for her part, she liked her boobies. -- Virginia Woolf, one hundred fifty pages in prior to the stones in her coat
Au contraire, Rotten Tomatoes, Grauman and Davis created the first real anti-metropolis film of its kind with Lady in a Cage, a stark black and white with an uber realism to countermand a certain Shakespearean absurdity. This is a film that imprints itself in utero, exposing liberalism for what it is, a crock in the eddy of self interest. There is a little Sunset Blvd, here, consciously or otherwise, upgraded to be a little less exaggerated, closer to the big NE or Midwest cityscape, with a dash of Chaplin. but for the fact that Grauman wasn't offering viewers a digestible farce. Lady is closer to an existential travesty, its hint of mother son incest translatable, as it is always translatable for aging glamour girls, as di Haviland biding farewell to regal beauty, and James Caan saying hello, an imitable Brando who always has a streak of malevolence, whether he is the good guy or not. He's mean, cowed only by more ruthless brawn.
Davis pulls a few strings, even for a 53 year old film. Fences would not normally be as brazen as Mr. Paul, but this movie is otherwise chilling for its honesty in relation to crowd theory and unwillingness to act, how the underclass preys on vulnerability, the aging, makes lack of functionality,expendable, namely with the death of the wino who precipitated the home invasion. Just as with the dead dog in the opening, we gaze in curiosity before we'll help, or act, sucking the life's blood out of those we can.
I conveyed to Sims, little center city big man, that I'd go to his job fair tomorrow, and for that, ought to lie down, knowing I will not really sleep, nor probably be treated with any receptive interest, even if I perfume. The faces of my former mental health consumers have carved themselves into my sad, anxious gaze, with my deep passive aggressive contempt. None of what I've been through since I moved to Temple University is Brian's fault, but if I could hold his attention for 30 minutes god help the man. Why?
I am not sure. I'm 52, with violent dumps which intimate I ain't getting anywhere near Oliver Sacks terminal old age, the mortal guru of equanimity, and it is not precise to label my state legislator an adversary, as such. His Gnosticism hasn't harmed me, but if I had the nerve, which, tomorrow, I shall not, I'd tell him this equal treatment for orientation business is just more Orwellian comfort food. Brian could pass as anything, a partner for Deloitte & Touche, but no. Gay identity is but party noise. When the world can look past me as a spastic savant? Not possible.
Showing posts with label james caan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label james caan. Show all posts
Thursday, May 7, 2015
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Grace Quigley's Cheekbones
"People don't make any sense."-- Dennis Quaid, mise en scene with emotionally disheartened second wife.
Steve Kloves creates a few mystifying scenes in Flesh and Bone, a last decade vehicle that, off the top of my head, has a reminiscent affinity to Arthur Miller's ruthlessness in The Misfits. The boy with the scalp contusion who opens the film is complaisant, and it is possibly arguable he did not have to be so pliant before Caan sucks the air out of the void with grim annihilation. Caan's later admission, that he forgot about the screaming baby, in order to sustain the plot, veers close to being a mere device, and when we then see the adult Quaid as a relatively decent cow poke with a quixotic vending trade, there is little to avail oneself as to why the boy stayed decent under the influence of a malicious sociopathy. And then, towards the movie climax, we have Meg Ryan and the symbolism of wading through the grass with Gywneth Paltrow. Say what?
Yet the narrative resonates, much as does the menace in Caan's eyes, the superstar Sony Corleone of my childhood. Some younger viewers may not realize The Godfather trilogy was like a modern American Wagner in the 1970's. I was convinced, thoroughly, after seeing the saga, that my father knew real Don Angelo Bruno and was a capotone, and if he knew I was making this admission public, he would disown me, though he's disowned me countless of times.
Quaid appeals. Generic all American, John Wayne with a more meritocratic range, teaching us about how to shoulder horrific burdens of any consequence. He does shoulder it within an American frontier that still seems barren, vast, free, turning ape men into methodical predators willing to cut to the chase. Cope with the cost. No nonsense, thick skulls. This is where The Misfits enters into Kloves design, at least stylistically. Not to put too fine a point on it. Miller was being stark and bleak with his black and white film of damned aspiration and notorious portents. Kloves is stark, but offers the possibility of redemption, but for whom is left ambiguously open. Caan's Sweeney is shunned, feared, manipulative with blame-- and yet is accepted, tolerated as he games basic decency, slowly losing his grip, tended to out of familial duty, and killed with a great deal of courage by a man who would never possibly be able to offer an innocent, but instinctively attuned, survivor anything for the loss of her full potential due to the death of her family. Quaid's Arlis stays sealed in what is an affecting conclusion that hits its mark. Does he deserve being a swindled scapegoat? Could he have done more as a moral, ethical matter? The dog smelled and recognized the child's damnation. Our own manipulation of evolutionary trait functioning as our moral arbiters.
Steve Kloves creates a few mystifying scenes in Flesh and Bone, a last decade vehicle that, off the top of my head, has a reminiscent affinity to Arthur Miller's ruthlessness in The Misfits. The boy with the scalp contusion who opens the film is complaisant, and it is possibly arguable he did not have to be so pliant before Caan sucks the air out of the void with grim annihilation. Caan's later admission, that he forgot about the screaming baby, in order to sustain the plot, veers close to being a mere device, and when we then see the adult Quaid as a relatively decent cow poke with a quixotic vending trade, there is little to avail oneself as to why the boy stayed decent under the influence of a malicious sociopathy. And then, towards the movie climax, we have Meg Ryan and the symbolism of wading through the grass with Gywneth Paltrow. Say what?
Yet the narrative resonates, much as does the menace in Caan's eyes, the superstar Sony Corleone of my childhood. Some younger viewers may not realize The Godfather trilogy was like a modern American Wagner in the 1970's. I was convinced, thoroughly, after seeing the saga, that my father knew real Don Angelo Bruno and was a capotone, and if he knew I was making this admission public, he would disown me, though he's disowned me countless of times.
Quaid appeals. Generic all American, John Wayne with a more meritocratic range, teaching us about how to shoulder horrific burdens of any consequence. He does shoulder it within an American frontier that still seems barren, vast, free, turning ape men into methodical predators willing to cut to the chase. Cope with the cost. No nonsense, thick skulls. This is where The Misfits enters into Kloves design, at least stylistically. Not to put too fine a point on it. Miller was being stark and bleak with his black and white film of damned aspiration and notorious portents. Kloves is stark, but offers the possibility of redemption, but for whom is left ambiguously open. Caan's Sweeney is shunned, feared, manipulative with blame-- and yet is accepted, tolerated as he games basic decency, slowly losing his grip, tended to out of familial duty, and killed with a great deal of courage by a man who would never possibly be able to offer an innocent, but instinctively attuned, survivor anything for the loss of her full potential due to the death of her family. Quaid's Arlis stays sealed in what is an affecting conclusion that hits its mark. Does he deserve being a swindled scapegoat? Could he have done more as a moral, ethical matter? The dog smelled and recognized the child's damnation. Our own manipulation of evolutionary trait functioning as our moral arbiters.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)