Latest filmthought
2011/64 The Boy in the Stripped Pyjamas. "What have you done?"
Guests and friends celebrate 1940 in a berlinhouse the promotion of an SS officer. He and his family move to the place where his 'important work' is. His son Bruno is against the move but children must accept, whatever parents decide, themselves �slaves� in the hirarchy. Looking out of the window of his room he sees beyond the garden and the forest a 'farm' and from the chimney the smelling smoke. La Vie est Belle shows the fathers view � here it is the two boy�s view; Bruno and his friend Shmuel, the boy in 'stripped pyjamas'. The help in the kitchen, Pavel, also dressed in stripped pyjamas, takes care of Bruno�s wounded knee, says that he was (before) a doctor. We understand: Auschwitz; only here where the corpses burnt. Why again holocaust? Here it is looked at and seen with the mind of two 8 year old boys. Beyond their fence of which we still today are part of (the Small-scale genocide, wars by lies, the crash that stripped people of their savings, their pensions, their homes, their jobs, their hopes of providing for their families). Bruno: "There is such a thing as a nice Jew though, isn't there", answered by Herr Liszt: "I think, Bruno, if you ever found a nice Jew, you would be the best explorer in the world." Bruno asks Shmuel: "What have you done?", Shmuel answers: "I am a Jew" � their fathers as �front�-mirror: Bruno's father for what he 'does' (after the war courtsentenced for some prisonyears � Shmuel's father for what he is, still is and allways is, herrlisztexplained: "The Jew here means the entire Jewish race. If it had been just one man, I'm sure something would've been done about him." S Zizek describes with the help of John McCumbers 'The Company of Words': (dirty, intricate, greedy) � Jew. The Jew is (dirty, intricate, greedy) / JEW. Disabled and germanborn, told 2008 at work: One German a German (ex Bruno, but not? Shmuel), two Germans Nazis, three Germans claim 'Lebensraum'. SS officer Aldorfer in Il Portiere di Notte to his friends: "I have a reason for working at night. It's the light. I have a sense of shame in the light". As Hanna in The Reader: unable to cope with her shame in daylight after her release. The same, but different, for the boy, student and adult 'Jungchen': beyond the point-of-no-return handling guilt and shame by denial. Children think different as long adults are not around. Bruno commits guilt, lets down his new friend: "Lets go and find your dad. I wish I could helped you find your dad. I really want to make up for having you down like I did. That would have done it, wouldn't it? Helping you find your dad". The judge answers Hannas question "What would you have done" with: one should not put himself in such a position. She did not! Whenever offered promotion she moved on, shamed to explain why. She had to choose Sophy's Choice. Never saw the trap (which Sara saw in Worlds Apart: neither love or religion but she herself. Or the boy Edmund in Rossellini�s Germania Anno Zero, taking the consequences. The same for Bruno and his shame. It was his idea to find Shmuels father, do it as a 'secret mission', childlike. For us it is good to have for our guilt and shame the stand-in Weisse-Rose-heroes, �our better part, teached for us in school�. The author says in his letter that the-inside know while we-outside never know. But a child can come near, without loosing dignity. And valid are Ilana Mathers words, The Reader: "People ask all the time what I have learned in the camps. They where not therapy. Do you believe it was a university? We where not there to learn something. What do you want? Forgiveness for her. To feel better yourself? Go to theater if you want catharsis, go to literature, don't go to the camps. Nothing comes out from the camp. Nothing". But the campvisitors are many. Looking at the German Guilt and paralyzed by Shame. As a German campvisiting volonteer reportwrote: the �Scham Mensch zu sein.� The lawyer Atticus Finch answers his daughter in To Kill a Mockingbird why he defends the �nigger�: �For a number of reasons. The main one is that if I didn't, I couldn't hold my head up in town. I couldn't even tell you or Jem not to do somethin' again�. Before he can tell others, he �sweeps his own doorstep�. The birthdaywish for a German volonteer: follow the example of Edmund, Sara, Atticus and others unnamed: before you take care of �Scham Mensch zu sein� and �Scham der Deutschen�: your own shame, having seen and looked away. How? Use the front- and behindmirror. Not your in-front-biography but history that appears in the behiundmirror, mirrored in the frontmirror. Not easy and difficult. As The Readers Rohl says: � ... If people like you don't learn from what happened to people like me, then what the hell is the point of anything?�
When seeing the inside of the 'farm', Bruno remembers that supper waits with roast biff. But too late: "It's a shower", both holding tightly hands.
stephanSE 2010-12-19
2011/63 INHERITANCE. "..."
A 1956 hot summer day opened the mistrusting relation between daughter Monika and her mother Ruth Kalder (her fathers mistress at Plaszóv) for a short moment the door of German denial.The trusted grandmother Agnes Kalder: "Monika, they hanged him. He killed the Jews." 1993 screen saw Monika Hertwig two dimensional Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List: the SS commandant of the concentration camp Plaszóv, Amon Leopold Göth, her father. For the daughter it was a brutal mirror event: looking at the actor, seeing her father. Not only Germany's general German shame but her own, personal shame as German. The one possible way: en face as I myself. Next: the letter to her fathers schindlerrescued slave Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig and their visit at Plaszóv. Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig in an interview: "She wants to be my friend, but it's too difficult for me." A crime of guilt is court sentenced (it happened with her father). Then: the boy Bruno in The Boy in the Stripped Pyjama: "What have you done?", Shmuel answers: "I'm a Jew". How is it possible for a country's and a child's shame that can be handled of "an artist of evil - grandly deranged, creatively sadistic. He would set his dogs on children and watch them be devoured. The people he whipped, had to keep count of the strokes. If they lost count, the whipping started from the beginning". The solution for the night porter Aldorfer in Il Portiere di Notte: "I have a reason for working at night. It's the light. I have a sense of shame in the light." It seems that the light disturbs Monika: she hides "behind a mop of hair that often hides her eyes." But why looks the guilty Jew Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig directly at the camera, still grieving. A possible answer can be that she realized as Göth's "stupid Jew that I had to grow up. I'm no more child, I'm no more with my mother, I'm here and I have to obey." R Rorty, 1989, sees the fundamental dimension of a human being is the ability to suffer, to experience pain and humiliation. It is this Helen did and: did not loose her dignity.This precious piece of humanity the brown years took from the different-guilty and the having-seen-looking-away-shame. Helen Jonas-Rosenzweigs first husbands last words: "I'm haunted every day, I can't go on." As many others: one of them Primo Lev was told by the guards: you will never leave the camp and if, you leave behind dignity. "That was what the German did to us", says Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig. Hanna Arendt tells of the Jew Jesus and 'scandalon', actions that can not be judged or forgiven. The Readers Ilana Mathers: "People ask all the time what I have learned in the camps. They where not therapy. Do you believe it was a university? We where not there to learn something. What do you want? Forgiveness for her. To feel better yourself? Go to theater if you want catharsis, go to literature, don't go to the camps. Nothing comes out from the camp. Nothing". Evil by an evil person in an evil environment has a small other side: those who resist/ed. It is a persons choice beyond either cholera or pestilence. Helen: "… I'm no more child, I'm no more with my mother..." Helen confronted the evil 'en face' (not the evil devil her) with the suffering, the pain, humiliation. Not loosing dignity. In the villa Helens words for Monika: stop repeating from now on what others say: "start something different." Helen is for the arguering child Monika the seeing and not looking away 'stand-in-mother': "… She's a victim too. She's scared, lost, and feels guilty." Instead of the good parents they where not the good-enough-father but the 'evil-enough-father', not the brave-enough-mother but the shame-enough-mother. Is Monika prepared after Inheritance to face 'en face' the pain of shame, the suffering shame and the humiliation of shame: receiving dignity and: "where I am able to live with the truth". The Readers Rohl will be wrong: " ... If people like you don't learn from what happened to people like me, then what the hell is the point of anything?" When seeing the inside of the farm, Bruno remembers that supper waits with roast biff. Too late: "It's a shower". Both holding tightly hands.
stephanSE 2011-01-29
2010/62 I POSED FOR PLAYBOY 5 November 1991 Abigail to her father: ”It’s too late.”
Playboyposing – inspired by three real stories. An Ashcroft houswife from Virginia, a Yalestudent, a Chicagobroker talk now and then directly into the camera. Of course: never, ever is something free, everything and everybody has to pay. The perhapsreason for the teleplay. The stockbroker (her answer to her coworker during lunchhour, commenting the Playboy-ad, searching for stockbrokers from Wall Street: ”I pose for Playboy when you’ve posed for Playgirl”) loses her job and for ever on the black list. The same for the housewife: on her small towns black list as she dared to do it, posing for Playboy. The family business will never be ’after’ what it was ’before’. The Yalestudent, against Playboy what it stands for and does, is banned by her yaleprofesserfather, forbidding the publication His ’perfect’ daughters answer: ”It’s too late”. When daughterconfronted, why he doesn’t answer her calls: ”I don’t take calls from strangers … (”I’m your daughter, not a stranger”) ”… Not anymore. You are not a daughter anymore of mine.” The stockbroker (behind her success-career is ’ the fat schoolgirl’), takes her co-workers teasing bait. And loses her work and wins love. The same for the Ashcroft houswife. For one, single day she is not looked at. But seen and special: ”I was flattered, who wouln’t be” – not taken for granted as a furniture in her house, by neighbours and dear friends. The new yaleeditor for the schhols paper must accept the payed ad -Playboy, using tthis challenge in her ’first editorial’: ”Hundreds of yale students demonstrated outside of the Yale campus today in protest of Playboy’s search for the ’Ivy League’ model. Students are in uproar because of Playboy’s exploitation of female students Women students of Yale must not allow this to happen at their prestigious univerity. Please support your fellow students in the banning of Playboy at Yale university outside of the Yale campus today in protest of Playboy’s search for the Ivy League’ model. Students are in an uproar because of Playboy’s exploitation of female students.” Why did these three women do what they did? Beside their very own and private reason of being neglected, of what they are, want to be and not are: they where pushed by society to do what they never dreramed to do or wanted. Not, never with the help of Playboy magazine. ”But”, as Janets mother asks, ”there must be another way” and Janet: ”Maybe, but it didn’t come along.” As nothing else came along, as they where pushed into it, as they saw suddenly a way out of their one-way-street they accepted and made the deal with Playboy’s devil (and not Playboy’s devil with them). This is the difference. Society saw it as a joke, never believing that the three would do it. At stake was their peron of image, was their family, was their career at work. Instead being sacrified, this is the usual manner, on the mens altar, they turned the limelights beam on the veil. Suddenly the veil was transparent, everybody seeing what was behind. The settled every-day-houswife knew: with the birth of her children she was not special anymore, hade become 'a furniture' of her household. The succes-money-broker, burdened by her image of the fat schoolgirl. And the Yale student remembers the five minutes that transformed her into the ’shining-perfect-example’, available for everybody. The moment at summercamp when her twinsister helped her stagefrightened sister as stand in: ”It’s amazing how five minutes can change a whole life.” When, still against Playboy’s values, she accepts their offered bait, she pretends the first moments to be her sister. But discovers suddenly the fun and the possibilities in this adventure; of coursde aware of the consequences. She can't be the editor for the schools paper and Playboy's model. The perfect Abigail Baywood, reconnecting with her twinsister, sees herself on the same level, being suddenly the un-perfect normal. With the daily mail, Mrs Lanahan discovers that her Jimmy has subscribed Playboy. ”For gods sake. I subscribe to a new magazine. What’s the big deal. It’s only a magazine”. And to her friend: ”Jimmy looks rather at a Playboy magazine than at me”. She knew of course, as the others, that she crossed the men's line and had to pay - would she do it again? Meredith would, if she was alone, do it again. Society's values, the values of the white, the normal, the values of men – the boy’s club. Meredith to her boyish Jimmyhusband: ”You look at me and do not see me. Where is the promise for better and worse?" Her best friend, believing all is a joke, that she never would do it, asks what choice they, as married women have: if you choose this you must sacrifice that. Merediths Jimmyhusband returns. Had he not described, she never should have written her letter, inclosing her photograph. Playboy never had phoned. The teleplays core: when the stockbroker tells her mother what her daughter has done. ”Why didn’t you ask for the 500 dollars?” ”Five hundred dollars I make at work in five minutes. I did it for me. Just for me.” Her mothers values are questioned: ”What do you want of me, my aproval? Well, I can’t give you that.” And when her daughter asks for her just-once-understanding her mother, she herself an exploited piece of furniture, answers: ”Alright. Help me understand.” No other in the teleplay says this. Janet explains that friends and a boyfriend have a different meaning, commenting Joe, herself afraid ”he would realise that I wasn’t perfect.” Her boss at work: ”I’m not firering you; even if I want. I do not need a lawsuit. I don’t think you are very happy workig here from now on.” True, a lawsuit is difficult. More easy are other instruments that she quits of free will. Janet admits that she has today a better sense as a woman, that she had the courage to tell Michael what she wanted. And that she knows: ”The rules for men and women are very different. I learned it the hard way.” The three did what nobody thought they would do. If they wheren’t seduced by society and where offered to get an answer of their question: they had not come near this as thought. But they did it. It is described by Slavoj Zizek. It is the obscene other side, the dark side of the Superego. Rob Reiner has it in the movie A Few Good Men. Everybody knows of the red code. But it is not allowed to talk of it, pull it into daylight. Used when the ethic code of togetherness, of Volksgemeinschaft, is in danger. On one side the official, written Law, the bright day. On the other side the 'obscene' not written Law, the night - the spoken traumas sound of the Superego. The members of the Ku Klux Klan are cared for as long each of them are one of 'us'. Only when one of 'them' sidesteps, is outside the frame ... For a short moment the three "Few Good Women" limelighted what happens behind the veil. They belong to the good ("The big danger is not the evils power, but the goods cowardness" Elisabet Nemert 2005:40), without cowardness, not regarding what French Civil Code Book (1804) I Of Persons, Title III) tells, still valid today, not only 'en France' ... § 340 Scrutiny as to paternity is forbidden... But: ...
