94. Morning Has Broken &....

Lyrics

Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the Word

Sweet the rains new fall, sunlit from Heaven
Like the first dewfall on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where His feet pass

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God's recreation of the new day

Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the Word

I am feeling mostly indifferent towards Cat Stevens, but if any song of his should be this high, it should be Father and Son. I linked this song in a rather obvious manner to a movie that's full of Cat Stevens songs (though it features neither Morning Has Broken nor Father and Son), and that's, like this song, ostensibly about hope after bad times. 

The Movie: Harold and Maude (Hal Ashby, 1971)

I'll give Harold and Maude this: it has the courage of its convictions, and it clings to its ideas all the way to the end. It's just that I think that its convictions/ideas are deeply idiotic. They are also not expressed in a very interesting/fun way. I had not seen this movie before. If I had I probably wouldn't have discussed it now. As that would imply that I would have seen it for the second time. I have no such desire. This is an awful film. 

I love films about mavericks who break the rules, but they usually break these rules because of a greater good, or because they want to achieve something great, or for some other interesting reason Harold and Maude just break the rules because they are a bunch of egoistical assholes who are bored with normal life. They really don't do anything interesting. The movie is full of empty platitudes about how you should embrace life and live it. It literally has an on-the-nose quote such as this: A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. They're just backing away from life. Reachout. Take a chance. Get hurt even. But play as well as you can. Go team, go! Give me an "L". Give me an "I". Give me a "V". Give me an "E". L-I-V-E. LIVE! Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room. Much of the dialogue is basically a variation of this. And the movie's idea of 'living the life man' is the same as that of a 10-year old boy. They steal a car and pass through a pay toll without paying! Yipiee! They look at flowers and come to the conclusion that they are all secretly very different! So people should be too! 

This is all pretty boring, but it wouldn't be that problematic if the movie didn't so desperately try to make us care for Harold and Maude, or represent them as good people. And even worse is the fact that it wants to present their behavior as a genuine necessity in an oppressive society. The movie really wants us to believe that they are fighting for freedom and human rights. It doesn't care how low it has to stoop to achieve this. It, for example, makes Maude a holocaust survivor and connects Harold and Maude's current 'fight' to World War 2. And funerals mostly serve here for Harold and Maude's entertainment. There have been many great radical 70's movies that criticized American (western) society for very good reasons. What the movie doesn't get at all is that Harold and Maude can only do what they do here, because they are privileged members of that society they apparently fight. They use this privilege only for their own good and the movie wants to congratulate them for it, and pretend that they are doing revolutionary stuff. The film could have been maybe better if it at least had the guts to make Harold black, or poor. 

Harold is an enormously rich kid, who lives alone with his mother in a huge mansion. He has his own car and can do whatever he wants. He can lead a truly interesting life, but chooses mostly to moan, stage suicides to annoy his mother, and visit funerals. There is no real reason given for his disenchantment, beyond a short scene wherein it is implicated that his mother doesn't love him. It's just that his mother does love him. Harold is just an arrogant kid who ignores this. In every single scene Harold's mum is in, we see her trying to give him a better life to activate him. She tries to find him a girl, get him out of the house in some way. A better movie would absolutely have the right to criticize the mother for this and present her as an over bearing woman, who tries to control her son too much, instead of letting him make his own decisions. But in this case the mother is absolutely right. Harold doesn't do anything but moan around the house. Never has the term deadwood been a more right description of a person. I am deeply uncomfortable with the army, and I think that the abolishment of conscription is one of the most important changes to occur in the 20th century. Yet I completely agreed with Harold's mother and Harold's uncle that enlistment in the army would be good for Harold. He'll do something at least.

