"The various kinds of sovereignty do not necessarily covary."-- Stephen D. Krasner
Frankenheimer's direction in The Horsemen is not necessarily New Wave, but it could not have been what it is without David Lean coming beforehand, and now stands as a favorite of spastic's hothead youth, previously unknown but for nostalgia television. The cinematography is rich, splendid, in colors of beauty and brutality, its thematic aims not so clearly deciphered, not quite about man's destructive capacity with his livestock either. Who knew camels would kill each other at the behest of their trainers?
Frankenheimer seems to focus solely on man and beast in contention, without tipping the scales one way or the other. It is left for viewers to wonder why Omar's Uraz chooses to cripple himself instead of mending properly after breaking his leg, but it is similar to the way I may choose to bring this to an end and dump myself on the street. Obstinate individuals need the contest, and yet Uraz makes it extreme. After he has a concealed amputation and a victory ride on Jahil, the game trained warrior horse of his father, he rejects his village and goes off with a Taliban-like mountain herder who trains his goat to be a lethal killer at the bong of a drum roll. It is a weird quiet film that admires the defiance of natural anarchy as a way of life, something quietly eroded in progressive sensibility, and yet beneath the surface, the wealth of the developed world is under tremendous strain, analogous to the ephemeral doll like perfection of Leigh Taylor Young in Soylent Green. Given the actual state of civilization depicted on location, it is the actress as a trophy fuck who seems unreal, almost as if doctored for a commercial. Her upkeep must have cost a fortune, and her fate, left to its inferences as Charlton is carried away, wounded, mortally or not, protesting the horror of manufactured cannibalism. I'm not the first person to point out that liberalism unwilling to recognize limits invites catastrophe.
The conception of sovereignty is nonsensical, but some states are more sorereign than others. After 9/11, once I had all the facts, I actually would not have occupied Kabul. We should have wiped out Saudi Arabia, and the subsequent genealogy of events would have been different. Afghanistan, as a state, doesn't seem to function, and as with anything else, nation builders need to get out of the way.
Showing posts with label the horseman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the horseman. Show all posts
Friday, July 31, 2015
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Tribunes
"In recent years the star, suffering from Alzheimer's, revealed he was lonely."--Sara Malm
Policy analysts should respect foreign film releases as predicates, and The Horsemen is one of those which might have served as a bolt pistol extension to the brain of the 43rd president, not that our 44th is on much more hallowed ground.
One can understand Omar's vast plateau of superstardom as not contradictory to his loneliness. Who might have ameliorated that loneliness? Would primarily Caucasian westerners have braved the latter day Nubian people in their sciatic dissipation to comfort him? One of his earlier roles, little discussed, perhaps because the film was badly made, not willing to address its own implications, was as the Spanish priest in Behold A Pale Horse, about the residue of Franco's victory. Everything is over by this time-- the time of the film-- though Vietnam was still brewing in the kettle while this black and white docu-drama was assembled, and Omar's character escapes with his life. Peck's Republican partisan doesn't kill him, and the fascist forces are reluctant to antagonize the Catholic Church, giving Sharif a certain ambidextrous fluidity.
Someone in Bush'es cabinet, and why not Dr. Rice, should have consulted a humanist after the shock of 9/11 and played The Horsemen for The Decider. The .02 percent of his literate hemisphere might have listened to Omar's role as the obstinate rider. You do not invade Afghanistan if you pay attention to the coda herein, whether Russian or American. Tight lipped.
No obituary post the evening his death made the wire. He was already an acculturated mummy entombed, despite his last major role. Unlike Bacall, Sharif was finished as a bankable name after thrillers like Juggernaut came and went. It is the thickened beat in your arteries, the Arabic everyman who never got to be himself until he was far past the age where it might have mattered.
Policy analysts should respect foreign film releases as predicates, and The Horsemen is one of those which might have served as a bolt pistol extension to the brain of the 43rd president, not that our 44th is on much more hallowed ground.
One can understand Omar's vast plateau of superstardom as not contradictory to his loneliness. Who might have ameliorated that loneliness? Would primarily Caucasian westerners have braved the latter day Nubian people in their sciatic dissipation to comfort him? One of his earlier roles, little discussed, perhaps because the film was badly made, not willing to address its own implications, was as the Spanish priest in Behold A Pale Horse, about the residue of Franco's victory. Everything is over by this time-- the time of the film-- though Vietnam was still brewing in the kettle while this black and white docu-drama was assembled, and Omar's character escapes with his life. Peck's Republican partisan doesn't kill him, and the fascist forces are reluctant to antagonize the Catholic Church, giving Sharif a certain ambidextrous fluidity.
Someone in Bush'es cabinet, and why not Dr. Rice, should have consulted a humanist after the shock of 9/11 and played The Horsemen for The Decider. The .02 percent of his literate hemisphere might have listened to Omar's role as the obstinate rider. You do not invade Afghanistan if you pay attention to the coda herein, whether Russian or American. Tight lipped.
No obituary post the evening his death made the wire. He was already an acculturated mummy entombed, despite his last major role. Unlike Bacall, Sharif was finished as a bankable name after thrillers like Juggernaut came and went. It is the thickened beat in your arteries, the Arabic everyman who never got to be himself until he was far past the age where it might have mattered.
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