§ 341 Scrutiny as to maternity is admissible.The director Stephen Stafford, not a woman, ends the teleplay with the following text ”Altough inspired by three true stories, certain characters, names, places and events have been created or altered for (male) dramatic puposes.
stephanSE 2010-04-11
2010/61 Ae fond kiss
Casim: ”It's easy for you. Nothing to loose. You can live with a lie."
Ae Fond Kiss, the third part of Ken Loachs "Glasgow trilogy" (My Name Is Joe and Sweet Sixteen). Roisin Hanlon, musicteacher at the catholic school Holyrood RC secondary. Irish, catholic ’divored’ goree in Scottish Glasgow.The Glaswegian DJ Casim Khan, accounteducated, second generation Pakistani immigrantson of a arm, caring Muslim family. This the kenloachbackground for the age-old conflict of star-crossed Romeo and Julia. True, Casim is Romeo but not the ’goree’. Alone, by her own. Without family or relatives, left behind her the husband. The reason that Roisin and Casim discover each other is Casims sister Tahara, pupil at Roisins temporary school. She fights for her schoolmates respect, claiming that she's a Glaswegian Pakistani woman teenager, supporting Glasgow Rangers. A proud statement: ”I am a thousand mixtures and I am proud of it”. The director of Education and Roisins local parish priest Chambers can not accept Roisins relation with a Muslim man as a married woman. Chambers reads for her in detail the law, not signing the needed certificate of approval. While the headmaster tells her the bad news we listen to the background: her class in the room listening to Billie Holiday's 'Strange Fruit' and accompanied by a montage of slides showing lynchings in the Deep South. Casim is engaged to his first Pakistani cousin Jasmine, parentarranged. While his older sister Rukhsana accepts her parents deciding rules, the arrangement for her own wedding (but loses her fiancé as her brother lives with a ’goree', dishonouring his family) her brother and sister think and act differently. Casims Muslim friend lives secretly with a goree, lives with a lie. For Roisin is this kind of lie not possible. Casim: ”It's easy for you. Nothing to loose. You can live with a lie." The critical environment not easy to cope with: the cause of their conflicts, their two, 2, timeout seperations. And surely more sacrifices than two for the second generation Pakistani Muslim Casim as long he wants to be with Roisin. He speaks about his family in India after the 1946 partition. Hindi against sikher, Muslims fled to Pakistan. 15 million where on the road. Many lost their lives. His fathers twinbrother Casim was one of them. For Roison reality starts to be more than theory - not the lesson for her class with Billie Holiday's 'Strange Fruit', as bakground for a montage of slides showing lynchings in the Deep South. With the focus on the lacanian No/m du Père: the save frame is questioned. Not by Casim and his sister Tahara but by timechange. The Catholic priest, Roisins ’father’-standin and Casims Islamic father have not the ability to understand the timechange, filling the void space with their imaginary yesterdaystuff: hiding behind prejudice, hurt by cultural clashes, widen the gap of social differences, discriminate. Slavoj Zizek: "This void does not result from an “abstraction” from the concrete fullness of human existence; this void is primordial, constitutive of subjectivity, it precedes any content which fills it up. And it poses a limit to the common-sense idea that our conversation with others should follow the path of straight sincerity, avoiding both extremes of hypocritical etiquette and unwarranted intruding obscene intimacy. Perhaps, the time has come to acknowledge that this imaginary middle road has to be supplemented with both of its extreme poles: the “cold” discretion of symbolic etiquette which allows us to maintain a distance towards our neighbors, as well as (exceptional) risks of obscenity which allow us to establish a link to the other in the real of his/her jouissance", Leave the Screen Empty! Lacanian ink 35. The 'hypocrat' Casim tells that he will not marry Jasmine, moving first to his friend, then livs 'in sin' with Roisin. His sister applies secretly for a place at Edinburghs university, not to be a doctor in Glasgow, but a journalist in Edinburgh. Rukhsana has tea with Roisin. For her is unacceptable what Roisin says: I love your brother. Why can't you accept that?, Rukshsana: For how long?, Roisin: I don't know. Rukshana: When will you know? When everybody's lives are fucked up? Roisin wonders why Casims parents cannot change? Casim: ”They are beyond that.” Why have always immigrants to adjust themselves in their new country (especially children, never had the choice for the new country). Has Roisins sacrified more than to change from one school to the next? Can she sense Casims subtle signals when he needs comfort and support when the first subtle signal appears? Is she and/or other at his side? Its is well known that political fugitives and the free will immigrant experience the same? The phases of insight of sadness and depression. Each new phase hurts less. Untill suddenly realised: no way back. This is beyond the point of no return. For some is the recovery-place some kind of retreat where a payed somebody has to listen to the person. Now as patient, returning the bill as victim for various experts and their experiments.The movies ending is a familyplott, scened by the parents and Rukhsana. Casim and Roisin have to play, unknowing their part. First Pakistani cousin Jasmin, arrives with her mother from Pakistan, sensing that something is wrong, braking away. Even she seems to think different. The movies end is open. The success temporary. More question must be answered, waiting around the corner. One: a coloured baby is by society looked at unforgivable, despite the obamaevent. Casim and Roisin seem to know to have a void space for themselves. But do they know that they have to guard it, this, their treasure, and using it only once? Many need and hunt such a treasure, unsure of how such a space is formed, in search for others, taking it. If this happens they have no ground to stand on.
stephanSE 2010-03-23
2010/60 They Live
Alien lady: [into her wristwatch] "I've got one that can see!”
Aliens are unseen among us … as the 1988-movie They Live (based on Ray Nelsons Eight O'Clock in the Morning) explains. The LA-people are numbed of what is going on. Recognising is not enough: to see is needed. Which Nada, a ’Nothing’, the Spanish word for Nader, does. Coming from outside to LA, he sees creatures: are masquerading as humans, lulling the public into submission through subliminal advertising messages: messages on money (this is your God), Billboards: Obey or Sleep, Marry and Reproduce. Magazines no longer have articles or advertisements. Blank white pages with phrases upon them. The theme is known, remember Fahrenheit 951, I married a Monster from Outer Space, two of many. Having discovered that Nada ’sees’ (the alien rich lady and others inform their policeforce by their communicationradio, a wristwatch: ”I’ve got one that can see”) soon chased by the aliens policeforce. Helped by Holly (Meg Foster, as Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter), not knowing that she is a doubleagent, working at Cable 54, the aliens TV-station. Searching for work, Nada answers about his last employment: ”Denver, Colorado. I worked there for ten years and things just seemed to dry up. They lost fourteen banks in one week. So, well...” And the bearded man explains: ”The poor and the underclass are growing. Racial justice and human rights are non-existent. They have created a repressive society and we are their unwitting accomplices. They are dismantling the sleeping middle class. More and more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for slavery. ” The movie attacks the Reagan era and the consumerism of the 80's. The ’aliens’ focus is society’s upper class. Dana gets work at a construction site, following Frank Armitage to the local shantytown. The underground-terrorist-network, located in a church near by tries with own televisonmessages wake the shantytown-people, but is stopped by the aliens policeforce. The curious Nada finds in a hidden box of the deserted church sunglasses, taking one, later realising what they are, seeing behind the scene reality. In filmhistorys longest fight he convinces Frank Armitage. Nada and Frank are recontacted by the underground-terrorist-network. Soon tracted down by the aliens policeforce. Having with them one of those wristwatches Frank and Nada find their way to the aliens headquarters underneath the streets. They are welcomed by a man, offering Nada and Frank a tour (signs in the aliens language along the passages, gatherings, the airport: arriving and leaving earth and: the TV-station Cable 54). Too late realises the guide that they do not belong to the aliens: ”It’s business. That’s all it is. Their are no countries anymore. They are running the whole show. They own everything. They can do what they want. What’s wrong? … Let’s make some money. I know you want it. Everybody does. What’s the threat? We are on the winning team.” On the roof of Cable 54 Nada mortally wounded, destroys the signal-sending-dish. Holly, having allready killed Frank, tries to stop him: ”Don’t do it. Don’t enterfere, you can’t win.” But he does. Now LA sees what they had not seen: the aliens beside them and among them – and them not understanding what happened: ”What’s wrong”. The having-sex-alien: ”Hi, what’s wrong, baby?” What the underground-terrorist-network could not do, Nada has done. The same happens in the Ionescos play Rhinoceros, even here an individual: ”Finally, everyone becomes a rhinoceros, including Daisy Dudard (a co-worker and a "scientist"). Bérenger is the only one not to find rhinoceritis normal. He panics and revolts against rhinoceritis. Dudard trivializes the transformation and she becomes a rhino because her duty is "to follow [her] leaders and [her] peers, for better or for worse." Daisy refuses to "save the world" and follows the rhinos, suddenly finding them beautiful, as she admires their enthusiasm and energy. After much hesitation, Bérenger decides not to surrender: "I am the last man, I will stay till the end! I do not give up.” Why does Dana ’see’? Nada is a neutral onlooker, coming from outside, not belonging to the LA-systems frame, the form which gives meaning to its contents. He does not automatically recognise as the others do, without seeing, but sees active, explained by Viktor Sklovskijs, ’Verfremdung’, used by Brecht, Hitchcock and in the movie The Lacemaker/La Dentellière directly looking at us, the audience. awaking: ”Es ist nicht der Sinn des Bildes, seine Bedeutung unserem Verständnis näherzubringen, sondern eine besondere Wahrnehming des Gegenstandes zu bewirken, ein Sehen, nicht aber ein blosses Wiedererkennen.” (Theorie der Prosa, V Sklovskij 1984:19) Nada has nothing to lose … which Holly has: "Holly represents a certain kind of ambition that’s really not that uncommon in life. She’s our close up look at someone who has something to lose by ‘waking up’ and acknowledging the aliens’ broadcasts. I enjoy portraying that conflict. Both heroes and moral weaklings can teach you something." Nada can see without the sunglasses, later the contacts; they are a help for the audience to understand better. As Slavoj Zizek says in Denial Utopia: ”… We do not need aliens and secret drugs or gasses – the FORM of ideology does the work without them. It is because of this form that the depicted scene nonetheless stages our daily truth. Look at the front page of our daily newspapers: every title, even and especially when it pretends just to inform, an implicit injunction. When you are asked to choose between liberal democracy and fundamentalism, it is not only that one term is obviously preferred – what is more important, the true injunction, is to see this as the true alternative, to ignore third options.”
Dedicated to the sleeping ...
stephanSE 2009-12-24
2009/59 Brodeuses. Claire: ”une fille”
Sequins, A Common Thread, Die Perlenstickerin, Broderier, La trama de la vida.
