but because they are good for business. Plainview never pretended otherwise. Many movies have been made about brave people who stand up for the rights of those who are fragile. Well, this is not about such a man and most people at the beginning of the 20th century simply weren't like that anyway. For Plainview, like for most people back then, that is a luxury he can't afford. Besides no one cared for him when he worked his ass off and he never complained. He tries to do the best he can for him and the people he loves. And he does it all in a legal manner. Most of us would do the same.

At the end of the film we cut to 1929. Plainview lives in a big royal house. H.W. now older says that he wants to start as an oilmen for himself in Mexico. This makes him Daniels' competitor. This enrages Daniel of course, but we can understand both people's reactions. The enraged Daniel asks H.W. to say it to him with his own mouth and not via his translator. H.W. does this with a lot of effort and this does enrage Daniel even more and tells H.W. he is really a bastard son. In the next scene Eli comes to Daniel and asks him for money. In a scene completely over the top where Daniel seems to be completely mad he kills Eli. Again we can understand his madness. First of all, it is 1929. Eli says he's lost a lot of money. Well it's very probable that Daniel has lost quite a lot of money. Earlier in the film we saw that he is willing to take risks if that's good for business. He probably still does that and taking risks in 1929 was not very rewarding to say the least. Plainview might have lost a lot of his fortune. For a man who had to work so hard to earn his money that is a real tragedy. But that's obviously not all. Plainview's son, whom he learned everything he knows about being an oilman, is gonna start his own business, with money probably earned by Daniel and thus become his rival. What's more the first time in years H.W. has said something aloud, it was that he is gonna leave Daniel. Surely it must hurt him that his son only know put in an effort to do this. This after everything Daniel tried to make him speak again. On top of all this Eli comes to him to lend money from Daniel, while hypocritically posing as his friend.

Of course one can't end a post of There Will Be Blood without mentioning Daniel Day-Lewis who does indeed give a truly great performance. It's not one of the best ever however. He basically gives the same sort of performance as he did in Gangs of New York as Bill the Butcher. Of course that was a great performance too. What is more surprising in this movie is that Paul Dano as Eli acts great too.

There is obviously much more to write about this movie. Perhaps I'll do it in sometime in another post. For now I really wanted to concentrate on defending Daniel Plainview. I truly believe that to call him an evil man or a monster, is completely shortsighted, unfair and very unemphatic.  

29. Oude Maasweg &...

Lyrics

Sittin' on a highway in a broken van
Thinkin' of you again
Guess I have to hitchhike to the station
With every step I see your face
Like a mirror looking back at me
Sayin' you're the only one
Making me feel I could survive
I'm so glad to be alive
Nowhere to run and not a guitar to play
Mixed up inside and it's been raining all day
Since you went away
Manhattan Island Serenade

'k Zit hier op de snelweg met een lege tank
Regen klettert op het dak
Ik zal nou wel naar huis toe moeten liften
Ik denk aan jou bij elke stap
In de verte blijft de Transit staan
Ik kom nooit meer van je los
'k Zie de Caltex in de nevel
Olievlekken op de Maas
'k Loop wel door maar ik kan nergens heen
't Regent nog steeds en ik voel me zo alleen
Nu 'k je nooit meer zie
Oude Maasweg, kwart voor drie
Nu 'k je nooit meer zie
Oude Maasweg, kwart voor drie


This is a song made by a Dutch band called De Amazing Stroopwafels, which is a fantastic name. You have to be Dutch to understand it though. I don't know much else about this band, except that that they come from Rotterdan. But this is a pretty good song. I am not going to translate the Dutch text, because it's basically a loose translation of the English text. That's one of the reasons I chose to link it to a successful Dutch movie, that was later remade in Hollywood by the same director. Another reason is that car trouble and gas stations play an important role in this movie. It is important to note that I only write about the Dutch version of this film. I have not seen the American version, but that's considered to be a fairly awful movie.

