19. Shine on You Crazy Diamond &...

Lyrics

Remember when you were young,
You shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there's a look in your eyes,
Like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
You were caught on the crossfire
Of childhood and stardom,
Blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter,
Come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!

You reached for the secret too soon,
You cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Threatened by shadows at night,
And exposed in the light.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Well you wore out your welcome
With random precision,
Rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions,
Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!


Earlier I wrote that I found Pink Floyd's approach to rock very admirable, but that I just don't really enjoy their music. That statement may have been a bit premature. Before starting this blog I hadn't listened to Pink Floyd in a long time. I didn't like their music much the first couple of times I heard it and stopped bothering with them a bit. But when I listened to Wish You Were Here I liked it a lot more than I remembered or expected. And now I've listened to this song again. It will never be my favorite song, but it has some incredibly great parts, especially when the lyrics begin. Just like Wish You Were Here this song is about, or rather an homage to, Syd Barrett. Unfortunately Barrett is not the only artist whose career finished too early. The most famous one is probably James Dean. This song could not only be applied to him, but also to his character in his most famous movie.

The Movie: Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955)

I used to hold Rebel Without a Cause in high esteem, without ever seeing it. Even before I took much interest in movies I had heard about James Dean and his tragic fate. And that millions of people mourned his death because of Rebel Without a Cause. Even people in my family referenced the movie relatively often Later on in history lessons in high school and during my first year in university we learned about the cultural importance of this movie. It was taught as an example of the youth's rejection of old values after the Second World War, which started a new youth culture that would forever change western society. Some teachers even went further claiming that the movie wasn't only an example of this, but also played a major role in creating this new youth culture. Now I've finally seen it I can't hold it in such a high esteem any more. It's certainly an interesting film, but it doesn't really stand the test of time and has some other problems too.

But let's start with what's good. I really liked the opening scene, where all the three main protagonists, Jim (James Dean), Judy (Natalie Wood) and Plato (Sal Mineo) are introduced in a police station. The focus in this scene isn't on portraying the protagonists, but on portraying an ordinary workday in the police station. The protagonists are only related to each other, because they are coincidentally in the same police station. We only go from one character to another because we the focus of the police shifts from one character to another. I found this an interesting and original way to establish characters. The famous 'chickie game' scene is great too. A chicken game is a game in which two people drive their car towards a cliff and the first one to jump out of the car is a 'chicken.' The scene is quite suspenseful, but it's the aftermath that I found even more interesting. Jim's opponent dies in the chicken game. What I didn't expect was that Jim would go home and tell his parents right away what had occurred. This leads to a interesting discussion on what is the right thing to do now, and interesting questions on honesty are raised. Lastly, the movie is never boring and we are always interested in what will happen next. And each scene is quite interesting. But the movie has some distracting problems that unfortunately can't be ignored.

The portrayal of youths, gender and sexuality in this movie is sometimes outdated and sometimes just plain weird. The problems of the youths are portrayed in a weird melodramatic fashion with heightened emotions and suitable music. But the movie takes each problem with with almost the same huge amount of seriousness. Thus the death of Jim's friend in the chicken game is portrayed to affect Jim emotionally as much as being called a chicken (By the way, now I've seen this movie, I appreciate Back to the Future even more). The movie is even more problematic in the portrayal of the fathers. All the three protagonists have problems, partly because they have trouble communicating with their fathers. This, the movie seems to say, is because the men have been feminized. And how does this feminization show? The men actually help clean the house! This is most obvious in a fairly laughable scene where Jim's father is wearing a skirt. While cleaning up a mess he himself made Jim chides him that he has become afraid of his wife. The fear of women also shows in the fact that Judy's father seems afraid to have a close relationship with his daughter. In fact I've probably never seen a movie which believes so sincerely in the writings of Freud. Related to this Plato is subtly written as a homosexual character. At least it was supposed to be subtle in 1955. In 2012 it's quite obvious.