The red haired neighbour girl from "M Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran" has grown up, living in the village Angoulème. Seventeen, as the actress Lola Neymark. Pregnant, a mother-to-be. She takes medical leave from the part time supermarket, claiming cancer for her supermarket colleagues. Claire lives, apart from her family, in a small studio apartment indulging her passion - designing intricate embroideries. She harvests secretly cabbage from the field of her parents' farm, exchanging for rabbitskins, needed for her embroideries. She hears that her friend Lucine’s brother Guillaume had with his friend Ichkan Mélikian a motorcycle accident. For Ichkan help came too late, Guillaume blaming himself for that death. And Claire starts as assistant for the bereaved mother, a haute-couture embroiderer, Madame Mélikian, Armenian. A bereaved, mourning mother and a teenager mother-to-be with the vague thought for adoption. Visiting the gynecologist Claire looks into the camera while the gynecologist tells her what is seen on the screen. A mongole? She receives a sealed envelop with the genderanswer: lost, found and hidden. The sequence with Claire’s mother and her daughter, Claire giving her a visual chance to discover her pregnancy gives the impression that the mother doesn’t see – while Madame Mélikian saw it. The centerpiece are the former and future mother and their passion and profession embroidary. And death, the mourning mothers attempted suicide, starting the process of their growing togetherness. Recognising the other, seeing each other twice – with res-pect. A film by a woman, with women for women about two women, confronted by unwanted death and unwanted birth. At a meal with the Lescuyer Madame Mélikian says: ”We [Claire] work well together. Now we can do whatever we want. We are strong.” Brievly we see Claires father, Lucil’s father; where the Armenian husband? The butcher from the local supermarket, the child-to-be-father: ”It wasn't me?” Claire's clear response: their relationship is of no importance for her, finnished. Not alone can the bereaved woman and the pregnant teenager look at their situation. The obsession and profession is the stand-in-fatherimage, the ’Nom du Père’. The passion and profession for embroidery: not only an income for rent and food. Also a room for temporary peace and comfort for the stand-in-(M)other of the past and the stand-in-daughter as to-be-(M)other. Images, looks, glances, unspoken intentions. Silence. The silent emptiness – a lacanian Nom du Père situation. Not to analyse – but just: is. Past and future in the present: the future mother and the former mother, bond over their invisible children, silently working, creating beauty. Right up to the fragile end: ”une fille”. It is the turn towards life after the attempted suicide and the decision for the adoption the conviction that life is worthwhile. ”Une fille”. If it was a boy, ”un garçon” – should he’ve been adopted? ”Une fille” can be pregnant. As Lacan says (in Les non – dupes erent, Seminar 1973/74 march 19) ”Le défilé, le défilé du signifiant par quoi passe à l’exercise ce quelque chose qui est l’amour, c’est très précisément ce nom du père qui n’est non (n,o,n) qu’au niveau du dire, et qui se monaye par l voix de la mère dans le dire – non d’un certain nombre d’interdictions, […]” The fathername exists on the level of speach, unable to authorizise himself – in need of the (M)other, verbalising his name, pointing at l’ordre symbolique, that desire belongs to the future. That love begins here when desire ends. For this the woman is needed – ”une fille”.
stephanSE 2008-09-07
2009/58 BLUE VELVET. Dorothy ”Hold me. I'm falling! I'm falling! Hold me.”
Blue Velvet is, David Lynch admitts, a personal film: "Kyle is dressed like me. My father was a research scientist for the Department of Agriculture in Washington. We were in the woods all the time. I'd sorta had enough of the woods by the time I left, but still, lumber and lumberjacks, all this kinda thing, that's America to me like the picket fences and the roses in the opening shot. It's so burned in, that image, and it makes me feel so happy." The naked Dorothy-scene is a childhood memory: when he and his brother saw a naked woman walking down a neighborhood street at night. The experience was so traumatic to the young Lynch that it made him cry, and he had never forgotten it. The filmstory is based on thre ideas, starting as early as 1973. The first was "a feeling", Lynch to Cineaste,1987. The second was an image of a severed, human ear lying in a field. "I don't know why it had to be an ear. Except it needed to be an opening of a part of the body, a hole into something else...The ear sits on the head and goes right into the mind so it felt perfect," Lynch remarked in an interview. The third was Bobby Vinton's classic rendition of the song Blue Velvet and "the mood that came with that song a mood, a time, and things that were of that time." The movies is Lumbertons/North Carolina reality, a simple-minded small town where people talk in television cliches, with picket fences and flower beds, the in slow-motion passing fire engine with the waving fireman, reminds of Fahrenheit 451 and Pleasantville. Blue Velvet is "… about things that are hidden – within a small city and within people". The father stroke-collapses while watering the lawn, hospitalvisited by his son, who finds, returning home, an ear in the grass – starting his private investigation. With him Dorothy Vallens polarity, the blond clean all-American Sandy, the voice of reason and reality. Sandy, the towns detective’s daughter, asks: ”I can't figure out if you're a detective or a pervert”, answered with: ”Well, that's for me to know and you to find out.” The camera burrows into the green lawn and finds hungry insects beneath, the metaphore for the insectious underneathworld of the clean Lumbertonsurface, e g the story of sexual bondage, of how Dorothy's husband and son have been kidnapped by Frank, who makes her his sexual slave. Jeffrey: ”I'm seeing something that was always hidden. I'm in the middle of a mystery and it's all secret.” Actually no secret. Open-minded (be a No-thing, ”Jeffrey Nothing”, the answer he gives Dorothy Vallens, asking for his name) everybody is able to do what Jeffrey No-thing does. See beyond recognition of Lumbertonperfect: painted white fences, open blue sky, a friendly waving fireman in slow motion. 1963 was Bobby Vintons Blue Velvet the huge hit. And the traumatic JFK assassination, the dark, violent world of depravity, confusion, violence and corruption of Vietnam and Watergate. But Sandys dreams: ”I had a dream. In fact, it was on the night I met you. In the dream, there was our world, and the world was dark because there weren't any robins and the robins represented love. And for the longest time, there was this darkness. And all of a sudden, thousands of robins were set free and they flew down and brought this blinding light of love. And it seemed that love would make any difference, and it did. So, I guess it means that there is trouble until the robins come.” The end as the start: again painted white fences, open blue sky, a friendly waving fireman in slow motion. The closup from something which is a ear, Geoffreys. He sees a robin in the tree, his wife Sandy calling ”lunch”, his fathers ”I am feeling much better” and Dorothy Vallens with little Don. Has Lumberton changed – no, but perhaps Geoffrey, the reason that his father ”feels much better” and Sandy and Dorothy. Of course lurs temptation underneath Lumbertons trubblefree curtain where the boy Frank waits, is, in need of a (M)Other. Dressed in her blue velvet gown, him having as blue blanket a piece of it. Laura Mulvey insight is correct. Blue Velvet shows the society of the Oedipal family; child Jeffrey Beaumont, father Frank Booth and mother Dorothy Vallens. Their blue-velvet-violence is the dominant part in the real worlds family and, not to forget, at work. Frank, the embodiment of evil in both manner and deed, whose only apparent means of self-expression is cruelty and sadism. He and the like of him, scream for help, for l’ordre symbolique, the Nom du Père. Frank Booth, and the other bluevelvetmen are little or (only) big boys, not knowing how a normal, grown up adult looks like. The fathers stroke is a warning for his son: find out, learn and do it better than I. Stand upright, ”be brave to think for yourself, act”. A warning: not to be one of them in Lumbertons North Carolina – or where ever Lumberton is on this earth. As central repeating metaphore is the insect motif. The camera zooms in on a well-kept suburban lawn until it unearths a swarming nest of bugs, the metaphor for Lumbertons seedy underworld. Franks bug-like oxygen mask. Jeffrey as an insect exterminator, visiting Dorothy Vallens. The robin eating a bug on a fence in the last scene of the film. Framed by the severed ear that Jeffrey discovers – and the reemerging camera from the ear canal when the film ends, the ear canal shot is replayed in reverse, zooming out through Jeffrey's own ear.
Dedicated: helgaSE in Swedens Lumberton
stephanSE 2009-04-12
2009/57 AS IT IS IN HEAVEN, (Så som i himmelen) Linda: ”I want to find my own sound.”
(On Mon, 2/16/09, Kay Pollak
If everybody has found it's own sound: than, only then:... In spite of being the most beloved Swedish film (seen by 1 158 415 visitors for 88 500 317 SEK) this movie failed to receive a single Swedish Golden Beetle, the most prestigious Swedish film award and nominated for an Oscar. Genuine Swedish, a movie by and for the Swedes: their film. Writer and lecturer for ’new age’ management psychology and again-director Kay Pollak reaches with this movie the Swedish Everyman’s heart, belonging to the socialdemocratic proletaire culture – yesterdays Artur Artur Lundkvist, Harry Martinsson, Vilhelm Moberg, Eyvind Johnson, Gösta Gustav Jansson and: Nils Bohman (1902-43), todays Marianne Fredriksson, Linda Olsson... The socialdemocratic idea allows individual development when the group has ”found it’s sound”. Daniels (M)Other, aware of this, crosses the border, promising a school outside the Swedish establishment: thus tempting her son, l’omelette, the little man. The Swedish model was designed for the Swedish working class. This ’klass-resa’/class-travel (social rise/sozialer Aufstieg) aimed education with a better salary – transitional conflicts involved. For a time ”The Marginal Man”/woman (1937, E. Stonequist). In 29/2005 The Guy in the Grave Next Door librarian Desirée knows of Lacan, ’Lacong’ for farmer Benny. Looked closer, Desirée treats Lacan, Soushi and opera not natural; still on her way. Loyal to the past, the future or listening to Stonequists advice: ”I am myself”. In the follow-up-book ’Familygrave’ she prefers ’Lacong’. The kaypollakquestion: is in todays globalization yesterdays socialdemocratic idea still sound and safe? As known, quite a few socialdemocrats are seduced in the backyard of capitalistic individualsm; amon them the former primeminster, a plutocrat disguised as a wokingman (”they are the worst”, In the Dark 2008:140), raping the Swedish socialdemocratic idea for years. The kaypollakanswer can be found in the movies beginning and ending. The between: love, jealousy, domestic violence, intolerance, genteel neighbourliness are common events. Vi hear the summerwind, moving the cornfield, in it the violinplaying boy Daniel, interrupted by sequences of the conducter Daniels breakdown, beaten by the villageboy Conny and his friends. The widowed (M)Other’s promise violates the Swedish socialdemocratic lacanian No/m du Père, answering with the wish to marry her. Of course says the lacanian No/m du Père no. The (M)Other smiles. The end of the movie: Daniels death or dream? Finding in the cornfield the boy Daniel, lifting him up in his arms … while the choir, initiated by the disabled Tony starts without the contucter, eventual joined by the audience. In his absence he is among them, present, one of them. The lacanian theory of the No/m du Père in mind: the steadily growing choir is prepared by Daniel Dareus for this moment. It is not l’orde imaginaire. It is l’ordre symbolique: the alternative to the Law of Jante (‘Jantelagen’; Axel Sandemose). Helped by his talent, he can’t be tempted; (M)Other lost and died. The Swedish choir, joined by the Austrian audience, demonstrates the poor Swedes ’richness’ (CJL Almqvist, Svenska fattigdomens betydelse, 1838). Guided by disabled disability. Pretrained to ”find your own sound” disability shows the way. Like this the poor individual discovers the others poornes, becoming the helping-each-other-group with its leaders absence. Thus can yesterdays socialdemocratic idea, transformed, in spite of Swedish capitalistic backyard-egoism, participate in globalization … ”Only to overcome the world in yourself – be poor – makes you free”, Almqvists Svenska fattigdomens betydelse. If everybody has found it's own sound: then, only then: As it is in heaven ...or as Helene Sjöholms Gabriela sings: "I want to feel that I have lived my life."
stephanSE 2009-02-16
2009/56 Il postino ’metafora’
The movie il postino is a remake of Ardiente pacienca (1983), directed by Antonio Skármenta, the exiled Chilean author of the original source novel. The encounter Mario-Pablo is fictious, but Neruda says in "Confesso que vivi" that he lived that time in that Italian mediterranean village. Il postino is Troisis last movie. The writer/co-director/star postponed a heart surgery so he could complete the film. The day after filming he suffered a fatal heart attack. The center of the movie is not only the question of the ’metafora’, even ’donne’: the letters from women, the muse Matilda Urutia for "Los versos del Capitán", the Chilean singer and his future wife, and: Beatrice Russo. Mario uses every opportunity to communicate with Pablo Neruda, forging a friendship. What is a ’metafora’?. Later he says, sitting at the beach with the poet: ”that the world with its details is a metafora for something else, for ”the birds, the sea, people”, and Neruda: ”a metaphore is when you talk of something och compair it with something else”. Mario knows now what a ’metafora’ is. After the talk at the beach he can handle ’metafora’ and discovers his love for Beatrice, sees her and she sees him, the ’minibiljard master’. Mario enchants her with … ’metafora’, meaning something else, his love for her – being finally her husband, the poet the guest of honour. The islands people are simple, they know it. But it sounds wrong when, some months after Nerudas return to Chile, a newspaper clipping quotes him, "I lived in complete solitude with the most simple people in the world." Mario's relation to the poet is not affected. Their relation, based on words, based on ’metafora’, is strong and sound, is symbolic. We think of the fort-da-game by S Freuds grandchild. Neruda is physical ’fort’, but he is ’da’. Some days before his sons birth he should read at a political manifistation a poem he wrote; dedicated to Pablo Neruda and is killed. Pablo Neruda, returning to the island learns of this, listening to Marios recorded tape: many metaforer of the islands beauty – never send by the widdow. Neruda, going along the beach, picturethinks thoughtfully, seeing the ’simple’ man and remembering their short friendship. A father, admired by a son, his ’son’, given a gift which helped to develop the simplicity’s place of birth to something different, a ’metafora’. Neruda sees his betrayal. The one and only letter Mario ever received was, as he first believed, from Neruda, but from his secretary. ”I am tired to be a human” reads Mario in the purchased nerudabook, telling Neruda that he feels the same. The keyscene is the beach, the between-place of two polaritys. It is here that Mario understands, it is hear that the father and the son discover each other. Ready for love, ready for the woman, ready for marriage, ready for responsibility: for the words which means something else. Ready to live without the father, ready for ’fort’ as it means ’da’.