The Movie: Spoorloos (The Vanishing) (George Sluizer, 1988)

Spoorloos is a very good movie, though I was slightly dissapointed in it. In high school I had to read Tim Krabbe's book Het Gouden Ei (The Golden Egg), on which this movie was based. I think it is one of the best Dutch books I've ever read, though admittedly I haven't really read many Dutch books. The weird title is a reference to a recurring nightmare of Saskia, the main female protagonist. In her dream she dreams that she is floating through space in an enclosed golden egg, she can't get out of. But there is another golden egg flying through space and once both eggs bump into each other, they, and everything in them will evaporate.

The movie starts with a very effective first scene, which slightly foreshadows the dark conclusion. While traveling towards their holiday residence in France, Saskia and her boyfriend Rex run out of gas. This is never pleasant, but it's especially unpleasant if it happens in a tunnel. Conveniently just before this happened we've heard Saskia tell about her nightmare, so we realize why she gets so unsettled in dark confined spaces she can't get out of easily. After some tension and suspense we are relieved to see that Rex has successfully found a can with gas, he can fill the car with, at least until the next gas station. Rex and Saskia proceed happily, not knowing that the worst is yet to come. At the gas station they fill up their car, have some fun, and then Saskia goes to buy something to drink, before they leave. She doesn't come back. And while we, the audience, have a good idea of what happened and who kidnapped, Rex doesn't. I was quite glad Saskia disappeared so quickly, because the relationship and the bantering between Rex and Saskia is pretty dull and the worst part of the movie.

Three years later Rex is in a new relationship, but he can't find closure unless he knows what exactly happened to Saskia. The film now becomes a tense character study of Rex and Raymond Lemorne, Saskia's kidnapper. Raymond is a very fascinating character. In flashbacks we see that he is quite an ordinary, slightly dull chemistry teacher with a wife and two children. When he decides to kidnap a woman, we see that has to practice a lot. And even in practice things don't always go as they should. His wife and daughter notice that he is not his normal self, but they assume he has a lover. And well, every man in France has a lover. When he finally see how he kidnaps Saskia, we realize how unfortunate she has been. His kidnapping of Saskia doesn't go at all according to his plan and it is pure coincidence that she is the one he kidnaps. But even more interestingly than how he kidnaps Saskia, is why he kidnaps her. This is where the movie disappointed me the most, compared to the book. Raymond once saved a little girl from drowning, which elated his daughter so much that she saw him as great hero. According to Raymond's reasoning his deed can only be considered heroic if he proves to be absolutely incapable of doing evil. This is a fascinating thought, but is only glossed over in the film, while the book spends, as far as I can remember, much more time exploring this idea. Rex's character is better developed. The movie makes it clear, that above all Rex wants to know what exactly happened to Saskia. He has no hope of finding her alive, he just wants to know exactly what happened. In order to do this he even sacrifices his new relationship with a woman who actually seems more interesting than Saskia. Raymond becomes fascinated by Rex' perseverance and visits him in Amsterdam and offers him the opportunity to show him exactly what happened to Saskia. Therefore Rex has to face the same fate as his ex. Starving for answers Rex obliges. And thus starts a chilling and suspenseful ride from Amsterdam to France. This ride adds tension to an already tense movie and leads to the bleak, terrifying conclusion that is even more shocking due to our knowledge of Saskia's fears.

Sometimes events out of control of the filmmakers can make a movie more interesting. While Saskia and Rex are traveling through France, on the radio we constantly hear live commentary of an exciting Tour de France stage. As I've watched this movie only a couple of weeks after the Lance Armstrong scandal became truly public, this radio commentary made the movie more interesting. In hindsight it seems like a stroke of genius to link the Tour de France cyclists to a story of someone like Raymond Lemorne, who on the surface is a good ordinary man, but in actuality is a deceiving liar, who could've pretty easily been exposed if people around him were willing to pay more attention.

28. Yesterday &...

Lyrics

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.
Now it looks as though they're here to stay.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly,
I'm not half the man I used to be,
There's a shadow hanging over me,
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.

Why she had to go
I don't know she wouldn't say.
I said something wrong,
Now I long for yesterday.

Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.

Why'd she had to go
I don't know she wouldn't say.
I said something wrong,
Now I long for yesterday.

Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
Mm mm mm mm mm mm mm.