Harold and Maude made me appreciate Good Will Hunting, one of my favorite movies even more.  If Gus Van Sant had made Good Will Hunting like Harold and Maude he would have made caricatures out of the characters of Robin Williams, Minnie Driver and Stellan Skarsgard. And he would have posited that Will should not change; that his behavior at the beginning of the movie is right, and that his fucking around with his buddies was some sort of valuable resistance against mainstream society. I love Good Will Hunting much more than most film critics these days. I certainly get why people may dislike that film, but it is honest and fair in how it sees Will Hunting, what it wants for him, and how it wants him to achieve it. That cannot be said for Ashby's treatment of Harold in this movie. And it certainly cannot be said for Ashby's treatment of Maude. She is not a real person, just a collection of stereotypes whose sole function in the movie is to help Harold. Old Hollywood movies have been criticized for using African-Americans like this, in relationship to white people. These stereotypical characters are now called Magical Negroes. You could call Maude a Magical Granny here.    
   

Because of the pretty horrendous screenplay, Harold and Maude would have never been a great film. But it could have quite easily be better than it is. It's quite possible to make a movie about characters exactly like Harold and Maude, and even make the audience care about them. Ashby should have simply let the audience make up its own mind about these characters, He should not have tried at all costs to turn these characters into some sort of redemptive, misunderstood heroes, which they clearly aren't. I would have probably enjoyed the movie much more if Ashby simply had gotten rid of the Cat Stevens soundtrack, All these songs do here is spell out that Harold is a very dear misunderstood boy for whom we should feel deeply. We would feel more for him probably, if the songs didn't tell us this. I think that audiences will feel more sympathy for characters if the movie doesn't force them to.

The movie would have been even better if Ashby simply embraced Harold's vileness, and explored it. I think Bud Cort, who plays Harold, actually gets this. He seems to understand at his core Harold is a deeply troubled young man. Anytime he gets the opportunity to show us the psychopathic traits of Harold, he does this, only to be undercut by the screenplay or Ashby's direction. A good example of this is the scene when, after another staged suicide attempt, Cort breaks the fourth wall and winks to the audience. Or the scene where he flips his mother. The best example of this comes in what was for me the only truly honest scene of the movie. To avoid the army Harold gives a speech, supported by a very theatrical performance in which he talks about how much he enjoys killing in all kinds of different ways, and how much he enjoys seeing blood. The movie presents this ironically. Harold only makes these claims to scare off the officer, so he doesn't have to join the army. But I thought Harold, as written in the movie, is actually the kind of character that genuinely believes these things, and because of Cort's great performance in that scene this is the only scene in the movie that feels genuinely provocative and irreverent.          

I don't even think that the movie should be excused for being made during a time when counter cultural ideas were popular, because I don't think that this movie understood the counter cultural ideas it ostensibly believed in. The politics of this movie are far-right. In fact, I have never seen a movie probably that embodies so much Margaret Thatcher's famous saying "There is no such thing as society. There are only individual men and women and families" For Harold and Maude, there aren't even families, let alone society. The movie has no regard whatsoever for the good of society. I think this is the worst movie I've yet discussed on this blog, even worse than Sweet November. It's full of shit, yet pedantic and arrogant about it. It's just no fun at all.  

       

93. Niet of Nooit Geweest &...

Lyrics

Ik zie twee mensen op het strand 

(I see two people on the beach)
Vlak bij het water, hand in hand

(Near the water, holding hands) 
De zon zakt, ze zwijgen van geluk

(The sun sets, they are silent out of happiness) 
Ik ken haar net, want dat ben jij 

(I just know her, because that's you)
Ze lacht naar hem, hij lijkt op mij 

(She smiles at him, he looks like me)
Maar dat kan niet, want ik maak alles stuk

(But that cannot be, because I ruin everything) 
Ik kan die jongen toch nooit zijn 

(I cannot actually be that boy)
Die rust, die liefde, niets voor mij

(That calmness, that love, it's just not me) 
Maar waarom lijkt het dan toch zo vertrouwd?

