85. Go Your Own Way &...

Lyrics

Loving you
Isn`t the right thing to do
How can I ever change things
That I feel

If I could
Maybe I`d give you my world
How can I
When you won`t take it from me

You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
Go your own way

Tell me why
Everything turned around
Packing up,
Shacking up's all you wanna do

If I could
Baby I`d give you my world
Open up
Everything`s waiting for you

You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
Go your own way

I have never given much thought to Fleetwood Mac. This should probably change. Despite the fact that I like a Fleetwood Mac song any time I happen to hear one, I've somehow have never felt compelled to learn more about this group, or to start seriously listening to their music. This, despite the fact that Haim, basically a modern, bit of a poor man's version of Fleetwood Mac (something they would probably admit themselves), is one of my favorite groups of this moment. Go Your Own Way is a great song that finally gave me the chance to discuss a proper Woody Allen movie. It's right away the most awkward possible one.

The Movie: Husbands and Wives (Woody Allen, 1992)

If you needed more proof that Woody Allen is a despicable human being, but a really great artist, than this is it. Husbands and Wives is a movie that should not have existed. But it does and it's brilliant. It is, aside from Juliette Lewis' unfortunate role, a perfect movie. It is one of the tightest screenplays Allen has ever written. You get the feeling that every sentence is simply perfectly calibrated to be at the right place in the movie, that there is not a word here that's superfluous, or wrongly chosen. It's why, aside from other obvious facts I''ll discuss later this is not my favorite Woody Allen. I love his (sometimes silly) digressions into philosophical discussions and absurd humor. Apart from the framing device (which I'll also discuss later) there is hardly any of that here, and what there is, is in the service of the story. The acting is also rather perfect. It seems like every gesture and every inflection by any actor but Lewis is perfectly chosen and exactly right for that moment in the movie. Judy Davis especially gives a great performance. While I am a fan of Marisa Tomei and My Cousin Vinny, I can see why people were a bit perplexed she won the Oscar that year. It should have been Davis' award. Now I've criticized Juliette Lewis twice already I must note that I've never cared much about her as an actress, but that she has no easy job here. She has the most thankless role here and when making this movie she was still a young, relatively inexperienced actress, who had to hold her own against some major actors at the absolute top of their game. 

These are also the most realistic characters Woody Allen has ever conceived of (at least out of the movies I've yet seen by him). These people have more ordinary conversations and problems than other characters in Woody Allen movies. Which makes Mia Farrow's 'We both know it's over' line perhaps the saddest line in all of Allen's filmography. I am fairly sure I would feel the same way about this had Allen and Farrow not had the same problems in real life that they had in this movie. But they did have them. I am not a fan of judging art by the personal lives of the artists (Unfortunately I would have to discard a lot of art if I did that) or of relating their work to their personal life, but in this case it is inescapable. 

First of all, it would have been completely understandable if Mia Farrow would have utterly despised Allen just for the fact that he slept with her adopted daughter and than proceeded to live with her after all was said and done. But the fact that he made this movie makes it, if possible, even worse. Farrow found out about the affair while this movie was in production. Which means that Allen was writing and filming a movie about how he (could have) hurt Farrow's feelings, while at the same time he was busy cheating on her in real life in the most horrible possible way. He was basically lying to her while hiding the lie in plain view and shoving it her face, and then showing the world how he did it. It's nearly impossible to humiliate a person more, than Allen humiliates Farrow here. 

And all of this, doesn't take into account the fact that Allen might have sexually harassed Dylan Farrow, one of Farrow's other daughters who was at that time underage. I don't know whether Allen did this or not, though I have read Dylan's now famous letter from a couple of months ago and it's hard not to believe her. Beside if even half of what she wrote is true, it is bad enough. But the public speculation about what could have happened only makes the situation worse, and won't change my opinion of Allen, which in the end doesn't matter really in this case. I already think that Woody Allen is a despicable person. But it won't change my opinion that he is a major director who has made some of the greatest films ever. Aside from that you can't ignore his films even if you would have wanted to. They are very influential and are rightly taught in media and film schools. Allen's place in history was absolutely secured when he pulled Marshall McLuhan to the screen in Annie Hall. What I want to say is that the Farrows are in a situation that is horrible for them, and will remain horrible. It may be utterly unfair, but it is the truth that Allen's movies will live on and his misdeeds will eventually be forgotten/ignored. That has always been the case with historically important people and will always be. When I eventually get to discuss Annie Hall on this blog I won't focus any more on Allen's personal, but on the awesomeness of that movie. And I will also go see Magic in the Moonlight and Allen's subsequent movies.           