Wikipedia: metonymy (from the Greek meta-, "after", "beyond", nym, name) is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept. Metonymy may be instructively contrasted with metaphor. Both figures involve the substitution of one term for another. In metaphor, this substitution is based on similarity, while in metonymy, the substitution is based on contiguity. Metaphor example: That man is a pig (using pig instead of unhygienic person. An unhygienic person is like a pig, but there is no contiguity between the two). Metonymy example: The White House supports the bill (using White House instead of President. The President is not like the White House, but there is contiguity between them).
stephanSE 2009-01-26
2008/55 GLORIA. Tony Knesich: "She is leaving”
… by writer-director John Cassavetes. His wife, Gina Rowlands, in the leading part; together with the Latin macho Phil, John Adames. Gloria, a survivor with a sordid past in the world of crime, a former Mob moll, now a reclusive life in a lower-middle-class uptown apartment of NYC. Her neighbors, the Dawn family, are her friends. Jack, the syndicates accountant, keeping a personal copy of their records, talked to the FBI and CIA, gave names, accounts etc. For this the syndicate wipes out the family, an example for everybody. Moments before the assassination the father gives his son Phil and the accountbook to Gloria. She, „I hate kids, and especially yours", has suddenly to be a nanny, a stand-in-mother, a lover, friend and bodyguard, the grandmother – both slowly adjusting to each other. Against their will they become ”family”. Gloria and Phil, tutored in the Latin macho ethic are chased by the syndicate from hotel to hotel, from place to place. Eventuaslly Gloria admits that she cares for the tough little guy, trying to keep him out of harm's way. Gloria contacts and meets Tony Knesich, one of the leaders of the syndicate, a former lover. Her deal is: the account book for Phil's life. Tony Knesich says: ”I understand. You are a woman, he is a little boy. You fall in love. Every woman is a mother. You love him.” Meaning that she is Phil’s stand-in-mother, a (M)other, responsible for her child. And Gloria answering: ”… it’s the best man I ever slept with.” When leaving: is she killed by the mob? Is her disguise as grandmother, emerging the limo at Carsons Memorial cemetery in Pittsburgh Phil’s phantasy? Casavettes answer: ” I would say that fifty per cent of the people like it in black-and-white and fifty per cent of the people like the color. And a lot of people don't like the ending no matter what happens! In honesty, I think the ending is not as good as it could be. [I just did it that way] because I really didn't want the kid to suffer. What kind of picture would it be if at the end the kid went to pieces? I just didn't want to kill off the person who had protected that boy.” (The ending sequence was shot in color and in black-and-white.) The movies focuses the ’Mob’ and how one of their members deals with the situation. The roots of the ’Mob’? Is wikipedia a possible answer? ”There are several theories about the origin of the term. The Sicilian adjective mafiusu may derive from the slang arabic ????? mahyas, meaning "aggressive boasting, bragging", or marfud meaning "rejected". Roughly translated, it means ”swagger”, but can also be translated as "boldness". In reference to a man, mafiusu in 19th century Sicily was ambiguous, signifying a bully, arrogant but also fearless, enterprising, and proud, according to scholar Diego Gambetta. …. The word "mafia" made its first official appearance in 1865 in a report by the prefect of Palermo. …. According to popular myth, the word Mafia was first used in the Sicilian rebellion - the Sicilian Vespers- against the oppressive Anjou rule on 30 March 1282. Mafia is the acronym for "Morta Alla Francia, Italia Anela" (Italian for "Death to France. This is Italy's cry"). However, this version is discarded by most serious historians nowadays.” … In focus for the filmthinking is the lacanian view of ’No/m du Pèr’. The mahyas are, the Ku Klux Klan and others, the representation of S Zizeks (Verso 1995) ’obscene’ side of the Superego. One of his examples is A Few Good Men. It shaddowexists as the unwritten side of the Law. As part of l’ordre symbolique, the polarity to the Ego’s l’orde imaginaire. The Superego is the Laws distorted misunderstanding, found in the spaces of the symbolic continunity. The official Law is written to be read by every one, able to read. The unofficial Law is the voice which everybody can hear. Phil, waiting for Gloria in the hotel, hears the phone and listens to the asking voice how long the room will be occupied. Is the concierge’s voice the mahyas? Lacan says that the word ’wife’ is the synonyme of the every-day-french for la bourgeoise. As everybody know the female wo-man is the dominating part to which the male obeys … as long she accepts the deal: … that he is the true master. It is this what the Ten Comandments mean 1.No one can present himself directly to another of our friends. There must be a third person to do it. 2. Never look at the wives of friends. 3. Never be seen with cops. 4. Don't go to pubs and clubs. 5. Always being available for Cosa Nostra is a duty - even if your wife's about to give birth. 6. Appointments must absolutely be respected. 7. Wives must be treated with respect. 8. When asked for any information, the answer must be the truth. 9. Money cannot be appropriated if it belongs to others or to other families. 10. People who can't be part of Cosa Nostra: anyone who has a close relative in the police, anyone with a two-timing relative in the family, anyone who behaves badly and doesn't hold to moral values.
The ’mahyas’-member Gloria knows what she is and does, never disregarding the rules. Though she kills, dominates and is on the run: ”She attempted to beat the mob at their own game.” Phils father gave his son the book, the assurance for his sons future. Phil screams at Gloria: ”I am the man”. Today he is l’omelette, a little man – but to be: l’homme, the future ’mahyas’ leader. Tony Knesich and the others know this. It is the reason why they are not only after the book but the boy, his life. A woman and a child, a mother and her child on the run – chased by the claiming husbandian father. Afraid that eventually l’omelette will, as son Zeus did with ’time’, his father Chronos, claim their position and life, replace them – the oidipal question.
stephanSE 2008-12-28
2008/54 How to marry a millionaire. Pola: ” Men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses”
The innocent 1953-fun standards remake ’How to Marry a Millionaire’, actually a play and filmed 1932 as The Greeks had a word for them, was the first shown Cinemascope movie. The CinemaScope process was well used here, with panoramic shots of Manhattan accompanied by Newman's entire orchestra performing his composition "Street Scene" in prolog and epilog shots. The movie is a well known theme of the post World War II years: a mantrap as a good front, hoping attracting men with wealth. The would-be socialite model Schatze Page, arrives in New York with the express intention of bagging a millionaire to ensure her lifelong financial comfort. She rents a high-class apartment for the 'right' address, not worrying that she actualy can't afford, selling the furniture. She has her friend, the short-sighted model Pola Debevoise, (The censors would not allow Marylin Monroe to say "Men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses". It was changed to "Men are seldom attentive to girls who wear glasses". ), the reason that she never uses her glasses. And Polas friend the model Loco Dempsey. She arrives with food, ”awfully clever with a quarter”, carried by Tom Brookman ”without a tie”. The rented apartment, owned by Freddy Denmark, has income tax problems and is about to leave the country. Nothing happens for three months, Schatzi Page in dispair. In comes Loco, followed by the Texas oil man J D Hanley, carrying her parcels from Bergdorf’s. He invites the three for the evening to his clubgathering of his-alike. While Pola meets the married man Clark, weekend-following him to Maine, Loca is together with Alerxander d’Arcy but (”We'd better put a check on that one. Nobody's mother lives in Atlantic City on Saturday”) meets up with Freddy Denmark, returning to his apartement to get some documents. The determined Schatze tries to get the millionaire J D Hanley, turning down the billionaire Tom Brookman without a tie, giving the impression of a working class stiff. And Schatzi falls unwillingly in love with him, not seeing what is in front of her. She was married before, ’burnt’ by experience: ”I was nuts about him. Know what he did to me. First he gave me a phony name. Second, he was already married. Third, the minute the prayer said amen, he never did any work. Then he stole my TV set. I asked him about it and he hit me with a chicken”. Schatze’s own feelings, her own preconceived notions of prejudice coloured and clowded her vision. ”It’s like seeing someone you know in a different milieu. You don’t regognize him because you don’t expect to see him in a ceratin place,” to say it with Maisie Dobbs (J. Winspear, An Incomplete Revenge 2008:263). The safe card is J D Hanley with his Texas oil and cattle. He likes her, but being awaire of the age-difference, turns her kindly down but – returns. And the short sighted Pola gets on the wrong plane, sitting next to the apartement owner Freddy Denmark. He is on his way to find the elusive public accountant who has gotten him into trouble with the IRS. He sees her reading her book, Murder By Strangulation (which is how Marylin Monroe’s character met her demise in Niagara,1953), having it up side down – and convinces her that she is just as attractive when wearing her glasses (disproving the Dorothy Parker adage that "men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses"). And Loca, following the married man Clark to Maine, to his lodge, discovers how disgusting and mean he is, Loca falls for the ’rich’ Forest Ranger, having all what the millionaire Clark has not. Blinded by Schatze’ tale, Loca follows first her brain, later her heart. The ’short sighted’ Schatze wants nothing else than marry the elderly Texas rancher J D Hanly. Everything is as Schatze imagined …. but backs in the last minute. She has her millionaire. Is there another man asks J D? When she answers that there is but ”without a tie” and money, J D Hanley, understanding that she loves the guy from the gas pump Tom Brookman, he acts as ’matchmaker’. Tom, well aware what she wants never told her who he really is, wanting her love, asks J D if he told her who he really was: ”No. So far as she knows you're still hustling a gas pump. ” Tom: Are you kidding? Hanley answering: ”Well let's go ask her.” Tom: ”Wait a minute J D! Do you think I ought to tell her?”, Hanley assuring him: ”Are you nuts? She clearly prefers gas pump jockeys to millionaires. What do you want to do? Disillusion the poor girl?” The short-sighted Pola learns that wearing glasses is a good thing, helping her selfesteem to grow. J D Hanley helps the short-sighted Schatze to see Tom Brookman what he really is – neither hustling a gas pump ”without a tie” or a simple millionaire but a billionaire. The three models get what they want and not what they imagined and aimed at: their ’own’ millionaire: guided by the lamp of love. Love or money, the famous Freudian question of love and work – or the Bibles book of proverbs 30:8 ”… give me neither poverty nor wealth; provide me my allotted bread”. Not a few have too much (needs) and nobody has enough (money). Money is neutral power, a nothingness which leads to ” the more you get, the more you need and things become a drug”, to quote 1982:s Portrait of a Showgirl. Even Loco, part of the chase and game for a millionaire is contempt with a forest ranger. As well Pola with the apartements owner as there is no ”Mr Cadillac, if he exists?” Schatzi: ”No such person. I checked.” It is all about money and love. The magic door to the ’allotted’ money is love. The most short-sighted of the three is the brightest of them, Schatzi: looking for what is right in front of her. As long the three models do not know of the key to open the door of wealth they only recognise, want more and more without getting it as money is neutral, a nothing. Chase without getting what they actually want. Not love or money/work, the Freudian keyquestion but love – and – moeney. The Bibles book of proverbs 30:8 ”… give me neither poverty nor wealth; provide me my allotted bread,”
stephanSE 2008-07-18
2008/53 Now, Voyager. Mrs Vale: ”How? By having exercised a mother's rights?"