(But why then, does it seem so familiar) 
Ik heb je lief, zoals je ziet 

(I love you, as you see)
Maar ergens klopt er hier iets niet

(But something isn't right here) 
Ik draag een ring maar 'k heb jou nooit getrouwd 

(I wear a ring, but I've never married you)

Ik ben mezelf niet 

(I am not myself)
Of al die jaren nooit geweest

(Or haven't been it in all those years) 
Ik ben de gangmaker op het verkeerde feest

(I am the moodsetter at the wrong party) 
Ik ben mezelf niet of nooit geweest

(I am not myself, or have never been it)
Ik ben mezelf niet of nooit geweest 

(I am not myself, or have never been it)

Ik zie twee mensen, ze gaan staan 

(I see two people, they are standing)
Ze draait zich om, we moeten gaan 

(She turns around, we must go)
Kijk in me ogen en zie dezelfde pijn

(Looks in to my eyes, and I see the same pain) 
Twee mensen eerder al verbonden 

(Two people connected once before)
Al die verliefdheid, wat een zonde 

(Al that infatuation, what a waste)
We zijn het allebei maar willen het niet zijn 
(We are both it, but we don't wanna be it)
Ik ben mezelf niet 

(I am not myself)
Of al die jaren nooit geweest

(Or haven't been it in all those years) 
Ik ben de schoenmaker bij de verkeerde leest

(I am doing the wrong profession) 
Ik ben mezelf niet of nooit geweest

(I am not myself, or have never been it) 
Ik ben mezelf niet of nooit geweest
(I am not myself or have never been it)

Oh, laat het de zon zijn (laat het de zon zijn)

(Oh let it be the sun)
Oh, laat het het strand zijn

(Oh, let it be the beach) 
Laat het de zee zijn 

(Let it be the sea)
Laat mij iets doen nu

(Let me do something now) 
Waardoor je mij nooit meer wilt zien

(So you wouldn't want to see me ever again) 
O, laat het het zout zijn (laat het het zout zijn)

(O let it be the salt)
Laat het mijn allerdomste fout zijn

(Let it be my stupides mistake) 
Maar laat me dit nooit meer vergeten 

(But don't let me ever forget this)

Nooit meer vergeten 
(Never forget this)

laat me dit nooit meer vergeten, bovendien 

(Let me never forget this, above all)

Ik ben mezelf niet of al die jaren nooit geweest 

(I am not myself, or haven't been it in all these years)
Ik ben mezelf niet of al die jaren nooit geweest 

(I am not myself, or haven't been it in all these years)
Ik ben mezelf niet of nooit geweest

(I am not myself, or have never been it)
Ik ben mezelf niet of nooit geweest)

(I am not myself, or have never been it)

Ik ben mezelf niet of nooit geweest

(I am not myself, or have never been it)

Ik ben mezelf niet of nooit geweest

(I am not myself, or have never been it)

This is basically Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in song form. This is just a coincidence, as this song is written in 1998, six years before the movie, and Jim Carrey and co. most probably never heard this song. You never know though. Maybe Charlie Kaufman is an Acda & De Munnik fanboy. I am just kidding of course, but it may be quite silly to dismiss Acda & De Munnik as just another decent Dutch group. I feel that this is one of those times, when the conceit of this blog has been genuinely insightful. Acda and de Munnik may be more interesting, than I (and others) think they are. This is the second song of theirs I discuss on this blog; the first one I linked to Seconds.  My links are obviously not perfect, but all of them do make some sense. Any band whose songs can be linked to Seconds and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is not to be dismissed. Their songs contrast rather interestingly between form and content. Their music is jolly and poppy, while their lyrics are quite a bit unsettling. Both this song and the previous one deal rather interestingly with (loss of) identity and memory. 