As I said I don't like the public speculation about what happened between Allen and Dylan Farrow very much. But in the context of Husbands and Wives it can't be ignored. That whole movie only becomes weirder and eerier because of it. For some reason Allen has chosen to film the movie as a sort of home-movie documentary with a shaking camera. On top of this the movie is basically told in flashback by a narrator, who pieces the story together from sometimes conflicting interviews with the main characters in the movie. We sometimes are shown the characters talk to the narrator, about their experiences. It is like watching a reconstructed documentary of the disintegrated marriage of Allen and Farrow's characters, and the nearly disintegrated marriage of  the characters of Judy Davis and Sydney Pollack. But we are made aware that the characters lie, especially Woody Allen's character. Which means that what we are being shown are not necessarily the facts of what happened, but what the narrator who would be the director of this imagined documentary thinks happened based on his conversations with the characters. This is basically how a documentary about the disintegration of Allen and Farrow's real affair would probably look like. And even more awkward in retrospect is Woody Allen's choice to use jump cuts in, or between, scenes. This can be read as a signifier that time has passed between, but that we do not know what happened in that time. Something awful could have been said or done. Thus you cannot watch this movie and not be reminded that there is still much that is not known about what happened in the final days of Allen and Farrow's marriage. 

If that's not enough the roles Woody Allen wrote for himself, and for other men in this film, make Husbands and Wives even weirder. He makes clear that his character here lies to the interviewer about his desire for a (sexual) fling with his young student played by Juliette Lewis. It's visible in his acting. There is a scene in the classroom in which Woody Allen plays his character as totally consumed by lust for this young woman. And basically all the men in the movie are presented as horrible sexual predators, who would take any chance to bed a much younger woman. What makes this movie so fascinating is that Woody Allen is unapologetic in making his character utterly despicable. In the end his character tells the interviewer that he was wise enough not to have an affair with Juliette Lewis. This may be a lie, but the interviewer believes him. Thus the movie works as wish-fulfillment fantasy on three levels. First of all there is the fantasy that a young woman can fall in love with an older man, secondly the fantasy that you will be believed when you say that you did not have sex with a younger woman, and thirdly Allen's own fantasy that he is rational enough to not sleep with a younger woman, which in real life did not turn out to be true. 

84. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For &...

Lyrics

I have climbed highest mountain
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you

I have run
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for

I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing in her fingertips
It burned like fire
This burning desire

I have spoke with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for

I believe in the kingdom come
Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
Well yes I'm still running

You broke the bonds and you
Loosed the chains
Carried the cross
Of my shame
Of my shame
You know I believed it

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for

I am starting to like U2's music more and more. Which is a bit of a shame, because I also am starting to become more and more irritated by Bono's world savior act, which besides being more than a bit hypocritical (and to some extent dishonest) is also quite problematic in other ways. The fact that he felt that he needed to make some sort of statement about Mandela with Ordinary Love and that he kind of  presents himself as a spokesman for Mandela's ideas is exemplary of that. On the other hand, I think Ordinary Love is one of the best popular pop songs I've heard in recent years. I really like it a lot. I also think it's the best U2 song after One and With or Without You. I also quite like this song, and I like it more than when I first heard it. I once saw a tweet being retweeteed about a movie that stated that the particular movie could have better been called like this song. Considering it is a movie made by a director associated with existentialist questions I believed the tweet and chose to link this song to that movie, my first of that director.

The Movie: L'avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni)

I don't know what it says about me, but I did not have much trouble connecting to this movie.  I thought it was a movie that was very realistic about human nature. I liked it a lot and I look forward to seeing more films by Antonioni.  I don't think the characters here are exceptionally shallow, or exceptionally annoying, or exceptionally despairing, or other similar traits. They maybe are compared to heroic, passionate, moral characters in other movies, who would be desperate to solve a mystery, such as Rex was in Spoorloos, which I previously discussed on this blog. There we saw Rex unable to commit to a new relationship until he knew exactly what happened to his mysteriously disappeared wife. But I don't think it's all that cynical to say that most people in Rex' situation would behave similarly to Sandro and Claudia here. When Anna (Sandro's fiancee and Claudia's best friend) disappears during a cruise trip to the Aeolian islands, Sandro, Claudia and their co-travelers are at first distressed and are seriously searching the island, trying to find a clue about what might have happened to Anna. Sandro and Claudia even remain for a couple of days on the island, but in the end the search is fruitless and eventually all Sandro can do is report Anna missing at the nearest police station.