In my previous post on The Beatles I wrote about how I am not really a fan of their music. Well, that statement is a bit dated now. I recently played a Beatles-themed Guitar Hero (or something like it) game. And I found out they had made some truly spectacular songs, about which I didn't really know much. Songs like Come Together, I am The Walrus, Helter Skelter and I Want You are truly great. Listening to them, it was the first time I truly got why The Beatles were considered trailblazers. Radio 2's top 2000 is often criticized to be too conservative and it is quite telling that of the four songs I've mentioned only I am The Walrus is on this list (I am glad it's pretty low on the list, because I currently have no idea how to link that one to a movie). Anyway, despite all this I still find Yesterday to be a fairly boring song. It is a song in which the protagonist is looking backward at much happier times. I chose to link it to a movie which looks backward (at much happier times) in the most literal way possible. Its story is told backwards.

The Movie: Betrayal (David Hugh Jones, 1983)

Betrayal is about the extramarital affair of Jerry and Emma. This affair is even more complicated because Emma's husband Robert is Jerry's best and oldest friend. This is not groundbreaking material, but it is made more interesting due to the fact that the story is told backwards. And I don't mean that it's told in flashbacks. The film has a straightforward chronology, only it's reversed. After the first scenes we go back in time, instead of forward. In the first scenes we see Jerry and Emma meet. It's clear that they haven't seen each other in a long time and that their affair is long over. We also learn that Emma is going to divorce Robert and that Robert knew for four years already about Emma and Jerry's affair, something Jerry didn't know.  After these scenes, a new scene starts with a title card saying 'two years earlier'. We now see how Emma and Jerry ended their affair. The next scene starts with the title card 'one year earlier'.

The movie is written by the famous British playwright Harold Pinter, who also wrote the play from which the film is adapted. The play was written in the same backwards chronology as the film and was therefore considered groundbreaking and original. I am quite surprised it hadn't, and still hasn't, been done more often. Not only is it a simple (and quite obvious) way to make a simple, straightforward story (seem) more interesting and original, it also really does work in making us care more about the characters. We (the audience) almost always know more than the characters in the movie. In Betrayal for example we know that the affair between Emma and Jerry won't end happily, so the scenes when they are happy have an added poignancy to them. Even more poignant are the scenes in which Jerry and Robert are still friends. Especially the scenes taking place during the period when Robert knows that his wife and Jerry are having an affair. Due to its structure (and due to the dialogue and Ben Kingsley's brilliant acting) the movie creates enormous sympathy for Robert. He loves both his wife and Jerry and tries his best to control himself in order to retain both his marriage and his good friendship with the unsuspecting Jerry. The backwards structure also enables us to focus more on the characters. After all, we don't have to focus much on thinking about what's going to happen next. We already know that. We can focus on how the characters' behavior led them to their misery. Lastly through it's backwards structure, the movie manages to create incredible suspense in one scene. We know that four years before the 'now' Robert found out about Emma's affair. So when the scene that takes place four years before now starts, we immediately sense that something interesting might happen. That's further enhanced by the fact that, during Robert and Emma's holiday in Venice, we see a rather odd behaving Robert. When he starts telling her about some letter that's arrived for her from Jerry, we now her secret will be out. We just don't know how and when it'll happen and what Robert's reaction to it will be. Thus the tension in this scene is pretty enormous, also because we know Robert loves his wife and Jerry, and that he is not always able to control his fury.

Some final notes: Dr. House would've absolutely loved this movie. Not only does everybody lie here, they almost turn lying into a form of art. They are such experts at lying, that one actually hopes that they will continue doing so. It is extremely enjoyable to watch them do it. This is also helped by the tremendous actors, having enormous fun saying Pinters dialogue and acting deplorably. It must be said though that Patrica Hodge who plays Emma isn't on the same level as Ben Kinglsey and Jeremy Irons. She is sometimes a bit flat and never really manages to convince that these two men can be so smitten by her.
Lastly, while I really liked this movie, the Seinfeld episode The Betrayal remains the best version of Pinter's play I've seen. Even though it's a parody.