Besides all this there are other smaller problems. James Dean very eagerly wants to show that he is a new and different actor, who doesn't follow old acting rules. He acts significantly different than anyone else in the movie. This could have been a good idea if all the young actors acted like James Dean. That would effectively show the differences between the youths and the elders. Now that only Dean is doing it, it is often laughable. He also gives a less realistic and more theatrical portrayal of a rebellious youth than he probably thought.
Another minor problem I had with the movie is that after the first scene everything that happens is supposed to happen during one day and night. Too many developments are unbelievable to happen during one single night. The best example of this is the love that develops between Judy and Jim
Lastly all three main protagonists are supposed to be the same age, but look like they are completely different in age. On top of this their level of maturity is inconsistent. Sometimes they act like adults, sometimes like little children.

18. Whole Lotta Rosie &...

Lyrics

Wanna tell you a story
'Bout a woman I know
Ah, come to lovin'
Ooh, she steals the show
She ain't exactly pretty
Ain't exactly small
Forty-two, thirty-nine, fifty-six
You could say she's got it all!

Never had a woman
Never had a woman like you

Doing all the things
Doing all the things you do

Ain't no fairy story
Ain't no skin and bone

But you give it all you got
Weighing in at nineteen stone

You're a whole lotta woman
A whole lotta woman
Whole lotta Rosie
Whole lotta Rosie
Whole lotta Rosie
And you're a whole lotta woman

Oh honey you can do it
Do it to me all night long

Only wanna turn
Only wanna turn me on

All through the night time
And right around the clock
Whooh! To my surprise, Rosie never stops
You are a whole lotta woman
Whole lotta woman
Whole lotta Rosie
Whole lotta Rosie
Whole lotta Rosie
A whole lotta woman
Ohh yeah

Oh, you're a whole lotta woman
Whole Lotta woman
Whole lotta Rosie
Whole lotta Rosie
You're a whole lotta Rosie
Whole lotta woman-man-man-man-man
Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Whole Lotta Rosie
Whole lotta woman
Oh, whole lotta woman


I am not very familiar with AC/DC. As I've written before, I am not really a fan of hard rock. Yet from what I've seen and heard from AC/DC, they seem like a very fun group. They never seem to take themselves very seriously and every performance of theirs is filled with exuberant joy. Their songs seem to be above all about the fun of rocking the hell out (if that is even an expression). I was a bit surprised that this is the only AC/DC song in the top 2000, but the radio 2 listeners aren't really hard rock/metal fans either. My favorite AC/DC song is actually Highway to Hell. The lyrics of the song are an example of AC/DC's fun approach to rock. They tell a joky story about someone loving a fat woman named Rosie. To find a movie to link to this song was therefore the easiest thing in the world. It's a comedy about a man in love with a fat woman named Rosemarie. It wouldn't actually surprise if the name Rosemarie (who throughout the film is called Rosie) was chosen as a nod to this song.

The Movie: Shallow Hal (Peter & Bobby Farrelly, 2001)

People, sometimes quite understandably, hate the fact that on television we often get a lot of reruns of old shows. They are seen as an easy uncreative way to keep us glued on the television. This is probably right, but there have been many great shows, which many of us haven't actually seen and if it wasn't for reruns we wouldn't be familiar with them. I, for example, would have not been familiar with Seinfeld if it wasn't endlessly shown in reruns on television. And there have been very few shows, movies or books that have influenced my interaction with popular culture as much as Seinfeld. For example I don't think I would have appreciated Pulp Fiction (and other Tarantino movies) as much if it wasn't for Seinfeld. And through the show I've also learned that not every story necessarily have to follow logic, or be moral. I will someday write more about Seinfeld, but I bring this up because one character in Shallow Hal is played by Jason Alexander. He plays George Costanza, which is probably the best character on the show. And anytime you cast Jason Alexander in a comedy, the comedy is at a huge disadvantage from the start. The comedy has to be really great in order for you not to get distracted and think about how much better and funnier Jason Alexander was in Seinfeld. And how Seinfeld was much better and funnier than the comedy you are watching. Shallow Hal helps itself even less by turning Jason Alexanders character into a lighter version of George. Here he also is terrified insecure guy who obsesses over unimportant details. He breaks up with a woman, because her big toe is not her biggest toe.