Charlotte Vale – overweight, frustrated, mother-hating virginal spinster is the lead in this quintessential, woman's picture. Innitiated by Lisa Vale, she is rescued by two men – a psychiatrist and an architect. The psychiatrist rebuilding her mind and the architect her soul and body. As adult, later it will be the child Tina, she recovers at Cascade. (The scenes at Cascades were filmed at Lake Arrowhead, CA, todays UCLA Conference Center, http://www.uclaconferencecenter.com). There has been some infill construction since the 1940s, but the main lodge looks exactly as it does in the movie; as well the tennis courts where Charlotte and Tina play. Following the Walt Witman’s 1892-advice (Leaves of Grass) from the section titled The Untold Want: The Untold Want By Life and Land Ne'er Granted Now, Voyager Sail Thou Forth to Seek and Find. It is too early to return after the recovery at Cascade to the upper-class Boston home, ruled by tyrannical Mrs. Henry Windle Vale. Instead Aunt Charlottte is sent as Miss Renee Beauchamp on a pleasure cruise: ”I've taught you the technique, now use it. Forget you're a hidebound New Englander. Unbend, take part, contribute. Be interested in everything - and everybody.” Is Dr Jaquiths advice. And indeed, Charlotte is intersted in everything – and everybody, supported by Jeremiah 'Jerry' D. Durrance. She’s been enabled by Dr Jacquiths respect and Jerrys romantic attraction; both their names begin with J, hers C-harlotte/C-amille: two mens attention. The return of the ugly duck as swan, reassuring the butler: ”Yes William, it’s me” pauses a moment in front of mothers door, hearing Dr Jaquiths advice: ”Just remember that honoring one's parents is still a pretty good idea. You're gonna be a shock to her. I advise you to soften the blow. Give her time to get used to you. Remember that whatever she had done, she's your mother.” Their togetheness is based on equallity: both have their weapon, careful not using it (”Dear Dr. Jaquith: Summer, winter, now spring again. I won't say time flies but it doesn't crawl as it used to. Between mother and me, there is still an armed truce. She threatens but she doesn't act. I follow your advice. I stick by my guns but don't fire.”). Not one, as it was before, both have a weapon in their hand, being careful not to use it. A later comment of Mrs Vale tells that she respects the swan; surely mourning that her late husband Henry Vale never aroused this respect in his wife. The swan respects the mother , not afraid anymore for the daily confrontations as both want to survive together, ready for the next battle. And Mother has the power, using it shameless – and the daughter: ”Mother - I don't want to be disagreeable or unkind. I've come home to live with you again here in the same house. But it can't be in the same way. I've been living my own life, making my own decisions for a long while now. It's impossible to go back to being treated like a child again. I don't think I'll do anything of importance that will displease you, but Mother, from now on, you must give me complete freedom, including deciding what I wear, where I sleep, what I read...Mother, please be fair and meet me halfway.” Interesting is their ’independent’ discussion: ”That's it. That's what I want to talk about - independence. To buy what you choose, to wear what you choose, sleep where you choose, independence. That's what you mean by it, isn't it?”, answering her mother: ”Dr. Jaquith says that - that independence is reliance upon one's own will and judgment.” – only to hear: ”I make the decisions here, Charlotte. I'm willing you should occupy your own room until I dismiss the nurse. She will occupy your father's room for the time being, and will perform a daughter's duties as well as a nurse's. That will give you a good chance to think over what I've said. I'm very glad to give a devoted daughter a home under my roof, and pay all her expenses, but not if she scorns my authority.” Having as swan returned, she is seen by the widower Elliot Livingstone, eager to marry her. But between is Jerry, never forgotten. By chance they meet. When he learns that his C-amilla is on the brink of marriage he doesn’t see her, as said but phones, wishing good luck. And C-amilla rushes to the station: ”Shall I tell you what you've given me? On that very first day, a little bottle of perfume made me feel important. You were my first friend. And then when you fell in love with me, I was so proud. And when I came home, I needed something to make me feel proud. And your camellias arrived, and I knew you were thinking about me. Oh, I could have walked into a den of lions. As a matter of fact, I did, and the lions didn't hurt me.” That she breaks off their engagment, outragious her Mother ”Have you no sense of obligation to your family or to me? Here you have the chance to join our name Vale with one of the finest families in the city, Livingston, and you come in here to tell me that you aren't in love. You're behaving like a romantic girl of eighteen,” the daugther admitting to Livingston: ”"I don't think I'll ever marry. Some women just aren't the marrying kind.” But there is something else , not only that the unvisible in-between-Jerry; Charlotte says it to her mother shortly befor her mothers heart attack: ”Dr. Jaquith says that tyranny is sometimes an expression of the maternal instinct. If that's a mother's love, I want no part of it. I didn't want to be born. You didn't want me to be born either. It's been a calamity on both sides.” It is this which is the key why the swan denies marriage: ”… If that's a mother's love, I want no part of it.” Too many are willing to play this part. But not she, the reason that ”…some women just aren't the marrying kind.” Instead she can devote her life as ’mother’ for other unwanted ’aunt charlotte’, for Jerry’s unwanted child she recognises from the photograph he showed her on the ship, returning to C-ascade. She manages to communicate, reveiving the child’s unconditional trust, becoming her (M)other, Tina regarding her as ultimate maternal figure: "I wish you were my mother...you're not like most mothers. You don't tell me what to do and what not to do all the time." A divorce at that time was unthinkable. Instead, encouraged by Tina, the platonic marriage and parentship is chosen. Asking Dr Jaquit’s permission, he said: ”Remember what it says in the Bible, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away" and she asking: ”How does it feel to be the Lord?” he answers: ”Not so very wonderful, since the Free Will Bill was passed. Too little power.” It is this what it’s all about: power. Behind the valed Vale is the weak male power, executed by the disapointed fe-male. Jerry, the other part of J/aquit, Jaquit, the other part of J/erry tempts Camille to return what he owns. But C-harlotte/C-amille is well aware of her probation, adresses J:s help. ”Why, when Tina said she wanted to come home and stay with me - well, it was like a miracle happening. Like having your child, a part of you. And I even allowed myself to indulge in the fantasy that both of us loving her and doing what was best for her together would make her seem actually like our child after a while”, answering: ”Jerry, Dr. Jaquith knows about us. When he said I could take Tina, he said, "You're on probation." Do you know what that means? It means that I'm on probation because of you and me. He allowed this visit as a test, and if I can't stand such tests, I'll lose Tina, and we'll lose each other. Jerry, please help me.” Jerry, after having a cigarette according their way he asks if he may come sometimes, hraring the answer: ”Whenever you like; it's your home too. There are people here who love you. .. Of course, and just think, it won't be for this time only. That is, if you will help me keep what we have, if we both try hard to protect that little strip of territory that's ours. We can talk about your child”, reminding her: ”Our child.” What have the ugly dugs gained? Independence and identity, as well a relationship which reminds of a 'family' as the father and the adoptive care-giver for Tina. Perhaps beyond the film, if Isabel is not anymore, the usual happy end of Hollywood will be possible. Some on the ImdB Messageboard want that Charlotte and Dr Jaquith should celebrate Hollywoods happy end. But why! Dr Jaquite is the representative of l’orde symbolique in the lacanian meaning: was the No against mother and daughter. Encouraging, after having given the tools, to ” be interested in everything - and everybody.” Everybody was everybody – not only Jerry. J-erry och C-amille’ responsibility was Tina as parents. C-harlotte and J-aquitt’s responsibility was: C-ascade. She donated inherited money which made it possible to build, suggested as director at the board by Dr Jaquitt of C-ascade. She shared the power, executing, with the Nom du Père as M-Other. Even if Dr Jaquit said: ”Remember what it says in the Bible, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away" and he answered her question: ”Not so very wonderful, since the Free Will Bill was passed. Too little power.” – the power is shared between them.
Slavoj Zizek has focused on Now, Voyager in the mervebook ”Liebe Dein Symptom wie Dich selbst.” 1991:35-37. He explains why a letter finally always reaches it’s adress (thinking of the movie The Postman always rings twice, 1946). As Jerry’s wife dies he is free to marry Charlotte. Zizek According to Zizek Dr Jaquith advises Charlotte not to marry, it will harm Tina: thus to sacrifice her love and be with Tina, offering Jerry frienship. Always, according Zizek, the letter arrives to pay back what once has been given. But: Zizek has forgotten the movie: the mother does not die and Tina wishes Charlotte to be her mother.
stephanSE 2008-06-19
FROM THE IBMD MESSAGE BOARD: AN UNPLEASANT TRUTH ”I once had the honor of interviewing Bette Davis in a one-on-one sit-down situation, and of "Now Voyager" she said (in an attempt to dispel its reputation as a soap opera or melodrama) that she was deluged with letters after the film premiered, "from children saying 'That is what my mother did to me,' and from parents saying 'After seeing your film, I now know what I did to my child.' " [The seductive two cigarette trick, a disguised metaphor for sex, in which Henreid places two cigarettes in his mouth, lights both of them, and then passes one to the expectant Davis, was first employed in The Rich Are Always With Us (1932) - ten years earlier.]
2008/52 Fifty first Dates. Lucy ”Henry wait, could I have one last first kiss?”
It’a comedy and a silly one. But seen by people, working with persons with special needs: this movie is a gold mine. It has ideas for conditions near the fictional neurological condition ”Goldfield Syndrome”. The marine biologist Henry Roth of a Hawaiian sea world likes to romance girls on their Hawaii vacation. But suddenly he is caught. At the Hukilau Café he meets Lucy Whitmore. He does not know that she suffers after a car accident a year ago 3th october of ”G S”, which means short-term memory loss: every new day is a new day, without memory of yesterday. She has her loving dad and brother and Sue and Dick at the Hukilau Café. Every day she celebrates her fathers birthday, the day of the accident. The father, brother, Sue and Dick at the Hukilau repeat this days setup day after day. Sometimes reality breaks through. A look in the scrapbook and a visit to the institutes doctor tells her what happened. Henry hearing all this, gets contact with her by using his phantasy – even when father and brother stop it. When having seen the set-up, Henry has the idea of a video, taking secretly the scrapbook. Actually the problem is answered during their first encounter, Lucy saying: ”Sometimes you need an outsider’s perspective” and Henry answering ”Fresh eye never hurts.” Having this in mind his aim is to break the tradition, telling the father: ”She’s finding out that her life is basically a set-up. I think that freaks her out the most. … ’Sorry we couldn’t trick you today. Here’s pictures of your broken head.’ ”. Lucy receives the lillies she talked of yesterday and a present by a secret admirer, a video. Henry says to the father: ”…. Just trying something different. If it doesn’t work, we’ve only wasted one day”. And it works: with the help of tapes by her friend, her ”boyfriend”, the former artteacher meets her former friends who went on in their lives, impressed by Henry’s idea. After all the first kisses it is time for the first night – followed by disaster: waking upp, a stranger is in her bed. The day after this event she visits Henry at his work, the marina. With her she has her diary, she started writing the evening he showed her the first video.” It’s my journal. I write in it every night. It’s just sometimes when I watch it, I feel like I’m being told about my life frome someone else. And when I read this it’s like I’m telling myself. Right after you gave me the video. I was so nervous to come here and meet the guy that makes me fall in love with him every day. … I was nervous because I came hear to break up with you. You had plans and a life before you met me and now all you have time for is to make me fall in love with you every day. My plan is to erase you completly so it’s as if you never existed. Because you have to understand that there is no future with me. Don’t you want to have a career and marriage and children? But how is that going to work? I’m gonna wake up every morning with an enormous belly and no memory of how it happened? I have to make a new journal that doesn’t have you in it. But before I do it I really want you to read what I wrote about you.” Henry accepts against his will. Lucy’s diary made it possible for her to know of yesterday, the days before yesterday and knowing that today becomes tomorrow, etc... The idea of the video structured her life a year after the accident – the same for her diary, giving meaning to remember as she herself wrote the lines yesterday. The day Henry leaves for his year’s trip Lucy’s father tells him: ”Actually, she’s living at the institute. Three weeks ago. Said she didn’t want to be a burden to me and Doug anymore. I don’t know. She’s teaching an art class and she gets to paint every day.” On his way Henry suddenly realises that she has not forgotten him. Turning homeward he rushes to the institute where Lucy shows the stranger her studio, the walls plastered with pictures of him. ”I don’t know who you are Henry, but I dream about you almost every night. Why?” ”What would you say if I told you that notebook you read every day used to have a lot of stuff about me in it? … You erased me from your memories because you thought you were holding me back from having a full and happy life. But you made mistake. Being with you is the only way I could have a full and happy life. You’re the girl of my dreams and apparently I’m the man of yours.” The last ten minutes: alone she wakes up in their bed, seeing a tape, marked with the text God Morning Lucy. She puts it into the VCR: seeing and hearing her wedding (she looks at her ring) – her husband telling her ” It’s very cold outside, so when you’re ready put on a jacket and come have breakfast with me. Love you.” Looking out of the window she – and we – realise that she is on a boat. Warm dressed she is welcomed by her daughter, husband and father. The question was raised at the message board of the IMDb if such is possible. Perhaps, perhaps not; she said it herself, the reason of her break-up. Of course Lucy is not curred. The difference that her husband found a way for her to cope with her disability. This is the secret of every one who wants to improve a disability. Focusing the lacanian No/m du Père (the aim of these filmthinking thoughts): nothing is said of his parents, but we may guess that they where good-enough-parents. He can handle the ’symbolique’ as Lacan describes. Instead of Lucy’s mother she has (M)other Sue at the Café; they where best friends. What about Lucy’s father? He reacted totally normal and did what he did as good as it was possible and he was able to. Until Henry entered, was no other alternative. Every parents, for better & worse, confronted with the abyss of despair has to do ’something’, as good as it is possible, when the normal suddenly is unnormal. Most parents are unable to accept a change later, when a new way is shown. But Lucy’s father realised that Henry meant not only well, was not only in love with his disabled daughter – but had a way out. Only very few parents in such a situation are able to return to the start and try the other path.
stephanSE 2008-02-03
2008/51 The Governess. Mr Cavendish ”How late it is.”
The ending conclusion of the dibutatis essay (Dibutadis. Die weibliche Kindheit der Zeichenkunst: Kritische Berichte, Heft 4, 1996), freely translated, is: Marie Nicole Vestier’s painting ”The picture of the Painters daughter, making a portrait of her father” serves her father Antoine Vestiers purpuse, using the daughter as an unpaid modell, having in mind the members of the academy, his friends and collegues – and not the family. The movie Firelight opened 4 september 98, directed by a man, The Governess opened earlier, june 11 1998, directet and written by a woman (Sandra Goldbacher, the child of an Italian-Jewish father and a mother born on the Island of Sky) – a good illustration of the ideas in Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, in which she marvels at how necessary it is for men to have women to feel superior to. Introduction. The warm secureness of the Sephardic Jewish household of the early 1840’s is disturbed by the murder of the da Silva family’s father. The headstrong daughter Rosina decides not to marry or be a prostitute but seek domestic service. ”All I need are a pair of white gloves and some humility and an answer to my advertisment.” Her wish of stageacting becomes reality: not the stage of the theatre but the stage of the world. Aware that her Jewishness bars the door to any employment Rosina invents the governess Mary Blackchurch, a Protestant whose part-Italian ancestry explains her olive skin. Act I. Mrs Cavendish lives a life in disapointment and boredom, asking the governess if one can die by it – while her husband, indifferent to domestic matters, is absorbed in the pioneering studies of photography. The theme of the (lacanian) No/m du Père is the red thread. Right at the beginning of the movie we see the warm interaction between the father and his spirited daughter. For Rosinas Miss Blackchurch he appears in her dreams, answering her ”Oh father, how could you do this to me?” with ”Oh Rosina, don’t worry. I’m only sleeping.” During her in-her-room-celebration of Passover she spills some of the saltwater on the cavendishphototype beside, wiping it dry. That night Charles Cavendish and not her father, appears, being her stand-in-father with her. In the morning, seeing what happened with the phototype, she rushes to the study: ”It’ salt solution!” ”Salt solution, you clever girl” he adresses her mind, and in the next moment adressing the governess: ”Perhaps you should see to your hair Miss Blackchurch.” It’s the mixture of sodium chloride he did not see: ”how could I have been so stupid. It was starring me into the face”, Rosinas Miss Blackchurch saying: ”You should be so proud of what you’ve done. You’ve made it possible to capture the essence of people, to fix memory, fix people, … lost people … in one’s mind forever”, giving him the honour of final discovery. The steps to their recognition are as follows: 1. Late for supper, Charles Cavendish excuses himself; the governess asking ”What is the nature of your research”? ”Oh, dry-as-dust stuff!”. ”I should be interested to hear”. 2. At the beach comments his daughter Clementina a sea shell as a piggs ear, the governess naming the object in latin, Terebra maculata, he asking if she studied ”conchology”, she answering that her father suggested reading Lamarck, having a small collection himself. 3. From her room she sees the mysterious study of which the servant Cook says, that it has something to do with capturing the shadows of ghosts. Secretly she nightenters the study, seeing the box camera at the window and the ’ghost’-pictures. 4. Next morning she positions herself outside the study, phototyped by Charles Cavendish, he inviting her to come and join her in his work as assistent – partly released from her normal duties (as described in the dibutatis essay). Act II. When Rositas Miss Blackchurch suggests after the salted picture discovery again a portrait (she asked before: ”Have you ever recorded a phototype of a human face?”), he now agrees: ”You’ve worn me down. Besides, I owe so much to your tenacy, how can I refuse?” The ”biblical study in the manner of Raphael. I think as Queen of Esther. Will do this? Half in the shadow, half in the light. Like that.” It is here they are unable to resist as man and woman; the man, a slave of his Protestantic conscience, ’devoured’ by the eager woman with her answering kiss – and his bad conscience: ”How late it is” – too late for both, well expressed by Rosinas choice of the Salomé-theme with the seven vails. Before their first loveact Charles says: ”Your eyes are so huge.You devour me” to which she answers: ”Then do not look at me. I’ve heard it said that the ancient Hebrews used to express love for each other entirely covered.” And afterwards: ” …. Do I look different? …. You taught me to be an inventor. And now I feel as though I could do anything. I want to understand everything about you. I want, I want to invent a way of fixing this moment for ever.”, forgetting what her aunt had said to her mother after her fathers death: ”You never really know a man’s true nature. It is all God’s will.” It is Rositas Mary Blackwood who sets the pace, knowing exactly what she wants, being God, knowing well the (a) man’s Charles true nature – never forgetting who the commanding master is and the obidient servant: ”Could we not … could you not” or ”Cavendish method…. Cavendish Blackchurch method … or even the Blackchurch Cavendish method”, Charles reminder of ”Are you trying to overtake me, Miss? Yes in Edinburgh Cavendish Blackchurch Studio.” Rosinas Miss Blackchurch is not only The Governess for the daughter of the cavendish household, she governs also the master of the cavendish household. Act III. But she does the forbidden. The same did Cathy in Far From Heaven did, stepping into her husbands at-work-domain. Charles talking of his mother, Rositas Mary Blackchurch says to do the same as he did with his mothers hair, play with her curly hair. By doing it, he falls asleep; it’s like hypnotising the big boy, becoming in the arms of her as stand-in-mother the little boy, the (M)other, able to do with him what she wants. Eagerly Rosina uses her chance, taking of his clothes and arranging his left leg – on the developed phototype it’s the other leg – she passes the point of no return of time and space; thus intruding uninvited the male-domain. Too late she discovers the mistake. Mary is again Miss Blackchurch. When asking: ”Did you sleep well, did you find it?” he coldly answers: ”I found it. I don’t believe I have any work for you Miss Blackchurch. Thank you.” And she, sensing what she has done: ”Charles, what have I done?” Now he has his alibi to abandon her. As said before: ”I … do not think so much of feelings as you do. I do not want feelings. I do not want the feelings that I have … You take my strength. I cannot work!” And when the Royal Society’s Hewlitt comes, the idea of the salted pictures are his: ”Science is not always an entirely rational being. These maters are not always of interest to the ladies.” And Rosina, still hoping to wind back time and room, humilates herself: ”Charles, I know I have angered you. I know you do not like me to use the camera. Please forgive me. I’m sorry. It was just a gift to show my love. …. And our plans, what about the future? I will, I will not be so demanding. I promise you I won’t. I will not talk of love. I will not speak of the future. I promise I will be whatever you want me to be. What do you want me to be? … Forgive me. I beg you, forgive me. I love you.” After her halfhearted revenge with his son she returns to London. Saying goodby to the family, dressed in her Jewish outfit, Mrs Cavendish asking: ”Have we Christmas charades?” she receives the compromising phototype as gift: ”With your love of fine art, I know that you will treasure this forever”. Act IV. Back in London Rosina da Silva becomes a wellknown, unmarried photographeness for her own people. One day the defeated monster Mr Charles Cavendish is her customer: ”I’m in your hands Miss da Silva. Do with me what you will”, she answering: ”Could you turn your head a little more into the light? Still for a full minute.” And the defeated monster: ” Are we done?” Miss Rosina da Silva: ”Yes, Yes, I think so. Quite done.” Then speaking to us, while taking a selfportrait: ”I think of Scotland hardly ever at all now. My images are much admired, and I am even to give a lecture at the Royal Society. They say I have captured the beauty of my father’s people, and I am glad… My Mary Blackchurch days seem long gone now. I hardly ever think of what might have been, or why he came to find me, or why it is that you love most those who always seem to be turning away from you. Work is a wonderful restorative. I hardly ever think of those days at all. No. I hardly ever think of them at all.” In her last dream is Charles Cavendish her guiding stand-in-father as her real father had made it clear: ”Dance. I don’t want you on my hands forever”. The general rule for identityfinding is: to leave the shelter of family and search for it outside. But the question is: was the loveplunge necessary? Even without their sexual encounter the man Cavendish should have told Hewitt that the invention of the salted phototype was his; men are like that, doing such things all the time! Even without the sexual loveplunge was it ’incestious’ adultery of mind and mindpregnancy. As famous photographeness she could have made her living. But the difference should have been: marriage, her husbands sexual slave, had to sacrified her profession, dedicated to the master, children and the household. Miss Rosina da Silva should have been without the experience how a man treats a woman: the humilation of her love was an important part for her identity; to be included as a mirrorwarning ever after. Now she did not marry, now she had no husband, now she had no children … as Simon de Beauvoir! This duty is taken care of all those who want it, who do not have the rosinacourage. Allready in love with Charles, Rositas Mary writes a letter to her sister: ”and my employer is really quite …human. Gentiles are not monsters, I find, although they are still deeply serious”. As famous photographeness not in Edinburgh or Paris but in London she pleasures to humilate back the ’deeply serious’ monster as defeated monster-customer in her studio, the Rosina da Silva studio. But the last sentence of the dibutatis essay is for the Rositas of yesterday, today and tomorrow a warning: ”How much the female artists are seen, asking for and taking more and more room – they practise their art, as Dibutatis did, in the name of the father.” – No/m du Père.
stephanSE 2008-01-26
2007/50 Hysterical blindness. Beth: ”Don’t rush me.”
Deb Miller works as a data-processor in the customer service department of a warehouse, and in the opening scene she tells her best friend and neighbor, Beth, how she was taken blind while working on the computer at her workplace and recovered her sight while waiting for treatment in the hospital's emergency room. The doctor told the neurotic and high-strung Deb that this temporary blindness was caused by stress and that she should learn how to relax. An off-broadway play transformed into a teleplay, directed by Woman director Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding), a good picture of two women desperate for affection and attention in Bayonne, New Jersey, and willing to do anything for it. Debby, ”looking for love in all the wrong places”, the neurotic, psychotic nature is real, far off Hollywoods sugarcoat characters. Her friend Beth, mother since sixteen, sees, as al the others, her hysterical blindness – but only one is able to reach Debbie’s normal mind behind the hysterical bars. It is her mothers, the waitress Virgina Millers widdowed friend and lover Nick. They meet one day’s afternoon, she passing Ollie’s to by cigarettes. Nick buys her a beer. He comments about how girls like [her] have to be careful, regarding partying, the bar scene. Asking him what he means, he answers, explaining her special quality, just like her mother, that not too many people will be able to see, or appreciate. Some day later she tells the bartender Bobby that her father used to come with her – actually thinking of what she experienced that afternoon with Nick, in vain searching for a man, one of them is the aloof acting construction worker Rick, fantasizing that he's her ideal mate, having with Nick that afternoon the experience of a father she never had. Here again: the confronting experience of the lacanian name of the father. That this scene could happen the affair between her mother and Nick had to be part of the movie. Even his heart attack and death was needed – unknown for mother and daughter, the latter falling back into her hysterical criticism. Then, after Nicks sons phonecall we wittness boths mourning. For Mrs Miller it was good and enough to know of the future with Nick, together growing old in Florida in the shadow of the lemon tree in their front yard. The end: sitting in front of the house, looking at Beths daughter, practising her cheerleading routine, they all end up dancing to "Cyndi Lauper - Girls just wanna have fun". The real of the movie is sometimes too real, hurting. ” An excellent and accurate portrayal of lower-middle class 20-something barflies in the 80s, desperate for affection and attention, and willing to do anything for it. Uma Thurman and Juliette Lewis are the quintessential trashy girls of the 80s. Uma Thurman plays "Deb", a self-centered secretary who doesn't want anyone to be happy unless she's happy, including her best friend "Beth" (also expertly played by Juliette Lewis) and her mother (Gena Rowlands). Tragically flawed with low self-esteem, she covers it up with fantasies of happily ever after, even fooling herself, while the more level-headed, but also flawed Beth tries to do her best to stay happy with her absent-fathered daughter and inject a little reality into Deb's world…”, to quote a line from the IMDb- user comments. Even that life beyond the film is for her 'hysterical blind', Beth will remember the afternoon-moment at Ollie’s, Nick speaking to her and she receiving what he said.
stephanSE 2007-12-24
2007/49 The human stain. Mrs Silk: ” Funny, I never thought of you as black or white. Golden, you were my golden child
A start and an end – between the explanation; the explanation explained by flashbacks – a man and a woman in a car. Meeting another car, the driver looses controll and dives into the lake. The end shows the same scene: now we know the man, the woman and the man in the other car. The man and woman give the impression to be at peace with each other as everything is said and done – nothing more is left. It is 1998, ”[voiceover] 1998 was the summer of sanctimony. After the fall of Communism and before the horrors of terrorism, there was a brief interlude when the nation was preoccupied by cock sucking”, meaning of course the Clinton-affair, the mirror of the Coleman-Faunia-affair. Behind, unknown for everybody is ’The human stain’, der Schamfleck, skammfläcken, la honte. In the mirror of societys stain, – how society makes it possible that Coleman was able to treat his human stain as he did. When Herb Keble finally admitted, everything was too late, he who could have supported, but did not, looked away with his silence. His speech at the funeral admitts too late that he had seen and looked away.. As the book was before the film, it is no secret that Coleman is not a Jew but a ’spook’ himself, an African American – the reason ’why’ professor Silk is wild tempered, puzzling everybody what actually happens. Having the ’light-skin’and having seen how his father was treated, how Steena Paulsson was, it was an ’easy’ choice to enlist the Navy as a white man. The movie shows how difference is treated by society, be a Jew, a colored, (a disabled) – an outsider outside of society, normality. Even Faunia, the unlettered school janitor half his age is an outsider. Two questions in focus: to cross the line of race and the line of class. When we hear by her own words and others what has happened and happens to her, Faunia, we understand by flashbacks what Coleman is and has done. Faunia and Coleman have experience which leads them beyond the point of no return. This enables them not only to recognise the other, but both see the other, each other. Nothing to hide beyond. Even if sexuality seems to be in the foreground, we wittness a deep understanding, the real background. It is this that offers both a sense of peace, having reached the final goal. Beyond the human stain, beyond la couleur du mensonge, beyond der menschliche Makel. It is this we sense at the beginning, seeing them in the car, know it at the end short before their death. Faunia Farley: ” Action is the enemy of thought.”
stephanSE 2007-11-11
2007/48 Knife in the water (Noz w wodzie) ”Where is my knife?”
When Noz w wodzie starts Andrzejs wife Krystyna, drives the car – on their way to the local marina for a 24-hour-sundaysailing on the Mazury Lakes. Annoyed of her critisizing husband, she stops the car , letting him drive. Suddenly they see a young man in the middle of the road, waving for a ride. The husband tells the young man: if his less capable wife had been at the wheel, he would have been dead. Browsing the internetcritics, the focus is jealousy, power, psychological warfare, fear, humiliation, sexuality, forced to rspect the agressive ’Captain of the ship’. The movie is framed by the carride to and from the marina: between the movie. The carride to the marina the films prelude and the carride back the answer of ’who is the real boss!’ On their way to the marina we are told who the boss is. Driving from the marina Krystyna asks Andrzej if he is afraid: saying that he is, stopping at a roadjunction with a 5-km-sign to the Police. The husband hears that he does not need to take this direction. The young man cheated them. Andzrej believes that she lies, she telling him that he liked to give her a lesson. He hears: ”We had sex together”, saying the truth, knowing that her husband does not believe her, he answering: ”A bad joke”, Krystyna apologizing ”Sorry, I won’t joke anymore”, smiling in the passengers seat, we realising who is in the driver’s seat. The man, the woman and the youngster perform what an aging father, growing-up son and the onlooking incestseeking mother waits for, abandoned by her husband. The father confront the son with humilating ’obstacles’. But as the ’obstacles’ have an undertone of prestige, the father sensing that he has passed his primetime, turning it over to his ’son’, wittnessed by his wife, the mother. But thew tragic is that Andrzej can not and is unable to take this step. He is not ’good-enough’, no good representative for the lacanian ’Nom du Père’. Krystyna, intelligent, patient and beautiful tries without success to diffuse the tension between the men – and the climaxe comes, the knife as the reason; a fight and a ’murdered’ son. It is here that Krystynas emotion against her husband explodes and the defeated winner leaving the scene of the boat. Focusshift to Krystyna. Talking with the young man, she tells him that he is not better than her husband. ”If you want to be as him, which you will be, you have to be as shameless and cruel as he is.” Re-establishing the young mans confidence and revenging her husband they make love – being the movies most powerful wo-man, ’homme’, a human woman among dominating ’omelette’, dominating unhuman ’litlle men’, the lacanian l’omelette. Her deal is the western bourgeois life (Noz w wodzie was denounced by communist party chief Wladyslaw Gomulka for its Western attitudes) – the sailing boat at the local marina, imported luxury automobile, an apartement in town etc, etc. The background metaphore of what happens is the weather: clear and sunny, wind/no wind, storm, thunderstorm, the lowbudget movie’s script had to follow the weather situation, co-written and directed by Polanski, giving his voice-over to the youn man.
stephanSE 2007
47/2007 The Woodsman. "I see something in you. You don't see it yet but I do."
+ Pedophilia or pædophilia is the paraphilia of being sexually attracted strongly or even exclusively to early pubertal children. Pedophilia is described as a mental disorder by standard diagnosis manuals, including the DSM IV and ICD-10. Child sexual abuse is an illegal activity in most jurisdictions.The word comes from the Greek paidophilia (pa?d?f???a): pais (pa??, "child") and philia (f???a, "love, friendship"). Paidophilia was coined by Greek poets either as a substitute for "paiderastia" or vice versa.
+ The movie was released in the US just nine days after the state of California put its sex offender register online. The law, called "Megan's Law" after Megan Kanka, a 7-year-old abducted and killed by a sex offender who was her neighbor. According to it, parents must be able to check whether there are any convicted sex offenders in their neighborhood.
+ ”The reason we cannot accept pedophilia as we accept many other sexual practices is that it requires an innocent partner, whose life could be irreparably harmed. We do not have the right to do that. If there is no other way to achieve sexual satisfaction, that is our misfortune, but not an excuse. It is not the pedophile that is evil, but the pedophilia. That is true of all sins and crimes and those tempted to perform them: It is not that we are capable of transgression that condemns us, but that we are willing. "The Woodsman" understands this at the very heart of its being, and that is why it succeeds as more than just the story of this character. It has relevance for members of the audience who would never in any way be even remotely capable of Walter's crime. We are quick to forgive our own trespasses, slower to forgive those of others. The challenge of a moral life is to do nothing that needs forgiveness. In that sense, we're all out on parole… ”(Roger Ebert Chicago Sunday Times January 7, 2005).
After twelve prisonyears for molesting girls “between the age of 10 and 12, although some told me they were older, and some told me they were younger”, the pedophile member Walter of ’pedophilia’-land is realeased. He gets an apartment across from a grade school playground and a job at a lumberyard. Society is open and indirect hostile against Walter: Mary-Kay and Lucas on one side and Walters brother-in-law Carlos on the other side. Walters question about if he ever had 'feelings' for his daughter errupts a volcano of supressed emotions to life. Between these two polarities are the others and we, watching this movie. The therapist focuses Walters childhood days, to the point of no return of his desires start. Only once we see brother and sisterer together, from the distance. Vicki dates Walter, herself victimised by her brothers ”in cronological order, now happily married husbands with own children”, not knowing that their relation is Walters first normal, being his unknowing sex therapist. When Walter finally tells her his secret, she deals with a series of emotions. And when she finally returns, she answers Walters question ”Why are you staying”, with: "I see something in you. You don't see it yet but I do." Both search for nearness, warmth, friendship, love. A mirror for each other, recognising and seeing. By meeting the girl Robin after his mirroring experience, he can cope his pedophilian demons. What Robins father does with his daughter, Walter has done and was banned for. What Candy does, seen by Walter from his apartement, is his yesterday’s mirror. As Walter can cope his demons, it allows him to beat Candys body and beating the symbolic body of Robins father. ”It is not the pedophile that is evil, but pedophilia. That is true of all sins and crimes and those tempted to perform them: It is not that we are capable of transgression that condemns us, but that we are willing.” (Roger Ebert Chicago Sunday Times January 7, 2005). If the talk with the therapist made it possible to look at the past, the sex tharapist made it possible to learn to live with his demons. The woman Vicki is the possibility at his side for his new life – expressed in the end of the movie by the move from his to her apartement. After he had told her and she returned she could pronounce the lacanian word of the lacanian Nom du Père and what Lacan meant in (Les non – dupes erent, Seminar 1973/74 march 19): ”Le défilé, le défilé du signifiant par quoi passe à l’exercise ce quelque chose qui est l’amour, c’est très précisément ce nom du père qui n’est non (n,o,n) qu’au niveau du dire, et qui se monaye par l voix de la mère dans le dire – non d’un certain nombre d’interdictions, […] ” The fathername exists on the level of speach, unable to authorizise himself but in need of the mirroring (M)other, speaking and making possible l’ordre symbolique. The abuser was not cured but learned to live and cope with his ’illness’. (In the case of autism: no cure but the search for methods to handle autisms traits. It is this what Walter means, asking ”When will I be normal,” and answering: ”When I can regard girls without the tempting thought, normal as others do.”
stephanSE 2007-07-25
46/2007 ROYAL WEDDING 1951 (Ellen/Tom Bowen: "What shall we do?" ”Keep the ballance!”)The wellknown showbiz-sisters Tom & Ellen Bowens next asignement is in London, at the Mayfair, a a beloved contribution to the royal weddding. The films introduction shows a female Don Juan, leaving behind quarrelling lovers. On the boat, Ellen falls for the English lord John Brinsdale (as Fred Astaire’s real sister did), having trouble with committments. But for the Don-Juan-Ellen it seems to be serious as she admits it in ”Too Late Now”. Even Tom falls for once in love; the elsewhere promised Anne Ashmond, a dancer of the show. Having found ’true love’, neither Tom or Ellen wants to to give up their careers to grab love. The sisters give each other the answer they want to hear and and need for their career. Work is much better and to rely on than the business of love. But Royal Wedding is a product from Hollywood they plunge and give love a chance. Will beyond the end work or love be the winner? With the song "How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Love You When You Know I've Been a Liar All My Life,", the longest song title in a Hollywood film, the old truth is focused: the man is a boy, laughed at by Anne Ashmonds father as in books, dramas and films, etc. But Tom is in love with Anne Ashmond, knowing that he has not the stuff for a husband and that it has to be an affair for the moment, uncommitted. He asks her why she wants to be a dancer, she answering: ”…I closed my eyes, pretending to dance all over the floor, walls, even the ceiling.” And, rembering it, Tom sings and dances ”All the World to Me” in a room, attached camera and harnessed cameraman inside a 20 ft. diameter rotating "squirrel cage”. When Tom and Ellen give each other the answer the other wants to hear (and seemingly even needs) – no marriage with either lord and dancer, they are off to be part of the cheering londoncrowd. Infected by the atmosphere they get depressed, taking the leap, giving love a chance. As long it lasts. At least a man should try to be something of a man and not a screaming boy beside a woman who has the courage to be his wife. A ” man”, described in Erskine Caldwells ”God’s Litle Acre”, Griseldas fatheranswer, meaning Will (German Edition 1959/146-148). Tom is well aware that he can not stand up for the meaning of the lacanian Nom du Père, that no woman can by her speach open the door of l’ordre symbolic. And will Anne Ashmond, her dansing is, as Ellen says ”rather clumsy”, fill the sistergap, the daughter of Sir Winston Churchill? Will it work for Ellen as Lady Brinsdale? Will she as Lady Brinsdale be content with afternoon tea and partys? And – ’is’ a royal wedding where everything is as it should be, faultless? The good-enough-symbol is the royal wedding of the to-be-Queen-bride and her groom. It is this atmosphere the against-weddin-sisters are affected of, giving marriage a try.
+ Dedicated to all the screaming husband-boys
stephanSE 2007-06-22
45/2007 In the Cut (Malloy: ”I like it in the cut.”)The campiondirected In the Cut (the director’s cameo: the bar waitress in the first date between Frannie and Detective Malloy) is co-written with the books author. The co-producer Nicole Kidman, divorcing from her husband, should have taken Frannie but passed it on to Meg Ryan, due to her divorce. Frannie, a high school English teacher has a warm relation to her halvsister Pauline, mixed with a vulnerable lesbian touch – the third victim of the homicide detective Rodriguez. Strange men are around Frannie: the African American student Cornelius, the homicide detective James Malloy, John Graham with his dog and the peripheric killer Rodriguez, sometimes fishing with his friend James Malloy at the phallic Lighthouse, the scene of his crimes. The theme of the phallic Lighthouse is introduced early: by Frannie, lecturing on Virginia Woolf's 'To the Lighthouse' and draws a huge red phallic lighthouse on the blackboard - a rather obvious reference to the Father/Phallus which is confronted finally at the 'real' lighthouse at the end. In rhe film she killes the killer – in the book she is killed by the killer. The title is the theme: being in the vagina (originated when women were ’castrated male slaves’). Malloy, when he is hand cuffed to the pipe and Franny on top of him: ”Want to watch?”, he answers: ”(yea, thats it, I like) it ’In the Cut’”. The subtitle-translation is "in het geniep", meaning "secretly", "hidden"; the Swedish ”avskildhet” . Rodriguez uses a ring as a token for his murdering marriages, the same kind used by Frannies and Paulines father. Rodriguez tells Frannie in the Lighthouse of a girl he loved all his life: ”Have been in love. I have met this girl. I have been thinking of her all my life. Dreamt about her …. I don’t know if she loves me. You women want love, right? What about you. You want love. Want to be kissed …. Will you marry me, Frannie?” And placing the ring on the knife which has killed the others and will kill Frannie: ”Put on the ring, put on the fucking ….” Seeing the gun in her hand: ”What are you doing, are you crazzy?” A fight, a kiss, switch to the parents, the sound of Frannies second shot, filmkilling Rodriguez. In the book she is sliced to pieces, bleeding to death, describing it. Paulines and Frannies father married four times, planned a fifth marriage: Rodriguez ’married’ four times (the victim a year ago, Angela Sand, the one after her and Pauline), planned a fifth: (Frannie). Rodriguez’ dreamgirl is between him and his victims, not corresponding the dream. The reason that the Lighthousereality has to be killed, hoping that the next will correspond the dream. Even his at-home-wife, whom he tried to kill when she discovered him with a woman, is not his dream. His gun and batch taken and placed as ’housemouse’ at the desk. The phallic gun-symbol of being a man at its hight ’In the Cut’, able to shoot/ejaculate is replaced with the toy of a boy, his waterpistol. Rodriguez misused the lacanian ’Nome du Père’. Neither his wife or his dreamgirl or the lighthousevictims could authorisize him by speaking, opening the door to l’ordre du symbolique’. Rodriguez, well aware of this fact, is in a trapp of grief and anger, condemned to be never a man ’In the Cut’, madening him. Paulines birthdaygift for Frannie is a courtingbracelett with charms: weddingbell, a house, a pram with a baby in it. The latter is lost when Frannie is robbed on her way home on West Broadway. Malloy locked to the pipe with his own cuffs and Frannie looking for the keys, finds in his jacketpocket the lost charm; he in vain explaining, Frannie does not believe him and translating the signs wrong, runs into Rodriguez’ arms, he taking her to the phallic Lighthouse to marry her: music, champagne, the ring, the knife…
stephanSE 2007-04-29
44 2007 FIRELIGHT, Servant: "Miss Louise, being educated"
1838 Elisabeth Laurier agrees to bear a child of an anonymous English landowner, and he will in return pay her father's debt, giving up at birth, as agreed, the child. But she can’t forget. After seven years long search she has found the anonymous man and their English Daughter, hired as governess.
The setup: a daughter and her for us unvisible in-debt-father, his mirror the londonlifeloving father Lord Clare, his sheepbreeding son and his bredd daughter, together with his comatosewife and the £500 payed governess. In what way approaches Firelight the lacanian ’Nom/Non du Père’? The in England living Swiss Miss Elisabeth Laurier and the unknown male ’breed’ for three days in a normandiehotel a child, helping the other what is not to get and paying the fathers debt. The first businesslike night is folllowed by the second, being on the dangerous verge to ’like-it’ – while the third night is pure and forbidden pleasure. The following filmmoments are seven years, the mother writing her diary ”To my English Daughter”, searching and finally having found her, applying for the advertised governess. The upset father has to keep her according English law at least a month. Miss Laurier, confronted with her spoiled, tantrum-throwing daughter, asks the master of sheepbreeding, what forms of discipline she may use during the four weeks? ”None. She will soon find out the hard world we live in. As long as she is in my care I will that she is happy.” But Miss Laurier takes own measures. He, entering the house, hearing his daughters screams, is servanttold: ”Miss Louisa, being educated”; perhaps the films most important saying. The breeders-governess-confrontation compromises that she may resume. Louisa accepts the new rules and everybody is happy. But Louisa mocks her framesetting governess: ”Servant, servant, servant”, hearing the answer: ”I m not a servant, I’m a prisoner. So will you be”, telling the girl that after her marriage everything will belong to her husband, being his prisoner. If she doesn’t marry, she is locke up in loneliness: ”But they can’t prison your mind. I want you to read. I want you to have your own life.” We see here that the biological mother and her biological daughter work hard towards a relation, based on trust. When the thin communication-’ice’ is a fact, the films interest turns to the parents – whose relation started with the childbreeding. Lord Clares arives from London. He tells her that his son is like his grandfather, critisising his kind of life when sixteen, answering him: when you have been together with a woman you may speak to me like this – Elisabeth saying: ”Now he has.” Elisabeth has given her daughter rules, able to be loved by others and shown Lord Clares boy how to be a man. Louisa’s looking eyes, sees that something is between her father and the governess. And when discovering both in bed, the child rushes to her lakehouseretreat, hearing behind her real governess-mother ”Louisa, don’t leave me” and in front the call of her ’imaginaire’ lakehousmother onto the thin ice, followed by the cold and icy rescuedrama. Nobody is allowed to come to the Lakehouse, not even the camera; here she is with her absent mother: ”Just be with her”. Followed by the selling of the Sussex Estate, due to Miss Lauriers mirror, Lord Clares londonlife. Followed by Charles gentle-death-help of his comatose-wife; the priest: ”Oh death, wher is thy sting, oh death, where is thy victory” and Elisabeths question: ”Was it you?”, taking the responsibility: ”I wanted you and Louisa so in my mind and heart those long seven years,” saying that her desire has destroyed everything, his wife, himself, his world, ”I didn’t know of so much power in desire. May God have mercy on us”. Followed by Louisas discovery of the diary ”To my English Daughter”, asking why she was given away and hearing, ”I didn’t, I sold you”, asking for how much and that £ 500 is a fortune: ”I am glad it was a lot.” Leaving the Sussex estate, the family takes with them not too much or too little, just what is needed for what they are. Elisabeth Laurier was guided by the firelight of her pleasure, adding to biology trust and love – something the father could not do without her. Lacan points to the fact (in Les non – dupes erent, Seminar 1973/74 march 19) ”Le défilé, le défilé du signifiant par quoi passe à l’exercise ce quelque chose qui est l’amour, c’est très précisément ce nom du père qui n’est non (n,o,n) qu’au niveau du dire, et qui se monaye par l voix de la mère dans le dire – non d’un certain nombre d’interdictions, […]” The fathername exists on the level of speach, unable to authorizise himself – in need of the mother who verbalises his name, pointing to the law, the l’ordre symbolique, and forbidds with the ’Non du Père’ the incest, to desire it in the future, love begins here when desire ends. It is this what Firelight is about: "It's a kind of magic. Firelight makes time stand still. When you put out the lamps and sit in the firelight's glow there aren't any rules any more. You can do what you want, say what you want, be what you want, and when the lamps are lit again, time starts again, and everything you said or did is forgotten. More than forgotten it never happened." A similarity is Une liaison pornographique, its start of without feelings, acting out a phantasy between the nameless Elle and Lui according the contract. But in both situations the forbidden feeling changes the goal. The by Elle written contract did not include ther visit to the restaurant, had in mind the café as start-off for what happens in the hotelroom. They met to act out a forbidden phantasy not to breed a child. Therefor Elisabeth, Andrew and Louisa have a future but not Elle et Lui: even that love came in between, they where unable to look behind the face, reading the others thoughts, the had as only option to terminate their relation as it started.
stephanSE 2007-02-18
43 2007 THE CONTENDER ”It’s really not everybodys business.”
The Big Brass Ring starts citing Abraham Lincoln: ”It is common enough that we triumph at resistance; but if you truly wish to testify a man’s character: give him power.” The ”for our daughters” dedicated The Contender, continues what Capra started with Mr Smith Goes to Town and what was continued with All the Kings Men, Manchurian Canditate, Seven Days in May, The Parallax View, All the Presidents Men. The here-difference is the Pleasentvilles Joan Allen as Senator Laine Hanson, thought to be USA:s first female Vicepresident. The keywords are power, sex and greed in politics. The antagonist is Congressman and chairman of the Congressional commmitee, Gary Oldmans Shaldon Runyon, stating in the dvd-interview to filmask ”who are the bad and good guys”! Runyon is against the fe-male Senator: ”Greatness is the orphan of urgency, Laine. Greatness only emerges when we need it most... in time of war or calamity. I can't ask somebody to be a Kennedy or a Lincoln. They were MEN created by their times. What I... What I can ask for... is the promise of greatness. And that, Madam Senator... you don't have”, assuring ”what I say the American people will believe. And do you know why? Because I will have a very big microphone in front of me.” The fe-male Senator’s decides not to react to the sexual rumours of a college gang-bang and a home-breaking affair with her married campaign manager: ”… because it’s not okay for them to be made.” In the dvd-interview Joan Allen says that ”the personal has no price.” It is enough for the fe-male Senator that she knows of her innosence. Answering the Mr President curiosity what actually happened, ”you mean, this would just be between Laine and the President”, hearing ”…this will be between Laine and Jackson” and asking why she doesn’t answer for the sake of her reputation, the fe-male Senetators answers that ”people have sacrified more for less.” The Contenders ”sentiments are liberal and Democratic, its villains conservative and Republican. When I asked its star, if the plot was a veiled reference to Monicagate, he smiled. ’Veiled?’ he said, ’I don't think it's so veiled.’ ” (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sunday Times 13 oct 2000) At Congress Mr President starts his speech, citing Napoleon who ”once said when asked to explain the lack of great statesmen in the world, cites Napoleon: "to get power you need to display absolute pettiness; to exercise power, you need to show true greatness. Such pettiness and greatness are farely found in one person... Laine Hanson has asked that I allow her to step aside. She asked me to do this because she wants my presidency to end on a note of triumph and not controversey. Understand those of you who worked to bring Laine Hanson down, that she asked to have her name withdrawn from consideration, NOT because she isn't great, but because she isn't petty. Because those two forms of leadership traits could not live in her body or her soul. Greatness. It comes in many forms, sometimes it comes in the form of sacrifice - that's the loneliest form. ” The fe-male Senetor hears that he denies her wish, jogging at Arlington Cementary, her husband in the car beside her: ”You are back”. This corresponding with Hillary Clinton’s ”I am in” (2007-01-20).To have a woman on this political level is the 21st centurys twist, ”making the American dream possible to gender”, Mr President states it simple, that it is ”an idea whose time has come.” There where wo-men before Laine Hanson in politics – Thatcher, Meir and Gandhi, all of them meeting men on their arena. Has Merkel, Royal, Clinton and the others the courage of change? (See http://www.guide2womenleaders.com/index.html ) Perhaps it is not the fe-male wo-men but the general trend-attitude of both gender causing change. Of course will the American/Swedish people forgive Laine Hansson/Mona Sahlin – but never forget history. Representing the ’Nome/Non du Père” (Aftonbladet 2001-01-21, having in mind the Bush vinning election: "Dads boy – and earths mightiest man") It is by vote the representative of ’Nome/Non du Père’ is office-authorisized. Gary Oldmans Shaldon Runiyon leaves, fingerpointed at as the bad guy by the President.To confirm the fe-male Senetor Laine Hansson as Vicepresident the President asks for an open voting: wishing to see the voting bad and good guys. Lacan points to the fact (in Les non – dupes erent, Seminar 1973/74 march 19) ”Le défilé, le défilé du signifiant par quoi passe à l’exercise ce quelque chose qui est l’amour, c’est très précisément ce nom du père qui n’est non (n,o,n) qu’au niveau du dire, et qui se monaye par l voix de la mère dans le dire – non d’un certain nombre d’interdictions, […]” The fathername exists on the level of speach, unable to authorizise himself – His name and the to him focused law enter with the mothers speaking l’ordre symbolique, pointing at ’Non du Pèr’, to desire not today but the future. The Big Brass Ring cites Abraham Lincoln: ”It is common enough that we triumph at resistance; but if you truly wish to testify a man’s character: give him power.” Even wo-men must be given power to ”testify the character.” For this is needed the napoleonian ”absolute pettiness” and ”true greatness".
stephanSE 2007-02-09 Dedicated to the toblerone wo-man Mona Sahlin
42 2007 IL PORTIERE DI NOTTE Max: ”I have a reason for working at night. It’s the light. I have a sense of shame in the light.”
(Käthe Kollwitz thought 1921: ”Ein schlimmes Symptom ist dieses: nicht nur eine Sache nicht zu Ende denken, sondern auch ein Gefühl nicht zu Ende fühlen.” (Kohl und Kollwitz. Staats- und Weiblichkeitsdiskurse in der Neuen Wache in Berlin, in: Anette Graczyk (Hg.), Das Volk. Inszenierung, Imagination, