Last night watched The Aviator. It's Scorsese's usual mix of short, pregnant sequences, showy performances, rapid-fire dialogue, busy, self-important tracking shots and gratingly juxtaposed pieces of music, all working very hard to conceal the lack of real ideas or humanity. It's a game he's been playing since at least GoodFellas, but I suppose he figures, if it works... Or, as Howard Hughes puts it: 'I got a tiger by the tail, here, I'm not gonna let it go.'
That said, the early scene in which Hughes/DiCaprio seduces the cigarette girl, Thelma (Josie Maran) by staring into her eyes, touching her with his fingertips, and telling her he wants to learn how to give her pleasure ('Would you give me that job?') is worth the price of entry by itself. I have said it before and I'll say it again: the cinema alone is capable of showing this with such suddenness, such power, such irrefutable logic.
My favourite comment on The Aviator was by the great Carloss James Chamberlin, in an article that you can read here, where he wrote:
'hanks for the informative three-hour lecture on the producer as auteur, Professor Scorsese. That Howard Hughes was quite a fellow, wasn't he? Rather daring to posit Hughes as the spiritual forefather of the big, bad, really expensive movies that Tinseltown likes to make. Brilliant!! But, do you really think the Academy likes to have its face rubbed in self-referential existential angst at Oscar time? As long as it's glossy? Hah-hah. That's a good one, Professor. What a genius, Ladies and Gentlemen. A genius. But there's one little oversight. Didn't you read the fine print? Mephistopheles owns your ass, now!! You'll only make vapid, shitty movies like this one for the rest of YOUR MISERABLE LIFE!!'
I enjoyed this article (which is actually about Million Dollar Baby) so much that I sent Mr Chamberlin a piece of fan mail, and was overjoyed when he replied. He didn't write again, though, when I suggested we collaborate...
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This morning I woke to convulsive sneezing, afraid I was coming down with a cold. This could have something to do with the fact that, despite being supposedly in the height of summer, it feels like the depths of October in this cold, damp, grey weather. This fucking country...
The sniffles didn't develop into anything, although I did feel lethargic and spacey all day, which doesn't bode well. Yoga helped a little, as did macaroni with roasted vegetables. Things could be worse, after all...
Passed the evening with Franois Truffaut's featherlite L'Argent de poche, a portrait of a group of kids in a small French town in 1976. There's nothing much to it, except for a load of cutesy observational scenes of children up to mischief. But since when did ten and twelve year old children do algebra (do algebra, not do algebra) and recite Molire? What happened to education in the west?
Also, I'm struck by the costumes of all these kids, the way their over-the-ears haircuts, their fitted T-shirts, skinny Fred Perrys and wide-lapelled, bright-coloured shirts have an effortless style that we'd kill for today. Did the 1970s really look like this? Bright blocks of primary colour running around all over the place? It must have been quite cheery (apart from, y'know, the global economic recession. And the prog rock.)
Then, right at the end, there's a long (and completely dramatically implausible) speech by the great Jean-Franois Stvenin, in which he explains that it's because he had such a hard, unpleasant childhood that he became a teacher in order to prepare other children for lifein the adult world. He points out that individuals who have it tough in childhood are often better prepared for adulthood than those who have been loved and protected, 'it's a sort of law of compensation'.
And this gets me to thinking, rather sadly, about how Andrea, for all her forgetfulness and disorganization, for all her alcoholism and semi-legal escapades, for all her self-doubt born of repeated betrayals, is so much better at life than I, with my supportive parents and steady career progression and good credit rating, will ever be.
That said, the early scene in which Hughes/DiCaprio seduces the cigarette girl, Thelma (Josie Maran) by staring into her eyes, touching her with his fingertips, and telling her he wants to learn how to give her pleasure ('Would you give me that job?') is worth the price of entry by itself. I have said it before and I'll say it again: the cinema alone is capable of showing this with such suddenness, such power, such irrefutable logic.
My favourite comment on The Aviator was by the great Carloss James Chamberlin, in an article that you can read here, where he wrote:
'hanks for the informative three-hour lecture on the producer as auteur, Professor Scorsese. That Howard Hughes was quite a fellow, wasn't he? Rather daring to posit Hughes as the spiritual forefather of the big, bad, really expensive movies that Tinseltown likes to make. Brilliant!! But, do you really think the Academy likes to have its face rubbed in self-referential existential angst at Oscar time? As long as it's glossy? Hah-hah. That's a good one, Professor. What a genius, Ladies and Gentlemen. A genius. But there's one little oversight. Didn't you read the fine print? Mephistopheles owns your ass, now!! You'll only make vapid, shitty movies like this one for the rest of YOUR MISERABLE LIFE!!'
I enjoyed this article (which is actually about Million Dollar Baby) so much that I sent Mr Chamberlin a piece of fan mail, and was overjoyed when he replied. He didn't write again, though, when I suggested we collaborate...
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
This morning I woke to convulsive sneezing, afraid I was coming down with a cold. This could have something to do with the fact that, despite being supposedly in the height of summer, it feels like the depths of October in this cold, damp, grey weather. This fucking country...
The sniffles didn't develop into anything, although I did feel lethargic and spacey all day, which doesn't bode well. Yoga helped a little, as did macaroni with roasted vegetables. Things could be worse, after all...
Passed the evening with Franois Truffaut's featherlite L'Argent de poche, a portrait of a group of kids in a small French town in 1976. There's nothing much to it, except for a load of cutesy observational scenes of children up to mischief. But since when did ten and twelve year old children do algebra (do algebra, not do algebra) and recite Molire? What happened to education in the west?
Also, I'm struck by the costumes of all these kids, the way their over-the-ears haircuts, their fitted T-shirts, skinny Fred Perrys and wide-lapelled, bright-coloured shirts have an effortless style that we'd kill for today. Did the 1970s really look like this? Bright blocks of primary colour running around all over the place? It must have been quite cheery (apart from, y'know, the global economic recession. And the prog rock.)
Then, right at the end, there's a long (and completely dramatically implausible) speech by the great Jean-Franois Stvenin, in which he explains that it's because he had such a hard, unpleasant childhood that he became a teacher in order to prepare other children for lifein the adult world. He points out that individuals who have it tough in childhood are often better prepared for adulthood than those who have been loved and protected, 'it's a sort of law of compensation'.
And this gets me to thinking, rather sadly, about how Andrea, for all her forgetfulness and disorganization, for all her alcoholism and semi-legal escapades, for all her self-doubt born of repeated betrayals, is so much better at life than I, with my supportive parents and steady career progression and good credit rating, will ever be.
VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
'tis my name.
Thanks for the advice.. Its not really a problem. It was just a journal about where I'm at.
Being good at life is a subjective term, you see. By whose definitions are you good/bad at life?
Where in the UK are you?