The Movie: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)

This is in some ways a typical Charlie Kaufman move. It has a wonderful original screenplay full of interesting twists. It deals with the 'behavior' of our minds, and how our identities and memories are shaped, both by ourselves and by others. Yet in many other ways this is a very atypical Kaufman movie. I have not seen Human Nature and Synecdoche, New York, but based on what I know of them they appear to be share the same outlook on life as movies like Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. This are all grim, dark movies that are very cynical about human nature. Most of their characters are very unpleasant, and sometimes downright vile people. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is not such a movie. (This is by the way neither a compliment nor a criticism. It's just an observation. I think Being John Malkovich is a better movie than this one, but this is a better film than Adaptation, and a far better one than George Clooney's directing debut). This movie works partly because Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet) are genuinely nice people we care about. They also feel like very real people. Carrey and Winslet seem to have gotten the freedom to make their characters very specific and to add to them whatever they want to. As a result both Joel and Clementine come of as characters who are not held back by movie conventions. Carrey and Winslet are allowed to play their characters if they are real people, who just happen to be in this movie. The joy they have in doing this is palpable, and it transfers to the audience. Apparentlythis is Kate Winslet's favorite role of hers, and that's not a surprise. It's also her (and Carrey's) best. It's quite a shame she has never really gotten a similar role, and I can only imagine how bored she is by the fact that she is now asked to play dull teachers in dull young adult sci-fi such as Divergent, or depressed mums in Labor Day. 

The movie would have been a lot of fun, even if was just these two characters in a rather straightforward rom-com. But that's where Charlie Kaufman comes in. Anyone could probably think of the basic concept of this movie. The idea that you might lose some of your most important memories that have very much, for better or worse, shaped the way you are today is such an obviously disquieting and dramatic one that it is quite strange that there haven't been more movies like this. That when in pain some people might really want to, is a slightly more interesting insight, but also one that's very obvious. What Kaufman, and Gondry do well is to present this all in a very matter of fact, and funny way. Lancuma, the memory erasing corporation, functions very much like an ordinary, rather dull, corporation. What the employees are doing is quite spectacular, but the way in which they are doing it is kind of dull and monotonous. The Tramp from Modern Times would basically be just as bored doing mind erasing as working on a conveyor belt. The contrast between the real world and the world of Carrey's memories is pretty enormous. His memories are very imaginatively presented. A good example for this are the two brilliant, and quite moving, scenes where we see the adult Jim Carrey remembering his youth. Even better is the reason for why he is doing this. 

Beyond the fact that this screenplay is so original, it is also brilliantly constructed. The circularity of the movie is greatly important here. Often a movie that begins with its final scenes, or in media res, does this, because it's a lazy and effective way to build drama and intrigue. I usually fall for it, and quite like such movies, but that's not the point here. Here the circularity is a necessity, because if it would begin in a chronological order we would care much less about the characters. The movie only works so well, because we get to know Joel and Clementine, and care about their relationship, before Joel starts the procedure to erase Clementine from his mind. Because when Joel starts erasing Clementine from his memory, we first see his last memories of her, just before they broke up. In these scenes both of them are just very unpleasant, and we see nothing of their love. If one would start with these scenes, it would in fact be quite unbelievable that these characters could ever possibly love each other, especially considering they are being played by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, at first sight, a very unfitting romantic couple. Thus we would care much less about it all when Carrey changes his mind about the whole erasing thing, and he tries to change/hide his memories in order to defeat the erasers. Scenes, like the previously mentioned ones, in which Carrey memorizes his youth would play much more like zany scenes from a not very successful Jim Carrey sci-fi comedy. 

I also simply love that by opening with the final scenes Kaufman makes us care about the saving of a relationship that hasn't factually happened yet. It's quite genius viewer manipulation. Also genius is the subplot involving Kirsten Dunst and Tom Wilkinson. That helps us understand without the use of dumb exposition why Joel and Clementine get back together. It shows after all that Lacuna's procedure may erase the memories of a love, but not the feelings. If the ex-lovers meet again they might develop feelings for one another again. Which means that while that plot point is resolved tragically, within the larger frame of the story this is a hopeful plot point. This is again ingeniously manipulative. 

92. The Sound of Silence &...

Lyrics

Hello darkness, my old friend;
I've come to talk with you again.
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains within the sound of silence.

In restless dreams I walked alone,
Narrow streets of cobblestone.
'Neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night, and touched the sound of silence.

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never shared.
And no one dared disturb the sound of silence.

"Fools," said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might lead you."
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed in the wells of silence.

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming.
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets
are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls, and whispered in the sounds of silence."

When I discussed Bridge Over Troubled Water I apparently claimed that Simon & Garfunkel are rather bland. What utter bullshit! I do not like that song very much, but if you can make a song like The Sound of Silence you don't ever deserve to be called bland. The song allowed me to discuss a silent movie for the first time on this blog, yet a silent movie in which sound plays an important role. 

The Movie: Modern Times (Charles Chaplin, 1936)

It is quite ironic that the Charles Chaplin's most iconic and enduring scene has become his famous, and justly revered, speech from The Great Dictator. The scene is filmed in one shot with hardly any movement in it, and its power lies in Chaplin's words. In other words, it's a shot that bears exactly none of the characteristics that made Chaplin famous and beloved. Besides that Chaplin hated the advent of recorded sound in movies, and he continued to make silent movies as long as he could. Modern Times was his last, and was made in an era when sound films had become the norm. Modern Times is not completely silent though. Chaplin uses sound at certain moments in the movie, and from the way he uses it is clear that he hates it. Yet that's exactly one of the reasons this movie is so interesting. Chaplin for much of the movie connects sound to unpleasantness. Sound is used to exploit the workers, such as during the brilliant scene with the feeding machine. It is used every time police cars arrive to arrest someone, thereby conflating it with the loss of freedom. It is most hilariously used anytime someone clanks his head, obviously connecting it to pain. And it could be argued that at the end of the movie Chaplin has made peace with the advent of sound, when during one of the most pleasant scenes of the movie he sings a song, This must have been quite special for audiences in 1936. For many of them this was probably the first time they ever heard Chaplin's voice. Chaplin realizes this and the scene gets a proper, suspenseful built up. Until he starts singing you are not entirely sure, whether he is really going to do it.    

Chaplin's use of sound in the movie is connected to his larger idea that modern technology dehumanizes people. This argument has been made by various people throughout history, and is one I am really not very sympathetic to. The modern equivalent of this are those claims that social media actually individualize us. Ideally technological developments should improve our lives, and most would if we used them correctly. For example the conveyor line that's criticized by Chaplin in Modern Times. That should ideally make labor conditions for the workers better, not worse. After all, because of it products can be made faster and easier. For the conveyor line workers in Modern Times life is hard, and they are exploited by their bosses. This leads to Chaplin becoming ill. That's all pretty horrible, but it is not the fault of the conveyor belt, it's the fault of their awful bosses, who are driven by power and greed. If it wasn't for the conveyor belt they would exploit their employees in other ways. And it is this last part that Chaplin doesn't seem to understand. What makes Chaplin great though is that all of this doesn't really matter. He knows how to express this ideas in a funny and interesting way. The movie begins with a long scene at the aforementioned conveyor belt, which is extraordinary funny, and it has many other similar scenes. But what makes the movie really special that within all that comedy there is hidden a rather dark and emphatic drama about the horrific effects of poverty. 





   

91. Like A Hurricane &...

Lyrics

Once I thought I saw you
in a crowded hazy bar,
Dancing on the light
from star to star.
Far across the moonbeam
I know that's who you are,
I saw your brown eyes
turning once to fire.

You are like a hurricane
There's calm in your eye.
And I'm gettin' blown away
To somewhere safer
where the feeling stays.
I want to love you but
I'm getting blown away.

I am just a dreamer,
but you are just a dream,
You could have been
anyone to me.
Before that moment
you touched my lips
That perfect feeling
when time just slips
Away between us
on our foggy trip.

You are like a hurricane
There's calm in your eye.
And I'm gettin' blown away
To somewhere safer
where the feeling stays.
I want to love you but
I'm getting blown away.

You are just a dreamer,
and I am just a dream.
You could have been
anyone to me.
Before that moment
you touched my lips
That perfect feeling
when time just slips
Away between us
on our foggy trip.

You are like a hurricane
There's calm in your eye.
And I'm gettin' blown away
To somewhere safer
where the feeling stays.
I want to love you but
I'm getting blown away.

I really hate the term 'dad rock', which is nowadays too often used to describe classic rock, which is some of the most progressive, exciting and experimental music ever made. That does not mean that because a song belongs to the genre of classic rock is automatically great. Like A Hurricane is a good example of this. It's just a very dull song. And I actually like Neil Young quite a lot. Old Man is a truly great song I think. For the purpose of this blog though, I am at least quite happy by the lyrics of this song about a brown-eyed dreaming dancer with whom the narrator of the song is quite obsessed. It resulted in one of the few links between song and movie which are completely logical.

The Movie: The Barefoot Contessa (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1954)

"Once upon a time there was a beautiful dancer named Maria Vargas..." The Barefoot Contessa could have easily started with this line, because this is the kind of story it wants to be: a dark-ish fairy-tale about Hollywood and romance. And for much of its running time it is a pretty entertaining one, with some great scenes, lines and performances. It's just too bad that in the last 30-40 minutes it nearly completely flies of the rails. 

The movie starts at the funeral of Maria Vargas (Ava Gardner) with the voice-over of writer-director Harry Dawes (Humphrey Bogart, who is great, but what else is new) telling us about how he met Maria when she was dancing in Spain and persuaded her, at the request of arrogant businessman Kirk Edwards (Warren Stevens) to come to Hollywood to act in movies. During the course in the movie we will constantly return to that funeral where there are more people who have known Maria including PR-manager Oscar Muldoon (Edmond O'Brien, who justly won an Oscar for this performance) and Maria's husband Count Vincenzo Torlatto-Favrini (Rossano Brazzi). The narration will shift between all these characters allowing them all to share their viewpoint of the mysterious Maria. 

The opening of the film is pretty great. After about 30 minutes there have been only two extended scenes full of fantastic dialogue, wherein we get to know most of the main characters. It also helps that these characters are very well written. Harry, as played by Bogart, is especially great. He is a kind, goodhearted cynic who is willing to be very curt to the arrogant self-indulgent Kirk and Oscar, who follows him around like a do. But Harry's good heart shows during his interactions with Maria. They strike up a slightly odd, but very warm and kind friendship that feels to be very realistic. It is very rare in Hollywood movies to present a relationship between two Hollywood characters in such a way, let alone if these two characters are of a different gender. Still, the best scene in the movie occurs during the narration of Oscar, when he finds out that some people such as Maria can become so popular, beloved and famous that they turn his talents obsolete. Maria transcends PR management. It is during these scenes that we actually get some sympathy for Oscar,. We learn to know him as a rather tragic figure who certainly has human emotions, but if he is to do his job well he has to turn of these emotions. And without the script making it explicit O'Brien through his acting shows that he tries, as much as possible, to not be a dirty, vile cynic when doing his job. And so the movie goes on quite entertainingly, while we get to know most of the characters pretty well. Maria remains a mystery, but considering the movie starts with her funeral you expect that near the end some tragic secret about her will be revealed that will very melodramatically leads to her death. This is not really my favorite kind of plot mechanism, but it's a popular one for reasons I can very well understand, so I don't have much of a problem with it if it follows logically out of the rest of the movie, especially if the rest of the movie is so entertaining as The Barefoot Contessa. 

It's unfortunate than that the movie is not resolved in quite this way, but in a much worse one. I think that Mankiewicz completely blows the final act of the movie, which is narrated by the count, which is all the more unfortunate considering he also wrote the film. First of all, for some reason Mankiewicz seemingly felt that his movie wasn't enough of a fairy-tale so he decided to add another dash of magical realism. That doesn't fit the mood of the rest of the movie. Even more curious though is the dialogue between the count and his sister, who are two noblemen existentially discussing their empty legacy. Their behavior comes straight out of an Antonioni movie which fits the movie even less, and especially the section in which it occurs. Now, I usually quite love movies with constant changes of tone, but usually the filmmakers seem aware that they are changing the tone, and they seem to have control over it. Mankiewicz does not here. The biggest problem though is that it is not one of Maria's secrets that leads to her death, but one of the count's. It's probably a spoiler to say that his impotence leads to Maria's death, but it is such a lame reveal that is treated with such ridiculous reverence that the movie becomes a farce instead of tragedy as intended. That is also because the reason given for the count's impotence is completely ridiculous. And because the actions (which directly lead to Maria's death) of both Maria and the count after this reveal are nonsensical based on what we know of these characters until then. 

The rest of the movie is very much worth seeing though, but I really hated the ending. Lastly it is worth mentioning that the movie can be criticized on feminist grounds. After all, Maria's sole function in this movie is to be mysterious and be admired and loved by men. You could argue that she is not a human being, but a narrative trope that is only used to explore the characters of the men. In this case I do not think that's much of a problem, partly because it is quite unfair to judge older movies according to modern norms and values. But also because the movie is completely honest about its intentions from the first scene on, which is filmed in the bar where Maria is dancing. Only we do not see Maria dancing, we just see how the audience reacts to her. The movie is not really interested in the life of an actress, but on the impact she has on the people around her. There is nothing wrong with that, and if you want to achieve that it does make sense to use Maria, and Ava Gardner, in this way.  

              

90. Ne Me Quitte Pas &...

Lyrics

Ne me quitte pas
Il faut oublier
Tout peut s'oublier
Qui s'enfuit deja
Oublier le temps
Des malentendus
Et le temps perdu
A savoir comment
Oublier ces heures
Qui tuaient parfois
A coups de pourquoi
Le coeur du bonheur
Ne me quitte pas (4 fois)

Moi je t'offrirai
Des perles de pluie
Venues de pays
Où il ne pleut pas
Je creuserai la terre
Jusqu'apres ma mort
Pour couvrir ton corps
D'or et de lumière
Je ferai un domaine
Où l'amour sera roi
Où l'amour sera loi
Où tu seras reine
Ne me quitte pas (4 fois)

Ne me quitte pas
Je t'inventerai
Des mots insensés
Que tu comprendras
Je te parlerai
De ces amants là
Qui ont vu deux fois
Leurs coeurs s'embraser
Je te racont'rai
L'histoire de ce roi
Mort de n'avoir pas
Pu te rencontrer
Ne me quitte pas (4 fois)

On a vu souvent
Rejaillir le feu
De l'ancien volcan
Qu'on croyait trop vieux
Il est paraît-il
Des terres brûlées
Donnant plus de blé
Qu'un meilleur avril
Et quand vient le soir
Pour qu'un ciel flamboie
Le rouge et le noir
Ne s'épousent-ils pas
Ne me quitte pas (4 fois)

Ne me quitte pas
Je ne vais plus pleurer
Je ne vais plus parler
Je me cacherai là
À te regarder
Danser et sourire
Et à t'écouter
Chanter et puis rire
Laisse-moi devenir
L'ombre de ton ombre
L'ombre de ta main
L'ombre de ton chien
Ne me quitte pas (4 fois)

The English translation of this lyrics can be found in the video above. As one can see a lot of time has passed between this post and my previous one. That's partly because I am busy looking for a job, partly because I couldn't find the movie I was planning to link this song too. I decided I had to find a French romantic movie about involving regret and desire that was full of grand operatic gestures. After some searching I chose Leos Carax' Lovers on the Bridge (1991). I was quite excited to see the movie. The only previous Carax film I had seen was Holy Motors, which I utterly loved. Lovers on the Bridge though apparently cannot be found anywhere in the Netherlands, and I also couldn't find it anywhere online (without downloading torrents and such stuff). So eventually I chose the movie that seemed to be the closest in spirit to Lovers on the Bridge. 

The Movie: Mauvais Sang (Leos Carax, 1986)

Mauvais Sang, literally translated as Bad Blood is the movie Leos Carax made before Lovers on the Bridge. It also stars in Juliette Binoche and Denis Lavant the same two main actors as Lovers on the Bridge. It's strange that I could find Mauvais Sang so easily on DVD in the Netherlands, while Lovers on the Bridge is somehow extinct here. As far as I know Lovers on the Bridge is by far the more famous film. I also assume that Lovers on the Bridge is a for more accessible film than Mauvais Sang to general audiences. This is a downright strange movie. 

Anyone who believes that art is above all about personal expression must see Mauvais Sang. This is a movie that Leos Carax clearly made purely for himself. To me Mauvais Sang feels like a movie that answers the following question: What if a young French Romantic existentialist chose to make a heavily stylized movie that combined the aesthetics of the silent melodramas of the early days of cinema with the aesthetics of the crime movies of the French New Wave, while at the same time dealing with some of the main anxieties of the 1980's? It's also one of the best examples I've seen of Roger Ebert's famous saying 'It's not what a movie's about, it's how it's about it'. What the film's about is quite easy to explain and will sound familiar to everyone who has seen more than 10 films in his life. Two seasoned crooks, and a young girl in love with one of them try to execute a heist. They used to be three crooks, but their safe opener has now died, so they enlist the help of his son who has ceased to speak to his father a long time ago, but has the same quick hands. While preparing the heist the young boy and girl gradually grow closer to each other. So far so good, you may think. This is one of the most archetypal setups ever. 

What this crew wants to steal though is a newly isolated drug culture that can treat the new sexaully transmitted disease called STBO, contracted when one has sex without feeling love. This is the kind of slightly dopey idea only a young hopeless romantic would think of, but the connection to the 1980's panic about AIDS is quite obvious. An American gang is also after this drug culture that belongs to a giant international conglomerate housed in a giant skyscraper such as the ones we often see in New York. Considering the movie takes place in Paris, the movie also touches on concerns/ideas that globalization is essentially Americanization and that American capitalism is going to become the dominant system in the world. These were of course popular ideas in 1986, when Reagan was in the middle of his presidency and it was becoming clearer and clearer that the Soviet Union was declining. 

It's not that the rest of Paris here looks like the Paris we know. The city is filmed in an expressionistic way that often reminded me of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Most of the movie takes place on the street where our crew is planning from and Carax at no point even tries to make it seem as a real street. It's filmed and lit in such a way that it is always clear that we are watching a film set. This is a very theatrical movie, which is also visible in the acting of Juliette Binoche and especially Denis Lavant. Interestingly the older actors, act in a way that's more familiar to modern audiences. I have seen Lavant only in two movies now, this and Holy Motors, but I already think he is one of the greatest living actors. You could call him a French Robert De Niro, only if De Niro acted in the pre- 1930's. But calling him that would not be fair to Lavant. I prefer De Niro, but Lavant is a totally unique actor. In any case Carax even further emphasizes the connection of Mauvais Sang to silent cinema during a couple of short, silent, black-and-white sequences, which seem to come straight of a one-reeler from the earliest days of film.

The isolated drug culture, by the way, could be called a McGuffin. A McGuffin is, as I have written earlier on this blog, the thing that sets the plot in motion. Therein lies the problem of calling the drug a McGuffin. There is hardly a plot to speak of in the movie. It's above all interested in creating a mood and an atmosphere, and in letting Lavant and Binoche discuss the complexities of love and life. Being 25 I fully understand how that was very appealing to a 26-year old Leos Carax. So I quite liked the movie a lot; I love/like stylized movies in general. I will never completely connect to/love this movie though. It's sensibilities are entirely different from mine. And I can see quite easily why others may hate it. It's definitely not for everyone, nor is it meant to be. If one doesn't like it though, one shouldn't complain that it doesn't work. Carax doesn't give a shit whether this movie works or not. Besides how can you possibly judge whether it works or not? There is nothing else to judge it against. Mauvais Sang is completely singular. And having just seen two movies of his, I am very eager to see other things Carax has made.