27. The Rose &...

Lyrics

Some say love it is a river
That drowns the tender reed
Some say love it is a razor
That leaves your soul to bleed

Some say love it is a hunger
An endless aching need
I say love it is a flower
And you it's only seed

It's the heart afraid of breaking
That never learns to dance
It's the dream afraid of waking that never takes the chance
It's the one who won't be taken
Who cannot seem to give
And the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live

When the night has been too lonely
And the road has been too long
And you think that love is only
For the lucky and the strong
Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows
Lies the seed
That with the sun's love
In the spring
Becomes the rose


Besides Goldie Hawn, there is no actress I dislike more than Bette Midler. Any time I see her she seems to play her (often annoying and irritating) character in the most irritatingly possible way. Her songs are slightly more tolerable and this song could have been way worse. Still, I am quite surprised that this song, sung by Bette Midler for the 1979 movie The Rose (link between movie and song is obvious here), is placed so incredibly high on this list. 'Quite surprised' is actually an understatement. There are of course (lots of) far better songs, but then there are also lots of far better songs than, say, Angels. But I am aware that in the Netherlands there a lot of people who are fans of Robbie Williams, and more specifically of Angels. And even outside of the Netherlands that song is sometimes considered a classic. In this case, I've never actually heard any Bette Midler song on the (Dutch) radio, The Rose is not usually considered as a classic song and as far as I know Bette Midler is not a very popular actress here. And I don't think that, since I live here, the movie The Rose has ever actually been broadcast on Dutch TV.

The Movie: The Rose (Mark Rydell, 1979)

I believe that our present time is the best time to live if you are a music fan (or a film fan, but I'll get to that in some other post). I won't argue that there was much better music made in the 60's and 70's than now, but we have more access to that great music now than ever before. And there still are modern bands like The Black Keys who make great music. Yet, sometimes when I see concert footage (real or fake) from the 60's and 70's I do wish to have been able to live in those times. To feel the amazing electricity that seemed to be bursting out of everything and everyone during such concerts and to have the feeling that you are watching something truly special and unique. The scenes in The Rose in which Midler is singing, either in concert venues or in bars, had this effect on me. Those scenes also show that Bette Midler could have easily been a greater and more interesting performer than she is now. She didn't need to be a singer of sappy, melodramatic love songs or an actress who seems to have specialized in whining characters. She could've been a fantastic rock singer and an energetic actress. Through these scenes the movie also manages to chillingly convey that this bizarrely and incredibly energetic atmosphere is at least partly only possible because of the fucked up lives these performers are having. They are, for various reasons, so frustrated with  'ordinary' life and have so many bottled up emotions, that they need a place where they can let all of this rage and frustration go and the stage is such a place. The movie thus suggests that when we see some great performer doing his/her thing on stage, we are not only witnessing greatness, but also someone who is tragically and often unsuccessfully fighting his/her inner demons. Unfortunately this is the only interesting thing the movie manages to say/convey about its subject. Even more unfortunately, there aren't that many singing scenes and the rest of the movie is not only unentertaining, but also pretty crap.

Somehow this is already the second movie by the relatively unknown and unacclaimed Mark Rydell, I am discussing here. I also wrote pretty negatively about his previous one, The River. But that one is a masterpiece compared to this one. That at least had characters one could care about and often had some wonderful shots. This movie is shot in a very banal and uninteresting way. And while it must be admitted that Midler gives it her all in the concert scenes, she also gives it her all in the dramatic scenes. Which means that we get a lot of irritating and melodramatic screaming and crying. And I really mean a lot. The plot concerns the last tour of The Rose, which is the stage name of Midler's character. During this tour The Rose very often screws up either her manager or her boyfriend. She then fights with them, while screaming a lot. After such a fight we see her crying and regretting her behavior and running away, only to come back in tears and restart the whole process. I can almost always feel sympathy/empathy for movie characters whose lives have gone off the rails (either through their own fault or not) and who therefore do nasty, hurtful or idiotic things to themselves and to others. But usually there is the suggestion that the troubled character can be a good or at least interesting person. We have for that person to change because we feel that he can have a good life if he does. There are no such suggestions here. I felt that if her life was better The Rose would be just as much a malcontent as she is now. There are also many scenes that have no logic in relation to the plot and the characters and seem only added because the filmmakers felt they needed more drama. Many films are guilty of this, but I don't think I've ever seen it done as shamelessly as here. In the middle of the film there is a short period during which The Rose is actually happy with her boyfriend. Suddenly the movie introduces a character from The Rose's past, Sarah, played by a horrible actress, who after washing Midler's hair starts passionately kissing her. During this kissing The Rose's boyfriend suddenly walks in on them and naturally drama ensues. This Sarah is only seen in this one scene, she is never mentioned again and never before or after that does the movie hint that The Rose might be bisexual or that she had had a bisexual relationship.

I could write more, but there is nothing interesting to say anymore about this movie. Besides I have enough of it. This is one of the most unpleasant and stupid movies I've ever seen.

26. A Whiter Shade of Pale &...

Lyrics

We skipped the light fandango
Turned cartwheels 'cross the floor
I was feeling kinda seasick
But the crowd called out for more
The room was humming harder
As the ceiling flew away
When we called out for another drink
And the waiter brought a tray

And so it was that later
As the miller told his tale
That her face, at first just ghostly,
Turned a whiter shade of pale

She said, "There is no reason
And the truth is plain to see."
But I wandered through my playing cards
And they would not let her be
One of sixteen vestal virgins
Who were leaving for the coast
And although my eyes were open wide
They might have just as well been closed

And so it was that later
As the miller told his tale
That her face, at first just ghostly,
Turned a whiter shade of pale


This is such an odd song on so many levels. The clip is quite strange. It feels like a  home video full of odd, slightly absurd shots. The band members also seem a bit detached from reality. And where did this band come from anyway? This is universally one of the most popular songs, but it's basically the only really well-known song of Procol Harum (and what does that name mean?). For a group who has made such a famous song Procol Harum is relatively obscure? How many people have heard of Gary Brooker, who is apparently the lead singer? Lastly the music doesn't really fit its vague and mysterious lyrics. It was pretty hard to link a movie to it and eventually I chose a movie by Kubrick. I realize that this is already the third Kubrick film in 26 entries, but, I promise!, this will the last Kubrick in a long time. And it's not a very illogical choice. The lyrics make it seem as if the singer is at some mysterious, slightly dangerous, orgy-like party. Besides the lyrics  'And although my eyes were open wide They might have just as well been closed' are a long-winded way to say 'my eyes were wide shut' which is close to the title of a Kubrick film that coincidentally features a famous scene involving an orgy. The scene is so famous in fact that although I had not seen the film before, I knew that there was an orgy scene in it.
 
The Movie: Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999)

1999 was quite an interesting year for American movies. Many great, or at least interesting, movies came out that were very original and quite unconventional in form and/or content. Many of these movies also shared certain thematic elements. In 1999, due to many important developments in the 20th century that was now coming to an end, the lives of many people in the western world had been better than ever. There was relative economic prosperity and the people in the 'west' weren't much affected by war. Sometimes the biggest problem facing the western world seemed to be the possible millennium bug, which turned out to be much ado about nothing. In other words people in the west lived tidy, peaceful, decent lives. Many of these 1999 movies examined these lives critically. They claimed that these lives that, at the surface seemed to be so perfect, were not completely unproblematic. Their protagonists felt numbed by the monotony of their ordinary life, they felt unable to express their (true) emotions and their individuality, they wanted to have adventures and to be able to give in to their most basic desires. They wanted to live another life, sometimes even literally.  

So in Best Picture winner of that year, American Beauty we see Kevin Spacey quitting his job and divorcing his wife in order to whatever he wants and to pursue an affair with a female friend of his daughter. In Fight Club Edward Norton starts fight clubs where men can go and beat each other up. The men in Fight Club feel useless in this modern world with Ikea-furniture and without Great Wars and hope these fight clubs will get their manliness back. In Magnolia Tom Cruise plays a man who has success teaching men how to assert control over their wives and thus fuck them whenever they want. And in general most characters in Magnolia are discontent with their not so bad lives. In Being John Malkovich a portal to John Malkovich's head enables people to experience life as John Malkovich for 15 minutes. Naturally these portal becomes a success and despite the fact that it causes much misery to the main protagonists they still want to go through it. In The Matrix (to me the best film of that year) it is even posited that this current world of ours is run by machines who manipulate us and that we aren't really free Many others who at least touch on these themes include Arlington Road, Dogma, Boys Don't Cry, The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Sixth Sense, Office Space, and obviously Eyes Wide Shut (This whole text is not for nothing!).