In the second half of the film considerable amount of time has passed since then. Sandro and Claudia travel Southern Italy, ostensibly to look for clues for Anna, but mostly to spend time with each other and frolic around in different hotels. The people complaining that not much happens in the second half of the movie are to some extent right. Not much happens indeed, but what should happen? Anna is not found and will not be found. Sandro and Claudia are no heroes, but ordinary people who cannot do much about that. They have to accept that and they do.

Life goes on, the world will keep on turning on without any regard for individual troubles, so you might as well try to make the best of every situation. And that's what Sandro and Claudia do. Antonioni also visualizes this philosophy very well. He very often, especially during the search on the island, films an actor in the foreground doing something, while in the background we see some other actor(s) doing something unrelated to the actor in the foreground. Everybody goes its own way and has his own troubles to cope with and does so in a very individual way. (One could also connect this to Antonioni's existentialist reputation and claim that this signifies that everybody is alone in the world). Antonioni also does this in what is for me the best scene of the movie. In the second part of the movie Sandro meets a couple of drawing artists and semi-accidentally drops ink over their drawings. One artist goes up to him, trying to beat him up, only to be restrained by the other artists. Angry but realizing that a fight would be fruitless they let Sandro go, trying to restore the drawings as best as they can. The camera pans away from them, while we see them doing this, while we see Sandro leaving and accidentally joining a group of monks (or something similar) walking somewhere. At the same time we see in the background a bunch of kids joyfully playing soccer, completely oblivious to Sandro, the monks, or the artists. Life goes on for everybody. 

      

   

83. Good Vibrations &...

Lyrics

I, I love the colorful clothes she wears
And the way the sunlight plays upon her hair
I hear the sound of a gentle word
On the wind that lifts her perfume through the air

I'm pickin' up good vibrations
She's giving me excitations
I'm pickin' up good vibrations (Oom bop, bop, good vibrations)
She's giving me excitations(Oom bop, bop, excitations)
Good good good good vibrations (Oom bop, bop)
She's giving me excitations(Oom bop, bop, excitations)
Good good good good vibrations (Oom bop, bop)
She's giving me excitations (Oom bop, bop, excitations)

Close my eyes
She's somehow closer now
Softly smile, I know she must be kind
When I look in her eyes
She goes with me to a blossom world

I'm pickin' up good vibrations
She's giving me excitations
I'm pickin' up good vibrations (Oom bop, bop, good vibrations)
She's giving me excitations (Oom bop, bop, excitations)
Good good good good vibrations (Oom bop, bop)
She's giving me excitations (Oom bop, bop, excitations)
Good good good good vibrations (Oom bop, bop)
She's giving me excitations (Oom bop, bop, excitations)

(Ah)
(Ah my my what elation)
I don't know where but she sends me there
(Ah my, my, what a sensation)
(Ah my, my, what elations)
(Ah my, my, what)

Gotta keep those lovin' good vibrations
A happenin' with her
Gotta keep those lovin' good vibrations
A happenin' with her
Gotta keep those lovin' good vibrations
A happenin'

Ah
Good good good good vibrations (Oom bop, bop, I'm pickin' up good vibrations)
She's giving me excitations (Oom bop, bop, excitations)
Good good good good vibrations (Oom bop, bop)
She's na, na 

Na, na, na, na, na
Na, na, na
Na, na, na, na, na
Na, na, na
Do, do, do, do, do,
Do, do, do
Do, do, do, do, do,
Do, do, do

I understand that this was a very important and influential pop song, I just don't get it. I have this problem with other Beach Boys songs too, but I find most of them to be at least slightly enjoyable. I don't like this song at all. It's also very hard to link a movie to it, so I chose one about the invention of the vibrator.

The Movie: Hysteria (Tanya Wexler, 2011)

In a previous post I wrote about Amelia. I was one of the few people to like that movie. It was not very surprising though. I do enjoy these middlebrow biographical movies about pioneering inventors and explorers. So I also enjoyed Hysteria which is. by all accounts, a better movie than Amelia. Having said that, it is just about the least subversive movie possible about a subversive invention. For a movie about the invention of the vibrator it is also unbelievably prudish, only talking about sexual activities in euphemisms, complete with the giggling we usually associate with 12-year old kids when they hear something they shouldn't. To some extent the movie should be lauded for this. Considering it takes place in the 19th century, it could be argued that the movie at times successfully adopts, and adapts to, the mindset of that time and its people. If a progressive 19th century artist could make a movie about the invention of the vibrator, it would probably resemble this quite strongly. But a progressive person in the 19th century is a conservative one in the 21st, and the movie does at times play like it wants to appeal too much to everybody, even to those 'modern' conservatives who do not all think highly of all the changes brought on by the sexual revolutions of the 19th and 20th century. 