Shallow Hal is unfortunately not on the same level as Seinfeld, but it is not a bad movie. I saw it once a long time ago and didn't like it. This time I found it much more interesting. It is also a nice follow-up of the previous movie I've discussed, Nurse Betty. Shallow Hal too, is, partly, about our own perception of things and about falling in love with our own fantasies. It's not often very funny, but I think the Farrellys were more interested in creating awkward situations than in creating funny ones. And they succeeded at it. This makes the movie sometimes so incredibly dark that it is quite surprising the Farrellys managed to get away with it. And if they had decided to make this a more dramatic, instead of comedic movie, they could have had made some kind of dark, utterly weird masterpiece.

The plot is fairly simple. Hal (Jack Black) vows on his father's deathbed to only go out with well-shaped women. This doesn't bring him much luck. So when in an elevator he meets Tony Robbins, a relationship guru, he makes Hal see the ' inner beauty' of women. This is meant literally, which means that if Hal meets a fat woman who is a good person, he will see her as a beautiful perfectly shaped woman. The problem for Hal is that he doesn't know that Robbins did this to him. So when he meets Rosemary a fat woman who helps children and works for some Amnesty International-like organization he sees her as Gwyneth Paltrow and thinks she is beautiful. Of course Rosemary knows she's fat and finds it a bit hard to believe that Hal will find her beautiful. But he seems sincere and so they start dating. This leads to some truly brilliant awkward and suspenseful scenes. You wouldn't expect scenes to be suspenseful in a romantic comedy, but here they are. Too many romantic comedies (or dramas) follow what Roger Ebert calls the Idiot Plot. This means that the lovers fight or can't get together because of some small misunderstanding that could have been easily solved if the characters didn't behave like idiots. Here the opposite happens. There actually should be misunderstandings that could drive Hal and Rosemary apart. And in each scene we expect something to go wrong with them. But since both Hal and Rosemary have been established as basically decent people we hope things will not go wrong. For a while the movie only consists of scenes in which the tension of something going wrong is built up, only to be released by the end of the scene. This would not work in most such comedies, but here the movie sticks to its own established logic. Thus it creates such awkwardness and, indeed, suspense that this is one of the few romantic comedies that at times have made me feel uneasy watching it. Unfortunately after these scenes culminate with a brilliantly dark scene in a restaurant the movie rushes towards a conventional third act with a slightly nonsensical happy ending. This is not the movie's only problem though. Especially in the scenes with Tony Robbins it is a bit too much on the nose and a bit too moralistic about how we perceive beauty in our current society. It is sometimes perhaps also a bit too judgmental. But on the whole I was pleasantly surprised by it.

17. Radar Love &...

Lyrics

I've been drivin' all night, my hands are wet on the wheel.
There's a voice in my head that drives my heel.
My baby call said I need you here.
It's half past four and I'm shifting gears.

When she's lonely and the longing gets too much,
She sends a cable coming in from above.
Don't need no phone at all.
We got a thing that's called radar love
We got a wave in the air
Radar love

The radio's playin' some forgotten song.
Brenda Lee's coming on strong.
The road has got me hypnotized,
As I spin into a new sunrise.

When I get lonely and I'm sure I've had enough,
She sends comfort coming in from above.
Don't need no letters at all.
We got a thing that's called radar love
We got a line in the sky
Radar love

No more speed I'm almost there.
Gotta keep cool, now, gotta take care.
Last car to pass, here I go.
The line of cars drove down real slow.
The radio plays that forgotten song.
Brenda Lee's coming on strong.
The news man sang his same song,
One more radar lover gone.

When I'm feeling lonely and I'm sure I've had enough.
She sends the comfort coming in from above.
Don't need no radio at all
We got a thing that's called radar love
We got a light in the sky
We got a thing and its called radar love
We got a thing that's called
Radar love


This is an enjoyable, but pretty forgettable song. I am not really a fan of Golden Earring, but it is quite unfortunate that there haven't been any other Dutch bands to follow in the rock footsteps of Golden Earring. This is probably the only Dutch band that consistently managed to make quality rock songs and that was quite successful at it. The lyrics made it pretty hard for me to link it to a logical movie and the video didn't make things easier either. Eventually I decided that you could make the case that the song is about a guy who thinks he can make love to a woman through the use of technology. The woman he is in love with could be a singer on the radio. There is actually a fairly recent movie where a woman is in love with a soap actor she has only seen on television, that fits this interpretation of the song.