One could argue that in Eyes Wide Shut Kubrick goes even further than in the rest of those films. The discontent protagonists in the films I've mentioned previously are ordinary citizens. They are office workers, insurance agents or failed puppeteers. In Eyes Wide Shut it is the New York elite that organizes elaborate, secret orgies in order to fulfill their desires and escape their dreary lives. And while the orgy scene is the most absurd, and downright bonkers, scene of Kubrick I've yet seen, even before that scene Kubrick presents the New York elite as a sex-obsessed bunch. The film begins with a his Christmas party at some rich New Yorker named Victor Ziegler. It's not exactly known, or at least I can't remember, what he does, but he is obviously someone of relative importance. He lives in a lavish house with multiple floors, a ball room and for his party he has hired a pianist to play live classical piano music. While the party goes on in the ball room, Victor is upstairs having sex and using drugs with some prostitute who nearly overdoses. Luckily for Victor one of his invitees is our main protagonist Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) who helps her. While Bill is upstairs, downstairs in the ball room his wife Alice (Nikole Kidman) is dancing with a Hungarian millionaire who shamelessly flirts with her. While she doesn't give in to him, it's obvious she is enjoying it. And when Bill is on his way upstairs to Victor, he is waylaid by two women who very obviously want to have sex with him. This will turn out to be quite a common occurrence for Bill. Almost everyone he meets in this film is sexually aroused by Bill. Back home, Bill and Alice discuss (some of) their weird adventures at Victor's party when their conversation turns to sexual fantasies, Alice confesses one of her sexual fantasies to Bill. Unfortunately for him, Alice's fantasy does not involve Bill. This confession shocks him so much that it leads him on a nightly walk across the sexually charged streets of New York. His wandering leads him to various odd characters and the famous orgy.

While this is not one of Kubrick's most famous and critically lauded films, it is now my favorite film of his. This is basically a very dark, provocative, comedy. And Kubrick knows it's provocative and has fun with it. Besides the hilariously shocking orgy scene, I very much enjoyed the scene where Alice confesses her sexual fantasy to Bill. Before doing various plastic surgeries, Nicole Kidman was incredibly sexy and beautiful. In her confession scene she is also dressed in a very sexy way. Not only is she dressed just in her underwear, the underwear isn't very concealing. On top of this she is making all kinds of sexy movements during her talking. Tom Cruise is also dressed pretty scarcely and seems to be in great shape. I can imagine that this is a movie many couples went to see together.That's probably something Kubrick expected too. I really believe that part of the purpose of this scene is to provoke (the couples in) the audience to have sexual fantasies about Cruise and Kidman, or at least make them think about it. It is hard not to be at least a bit sexually attracted to Kidman in that scene. More importantly, even if you aren't sexually attracted to her, it is an objective fact that what she is doing in that scene is in our society considered to be conventionally sexually attractive for people who are sexually attracted to women. It is something both men and women know. The same can be said of Cruise, but for people who are sexually attracted to men. Which can be quite awkward for the couple watching the movie. And considering the marital problems caused by Alice's confession of sexual attraction to another man, it might even be extra hard for the couple in the audience to talk honestly and to believe each other about their possible sexual attraction to Cruise or Kidman.

That's just one example of what Kubrick wants to do in his movie. He wants to challenge the norms of our society, involving (sexual) behavior in relationships. He wants to show that while these norms are logical, they are arbitrary constructs. They are not natural, but they are constructed by human beings. There is no natural reason why they couldn't be different. Why, for example, does our partner accept that we dance with another woman and not that we kiss her? And what's the exact border between acceptable and unacceptable behavior? Lastly Kubrick also touches on the idea that many people see their partner as their one true love and put him/her on a pedestal. Whatever I can say about this, won't be as eloquent as what the great comedian Tim Minchin says in his great song If I Didn't Have You. This may be the best love song ever, precisely because of its honesty and because he presents his wife as a normal human being and not as some sort of infallible honesty. If you think it's arrogant, it is important to note that Minchin, now in his late 30's is together with his wife since they were 17