As such, while the movie very compellingly and entertainingly depicts how progressive doctor Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy) comes to invent the vibrator together with the eccentric Edmund St. John Smythe (Rupert Everett, who is having a shitload of fun in the role) it focuses a bit too much on that. The movie is more interested in how Smythe and Granville might profit from their invention, and be helped by it, than in the societal changes brought about by their invention. It's certainly not like they are not discussed, but the movie could have done much more with it. Especially because the movie, at least, at the beginning pretends to be interested in the importance science can have for society, especially for those who are not very well of. The movie begins after all with  a scene in which Mortimer quits a hospital because his boss there, not believing in germs, does not wash his hands, nor does he disinfect the wounds of a poor old woman. Furthermore as the proud British movie it is, it constantly name drops revolutionary British scientist and thinkers, without ever returning to their ideas again. The movie wants desperately to be nothing more than light entertainment, and it works very well as such. But this material could have been even more interesting, if the movie had a bit more guts, and was a bit more critical, or subversive, or tried to link these ideas to the modern world. 

The movie also could have given the women in the movie more agency. After all, the fact that it gave women more agency over their lives is the reason the vibrator is such an important invention. At times the movie plays as if someone only wanted to make a movie about the vibrator, because it allowed to make one of those 'delightfully' prudish movies full of shamefully giggling ladies, not because anyone really cared about the vibrator. The movie would also be better if it gave the women more agency, that would mean that Maggie Gyllenhaal would have a bigger role and that's always a good thing. Her character is also the best realized one. She is a feminist who fights for women's rights to vote, but understands that those rights are meaningless until the majority of  the Britsh people (both men and women) have food, clothes, a home and education.So she runs a settlement home and needs a doctor. The movie quite predictably leads to a romance between Gyllenhaal and Dancy, which still works, because both the actors and their characters are charming and kind. It's a pleasure to watch both of them. Dancy especially is quite surprisingly good. I had heard of him before, and after searching IMDB found out I had seen several movies in which he had a substantial role, but I had never actually noticed him. I probably won't in the future either, but this role seems perfect for him.    
    

  

82. Love of my Life &...

Lyrics

Love of my life, you've hurt me
You've broken my heart
And now you leave me
Love of my life, can't you see?

Bring it back, bring it back
Don't take it away from me
Because you don't know
What it means to me

Love of my life, don't leave me
You've taken my love
And now desert me
Love of my life, can't you see?

Bring it back, bring it back
Don't take it away from me
Because you don't know
What it means to me

You will remember
When this is blown over
And everything's all by the way
When I grow older
I will be there at your side
To remind you how I still love you
I still love you

Hurry back, hurry back
Please, bring it back home to me
Because you don't know
What it means to me
Love of my life
Love of my life
Yeah

Queen proves here that they do not need to write epic rock operas to make great songs. This is a very sober, even simple song, that's nonetheless a really great romantic song. It is also interesting to note that even though Freddy Mercury is often considered a homosexual, he wrote this song about a woman. It is not hard to link this song to a movie. There have probably been even more movies about a man losing the love of his life, than there have been songs about it. The movie I chose may just be the most popular romantic movie of all time. 

The Movie: Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)

Casablanca is indeed a great romance. But to only call it a romance, is to sell it short. This is also a great war drama; one of the best World War 2 movies I have seen. It could also be argued, I believe, that this is the greatest propaganda movie of all time. I do not mean that as a slight at all. The elements that turn this into propaganda only heighten the movie's strengths for me. I have been fascinated by propaganda objects since I first really studied them in history classes. Take, for example, the war propaganda of the First and Second World War. Much of it is revolting, especially of course the Nazi propaganda, Still, it is easy to understand why it was effective. While the content of these propagandist objects was deeply retrograde, their form was quite intelligent. National caricatures (as I've often written I love analyzing the representation of nations and nationalism) are a great example of this. The way these caricatures are used in propaganda objects reveals, in the 'best' propaganda, that the creators of these objects have a great understanding of how textual and visual signfiers can be used effectively to create meaning. And it is fascinating to see how easily one can reassign meaning to familiar symbol. The same American eagle for example can mean different things when put in a different context. In some propagandist objects, this re-contextualizing is done in such revolutionary and interesting ways, that many of these objects, no matter how horrible they are, can in some way be seen as experimental, progressive art. And much of the techniques used in propaganda, are now being used in television news, narrative films and advertising. The influence of propaganda on movies is probably most visible in the editing of movies. One of the most influential editing techniques of the twentieth century was used by Soviet filmmakers in the 1920's when they made propaganda movies about the very new, communist, Soviet Union. It is not surprising that this technique is now called Soviet-montage. 

This was a rather long digression, but I found it necessary. I have read some reviews lauding this movie, but criticizing it, because it has some propagandist elements. I think that these propagandist elements are exactly what makes this movie great (besides that I do not have much of a problem anyway with anti-Nazi propaganda such as it is here). Moreover the propagandist elements are not very understated here. The movie's main aim is not to make you swoon over the romance between Rick and Ilsa. I mean, it is a great romance, and Bogart and  Bergman, act it out so great that the flashback to their Paris days isn't even all that necessary to make understand that they really love each other. It is so well written though that it doesn't matter and, like anything else in the movie, it is a joy to watch. But the romance here serves a higher purpose. It wants to sell the idea that the war effort of the (French) resistance is more important than anything else. Serving the resistance is worth losing the love of your life over. This is basically liberalized by Rick's famous speech at the end when he claims that the problems of three little people don't amount to much in this crazy world. That the movie is more interested in making a point about the war, than in Rick and Ilsa's romance is perhaps also exemplified by the change Rick, the hero of the story undergoes. If this was the usual romance he would be at first a man who does not love Ilsa, and then turn into a man who does love her. Here it is immediately clear he loves Ilsa. Rick is presented as a hero here because he turns from a cynical realist who is willing to do business with anyone, even Nazi's, if it befits him, into an (sort of) idealist who realizes that there are some things greater than himself, and who is willing to resist the Nazi's. The same can perhaps be said about Captain Louis Renault. He is played by Claude Rains, who is as great as Bergman and Bogart. In fact every actor in the movie is perfectly cast and gives a wonderful performance. They are all, of course helped by great dialogue that seems explicitly written for the actor saying it. One of the reasons the movie is such a joy to watch is the fact that all the actors are seemingly enjoying themselves so much. That's even more remarkable, because it is probably not true. There were apparently many tensions during filming, especially between Bogart and Bergman.

Now, this and Inglourious Basterds are my favorite World War 2 movies. But the first 30-40 minutes of the movie are even greater. I loved the way Rick's cafe was portrayed, full of scheming realists and characters who are seamlessly introduced and than just as seamlessly forgotten. The cafe is sort of a micro cosmos of European society in world war 2. It's filled with people who try to get a transit visa to America in order to escape the war, and they sit at tables next to Nazi officials who are there ostensibly to keep an eye out for potential 'dangers', but mostly to gamble, drink, and have fun. Nowhere in Casablanca is the war more alive than at Rick's, but there is also no place in Casablanca where it is easier to forget and escape the war for a while. And at the center of all this is Rick himself, who is a friend to all. He may hate himself for this, but it is an arrangement with which he is perfectly content. The characters we meet at Rick's are all perfectly written, but these scenes are even more interesting for the way the portray World War 2 in a way that's quite unusual to us modern audiences. Now we are aware of the true horrors of Nazi Germany. We know about the Holocaust and the concentration camps. The concentration camps are mentioned in Casablanca too, but their scope and their horrors were still relatively unknown in 1942. This means that while most modern movies focus (rightfully) on the immorality of the war and focus heavily on the memory of the (Jewish) victims and the effects the war had on their descendants, Casablanca  focuses much more on the geopolitical conflict in the Second World War. The war is a very bureaucratic affair here, whose battles can be won by thinking logically and being smarter than your enemy. Thus Casablanca is filled with wonderful scenes of characters thinking and inventing strategic schemes. And the audience is invited to think with them, and to see how and why the characters reach their decisions, and what consequences these decisions may have. The greatest example of this may be the final night that Rick and Ilsa have together. The scene has so much subtext it is astonishing. Still my favorite scene in the movie is not surprising considering, I spent so much time lauding the propagandist elements of the movie. It is of course the singing of La Marsellaise over the German folk song. And my favorite shot in the movie comes near the end when the bottle of wine from the Vichy region breaks. As for my favorite line? Well, that I cannot choose. There are few movies whose dialogue is as sharp as Casablanca. Also, it is often ridiculously funny. I will watch this film many more times.