The Movie: Nurse Betty (Neil LaBute, 2000)

Nurse Betty is the kind of movie I love the most. It is wildly inventive, unconventional and is often quite unique. It's plot may sometimes lack logic, but the director is more interested in making a point than in telling a conventional story. The movie can't be classified in one genre. It is sometimes melodrama, sometimes a harsh thriller and sometimes slapstick comedy. Sometimes it's all of this in one scene, yet it nearly always works. There are also some wonderful scenes, great performances and some great dialogue.

Betty is a naive, silly waitress, living in a crappy town in Kansas. Everyone is unhappy here. Not only because of the horribleness of the town, but also because they've resigned themselves to the fact that there lives won't change much. They will be forever stuck in this shithole in Kansas with their crappy jobs and lousy marriages. The only distraction in their lives is the trashy soap opera A Reason To Love. While they watch it they have the chance to escape their lives by fantasizing that maybe, someday they too will live in beautiful mansions in LA, have challenging jobs and be surrounded by beautiful people who will love them (at first sight). And Betty may be the biggest A Reason to Love fan in town. She is especially smitten by a character called Dr. David Ravell. One day while watching the soap her white trash no-good husband is brought home from his work by two hired criminals who want to retrieve some drugs he's stolen. The confrontation doesn't end well and Betty's husband is killed. This is witnessed by Betty, who gets in shock. She can't distinguish the real world from the soap opera anymore and thinks that everything David Ravell said in the soap was meant for her and that he is her ex-fiancee. So she sets out to L.A. to find and marry him. When the two killers find out Betty was a witness to their crime they go on a search to find and kill her The confrontation between the two killers (Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock(!) ) and Betty's husband is a fantastic scene. It's wonderfully written, incredibly tense and performed fantastically by everyone involved. It is, I would even say, on the same level as the first scene in Pulp Fiction.

The movie is thus about how we fantasize about having another, better more successful life than our real one. We create images in our head of the perfect different lives we could lead. The movie is not very subtle about this. Not just Betty, but every character we meet is chasing a fantasy of some other life he or she hopes lead. Morgan Freeman's character for example is projecting a fantasy of innocence and purity on Betty. In a scene we see him having an imaginary dance with her. By finding and loving her he hopes that his life as an awful criminal could somehow end and that she will somehow make him a better more decent person. 'Dr. David Ravell' is a soap opera actor who dreams that one day A Reason to Love will become truly great and rise above the trash that it is. So when Betty meets him on a party and addresses him as his character quoting lines from the show he doesn't see her as a deranged person, but as a brilliant actress who auditions for the show and who can stay convincingly in character for more then three hours. This was by the way of the funniest scenes I have recently seen. It's interesting that the movie only makes the point that we are all chasing fantasies of other lives, but doesn't say that this is necessarily a bad thing. Morgan Freeman gets killed because of his naive belief that he can make his life better through Betty, but sometimes chasing a fantasy can really make our lives better. As a waitress for example tells Betty she fell in love with the Italy of the books and movies. This made her eventually visit Italy. And while it may not have been like in the books or in the movies and while she is still a waitress, she had visited Italy and that was a great experience for her. It was the highlight of her life. And Betty eventually escapes the horrible life in Kansas and gets a role in A Reason to Love.

Some minor notes to end. I liked how much of this film is shot in the style of a soap opera. It is full of bright colors and bright lighting. And the house interiors are deliberately made to look more like movie sets of house interiors than real house interiors.
The actors are brilliant. Greg Kinnear and Renee Zellweger as David and Betty can play this kind of role in their sleep. But I was surprised how good Chris Rock is at playing a killer. And Morgan Freeman has recently had some unchallenging and boring roles. But here he reminds us that he can be (and is) a really great actor.

16. Hey Jude &...

Lyrics

Hey Jude, don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better

Hey Jude, don't be afraid
You were made to go out and get her
The minute you let her under your skin
Then you begin to make it better

And anytime you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain
Don't carry the world upon your shoulders
For well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool
By making his world a little colder
Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah

Hey Jude, don't let me down
You have found her, now go and get her
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better

So let it out and let it in, hey Jude, begin
You're waiting for someone to perform with
And don't you know that it's just you, hey Jude, you'll do
The movement you need is on your shoulder
Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah yeah

Hey Jude, don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her under your skin
Then you'll begin to make it
Better better better better better better, oh


As I have written earlier I understand that the Beatles are a truly great group. I just don't really like most of their songs very much. And while Hey Jude is their highest ranked song in this list, it is also my least favorite song of them. Listening to the Beatles I often find that their music lacks some sort of edge. Their songs are a bit too sweet and too nice. It feels as if they are songs that should be sung by mothers when they put their little children to bed. And to me there probably isn't a better song that illustrates this then Hey Jude. It's also way too long. Anyway, I've probably made clear that you shouldn't take me very seriously when it comes to talking about the Beatles, so let's just move on to the corresponding film. It is one of the better recent romantic comedies and it stars among others Jude Law, who in the movie indeed does his best to leave a happy life again after being struck by tragedy.

The Movie: The Holiday (Nancy Meyers, 2006)

In many mainstream romantic movies there are often some ideas and values that are being taken for granted. The characters aren't really 'allowed' to think for themselves whether they should always behave according to these values and ideas. When it comes to adultery for example it is often naturally implied that the victim of the adultery should leave his/her partner. This is made very explicit at the beginning of these movie when Amanda (Cameron Diaz) literally says to her cheating boyfriend that he should know that 'in the world of love cheating is not acceptable' as if there is some sort of official law regarding the world of love. Now I am not going to claim that cheating is good or anything, but that does not mean that any couple that has experienced such problems should be obliged to break up or to fight each other. This is just one example, but many movies present certain ideas and values as being universally true and right, which means that we should always act in accordance with these values. This doesn't make a movie good or bad, but, especially if I've already seen the movie once, I find it more fun to focus on what values the movie takes for granted, rather then on the story.

The plot of The Holiday isn't very surprising. Amanada from L.A. and Iris (Kate Winslet) from Surrey have romantic problems and decide to switch houses for the Christmas holidays. In Surrey Amanda meets Iris'' brother Graham (Jude Law) and in L.A. Iris meets Miles (Jack Black). It's clear that these people will in the end get together. But all these characters are well written. They are all intelligent, pleasant people, and the movie provides them with good dialogue. Even more importantly the movie avoids creating unnecessary drama. There are no stupid misunderstandings and the characters are never forced to behave irrationally stupid to create more dramatic tension. The actors are also well suited. It's a bit hard to believe, but Kate Winslet and Jack Black make a very credible romantic couple. I don't always like Jack Black, he is often a bit too manic, but when he dials it down he brings just enough energy to his role and he can be very good. Soon I'll discuss a film in which he is more annoying. Kate Winslet is a great and beautiful actress who here succesfully plays a character who is, probably,  very much the opposite of Kate Winslet. Iris is a simple, slightly old-fashioned amd insecure girl from Surrey, who marvels at all the things L.A. has to offer and doesn't know much about film (but is eager to learn). I also found it a nice touch that she swims in a one-piece bathing suit.

While Iris may not much about movies, this movie does know and care much more about film (history) then most romantic comedies. It has wise things to say about the power of film and how films are made and sold. This leads to something interesting. In many mainstream movies, most of the characters don't discuss other mainstream famous films. And while there are obviously references to other movies the charcaters are mostly unaware that these films exist. In the Holiday various Oscar winners like Chariots of Fire or Casablanca are mentioned and discussed by the characters. So The Holiday takes place in a world in which the Oscar-winning movies exist. In a scene at a video store Jack Black charms Kate Winslet by singing the music from all kinds of famous films he finds at the store. At one point he sings Mrs. Robinson and we cut to a cameo by a slightly annoyed Dustin Hoffman. It's a funny scene. I only hoped that at some point they would make Jack Black sing My Heart Will Go On with a copy of Titanic in his hands.

15. Imagine &...

Lyrics

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one


I am not really a fan of the Beatles, but I do actually like what John Lennon and Paul McCartney have done outside of the Beatles. This is a great song and however naive and unpractical its message often is, its heart is in the right place. I do not think that Lennon truly believes in everything he sings about in this song. I don't think anyone really does. But he sings as if he truly believes in it and that is all that matters. The movie I chose to link to this song is a movie I saw some parts from a while ago. These parts represented a world that felt as close to Lennon's imagined world as I've ever seen in a movie. After seeing the  complete movie, I think this is one of the most logical links I've made in the still short life of this blog.

The Movie: Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme, 2008)

One could call Rachel Getting Married a celebration of the American multicultural society. But that doesn't do justice to how progressive the mindset of this movie really is. A multicultural society usually means a society in which different cultures live peacefully next to each other and in which the norms and values of all these cultures are respected. Rachel Getting Married presents an American society in which there is one American culture, existing of blacks, whites, Asian-Americans and Arab-Americans, living together in unison. It does this so succesfully because it actually doesn't try to make any kind of statement about this. Let me explain this. In basically all films regarding interracial relations (of any kind) everything that happens is put in a larger context. If we see two people from two different races mary, for example, that is presented as a triumph for the whole (American) society and it is regarded as something special. This doesn't happen at all in Rachel Getting Married. It puts no emphasis on the fact that people of all races attend this wedding and that it is infact an interracial marriage that is happening. The race of the people is basically completely ignored. The people attending this wedding are celebrating simply because it is a happy event and they love and care for each other. The wedding wouldn't be any different if it was a completely white couple getting married. The peole attending it are presented as above all Americans, or even human beings. Thus by not making any explicit statements about race and racial differences Rachel Getting Married completely normalizes racial differences. It doesn't matter at all whether you are black or white as long as you are a good person. I don't know for sure whether there is a song in the top 2000 about Martin Luther King. If there is I've wasted the best possible link to that song. It's hard to find another movie that is so much in the spirit of King's famous line: I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.


I haven't got much else to say about this movie, so I'll end with two notes
Even ignoring its presentation of race this is an incredibly joyous movie, filled with great music. The movie has a lot of love for its characters and rightly so. These are all wonderful people. They don't only celebrate the marriage of Rachel and Sydney, but also the fact that they are all there together having fun.
The main storyline of the movie isn't even Rachel's marriage, but the fact that Kym, Rachel's sister is attending it. Kym is a recovering addict who is allowed to leave rehab for a day. The movie is actually pretty conventional in the representation of Kym. There is nothing wrong with this and she is presented with a lot of warmth and sympathy. But there is nothing we haven't seen in  other portrayals of addiction. Kym is played by Anne Hathaway, an actress I usually dislike quite a lot. But here she does give a great performance and her Oscar nomination is very much deserved.

14. Nothing Else Matters &...

Lyrics

So close, no matter how far
Couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
and nothing else matters

Never opened myself this way
Life is ours, we live it our way
All these words I don't just say
and nothing else matters

Trust I seek and I find in you
Every day for us something new
Open mind for a different view
and nothing else matters

never cared for what they do
never cared for what they know
but I know

So close, no matter how far
Couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
and nothing else matters

never cared for what they do
never cared for what they know
but I know

Never opened myself this way
Life is ours, we live it our way
All these words I don't just say

Trust I seek and I find in you
Every day for us, something new
Open mind for a different view
and nothing else matters

never cared for what they say
never cared for games they play
never cared for what they do
never cared for what they know
and I know

So close, no matter how far
Couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
No, nothing else matters


This is a great song by a band I don't really like. I am not really a fan of hard rock/metal.
Metal music is very often associated with horror. So the movie I chose to link this song with is a straightforward drama by a director usually associated with twisted horror(-like) movies.

The Movie: The Straight Story (David Lynch, 1999)

The Straight Story is a movie about 73-year old Alvin Straight who goes on a 377 mile journey from Laurens, Iowa to Mount Zion, Wisconsin, to visit his brother who recently had a stroke. His mode of transportation during this trip is a lawnmower. I may be a bit too much of pragmatic, but one of the reasons I didn't really like this movie was Alvin's completely irrational insistence to travel by lawnmower. It's stupid and unnecessary. He is not a poor man. He buys the lawnmower for 325 dollars and when it breaks down pays another 180 dollars to repair it. And he still seems to have lots of money left. He is also not very healthy. He needs two canes to walk properly and has all kinds of other problems. As you can see there is no reason to not take a bus. And at one point he is actually offered a free ride to Mt. Zion which he refuses. The movie presents Alvin's journey as a heroic one by a man who always stays true to himself. And of course being yourself is the most important virtue, right? Well, not if you are in a hurry to see your brother who might die soon and who you haven't seen in 10 years because of a falling out. The movie cannot both claim that Alvin wants to see his brother very much and that his traveling there by lawnmower is a good, heroic thing. When he is offered a ride he is already a month on his way without having a clue whether his brother still lives or not.

There is more wrong with the movie. On his journey Alvin meets all kinds of people who he teaches all kinds of 'valuable' life lessons. His life lessons though are the kinds of cliches you can hear uttered by television doctors who want to be the next Dr. Phil. The movie pretends that these are some kind of profound statements he makes. 'The worst thing about being old is remembering that you were young' Alvin says and the young man hearing it, gives him a contemplative look. That statement forever changed his life. And in one, for some reason very darkly lit night scene, so we can hardly see anything, Alvin meets a girl who ran away from home 5 months earlier. Alvin tells her the following story: "I'd give each one of 'em a stick and, one for each one of 'em, then I'd say, 'You break that.' Course they could real easy. Then I'd say, 'Tie them sticks in a bundle and try to break that.' Course they couldn't. Then I'd say, "That bundle... that's family." This story is hundreds, if not thousands years old. The very next morning the girl has gone, leaving Alvin with bundled sticks. Oh, please.

I am curious what exactly attracted David Lynch to direct this movie. He is a director of absurd, twisted, dreamlike movies that often go into the realm of horror. Besides this one I have also seen his Blue Velvet en Mulholland Dr and I think Blue Velvet is a really great movie. I was too young when I saw Mulholland Dr. and did not like it. Watching this movie I sometimes thought that Lynch was aware of how absurd and stupid this movie actually is. Is this some sort of elaborate joke by Lynch? The movie's beginning scenes are actually very similar to the beginning scenes of Blue Velvet. We see a montage of an ordinary American town and its ordinary citizens. It's fun to think, but most probably not true, that Lynch might have intended this movie as a parody of itself. That he read the screenplay and thought to kid around a bit with the audience. He would make the audience believe that he made a conventional straightforward drama. And he would be lauded for this, because he stepped outside his comfort zone. But secretly this conventional straightforward drama would often be just as absurd and insane as many as his other movies, like Blue Velvet. And nobody would notice this. In any case, if in 1999 you wouldn't know anything about the movie and be familiar with Lynch and heard that he made a movie called The Straight Story, chances are you'd think the title was some kind of joke. Unfortunately as I said, this is most probably not true and this is just a bad movie. If there is anything positive about it it is that David Lynch is a great visual director. There are some really wonderful shots and if there was no dialogue at all the movie could have worked as a love letter to the landscapes and people of the American Midwest. The scene below is actually quite beautiful.

13. Brothers in Arms &...

Lyrics

These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands
And always will be
Some day you'll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And you'll no longer burn
To be brothers in arms

Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
I've witnessed your suffering
As the battles raged higher
And though they hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms

There's so many different words
So many different songs
We have just one world
But we live in different ones

Now the sun's gone to hill
And the moon's riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it's written in the starlight
And every line on your palm
We're fools to make war
On our brothers in arms


The Dire Straits are awesome. This isn't my favorite Dire Straits song, but it still is a powerful anti-war song. It was written as a response to the pointless Falkland War between UK and Argentina in the 1980's. Unfortunately, unlike America and the Vietnam War, the British have hardly made any movies made about this war. The Argentinians have made one major movie about it, Blessed by Fire. Unfortunately I could not find it subtitled. So I had to choose a movie about another war. I chose World War I. That is not a very random choice. Lyrically this song is reminiscent of poems written during World War I by British poets. I don't know much about poetry, but in high school during English classes we once discussed British poetry during World War I. I unfortunately haven't remembered much of it, but I do remember that these poets focused a lot on the fact that the British were going to fight in places far away from home. And the horrid war-torn landscapes of these places were described very vividly in these poems. One of the most famous of these poems is probably Rupert Brooke's The Soldier. Especially the first lines of it: 'If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field that is for ever England.' I think that especially the first part of Brothers in Arms is very reminiscent of these poems. Besides this the phrase brothers in arms is often very much associated with the World War I. Due to the horrible life in the trenches many soldiers saw each other as brothers in arms. And as the war progressed, the cause of it seemed more and more pointless and many soldiers began to see their enemy soldiers as brothers in arms too. They only fought and killed them, because their superiors told them to and because otherwise they would be killed themselves.

The Movie: Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)

As you may have guessed from the former paragraph, one of my favorite subjects during my History classes was World War I. I still do know a lot about it. This may be why I found Paths of Glory to be the most disappointing Kubrick film I've seen. It's by no means a bad film, but it's not really great either. Kubrick is not much interested in creating an interesting story or making us care about the characters. He uses the plot and the characters only to make a point about (the) war. I don't think this is wrong. In fact I actually think that using your characters and plot to say something about something, as opposed to simply tell a story about the lives of these characters that will make us care about them, is the most interesting way to use them. I would argue that this is exactly what Tarantino does in Inglourious Basterds, which may be my favorite film. The problem is that what Kubrick has to say about the war here doesn't really go much further then what we've learned in high school. More importantly, he doesn't say it in a really interesting way. Before I started to watch I was surprised that the movie was only 88 minutes long. After I watched it I thought it could have been way shorter.

IMDB gives the following plot summary of the movie: 'When soldiers in WW1 refuse to continue with an impossible attack, their superiors decide to make an example of them.' This simple sentence is actually the perfect summary of what happens in the movie. Though it's important to note that there is one superior who does defend the soldiers. This is the hero of the movie, Colonel Dax, played by Kirk Douglas. Kubrick uses the plot to say two major things about the war. First of all, Kubrick claims that everything about the war was justified by invoking (often false) feelings of patriotism and nationalism. When for example the soldiers are tried in a 'court' for cowardice their superiors claim that they have to be found guilty, because they are a shame to France. They neglected to fight for their country and thus let their nation and their people down. This is how every country that fought in the war justified its fighting in it. They had to participate in it, because they had to show that they were a great and prideful nation, that was better and greater than other nations. Thus if you refused to fight for your nation, you undermined it and were a disgrace to it. In the final and best scene of the movie Kubrick shows how stupid this line of thinking was (and still is). A bunch of French soldiers have come together to rest a bit in a tavern, when a captured German female singer is brought to entertain them. First she is made fun off and called all kinds of derisive things. But when she starts singing some German song she moves the soldiers to tears and they start humming along to it. The scene shows that the differences between nations are so marginal and unimportant that they can easily be transcended. This of course makes the war incredibly futile and meaningless. And not only do we realize this, so do the soldiers in the tavern, which makes the scene even more sad.

Secondly Kubrick makes the claim that there was a huge dissonance between the soldiers and their superiors. While the soldiers were send on all kinds of dangerous and irresponsible missions, the arrogant superiors hardly experienced the dangers of the war. They could live with losing 55% of their soldiers if the mission succeeded. And while the superiors sold the idea of fighting for France's pride, they themselves hardly cared about France. The main reason for their desire to win a battle was that their status would increase if they won it. Kubrick also makes this dissonance clear with his depiction of the living and 'working' conditions of the soldiers and their superiors. We see the generals and colonels in beautiful, lavish palaces, eating fine foods and attending gallant dances. On the other hand there are the soldiers who live miserably in the trenches. In a long take we follow a general walking through the trenches, inspecting his troops (the only time we actually see a general there) and see all the misery and destruction there.

Lastly some minor notes. While I didn't find the movie that special, it certainly had an impact when it came out. Because of its depiction of the French army, it was forbidden in France until 1975. Germany and Spain also forbade it for some time. The first one because it didn't want to strain its relationship with France. The second one because Franco objected to the anti-militarism in it.
It is astonishing how much Kirk Douglas looks like his son Michael. Before you say d'oh, I understand that fathers and sons are supposed to look like one another, but if you were to make an exact remake of this film with only Michael Douglas, instead of his father, it would be hard to notice.
I once read an interesting observation that it is really hard to make a satisfying movie with a happy ending about World War I. After all most of the characters would be screwed again 20 years later during World War 2. If not earlier. The interbellum was not a very happy period either.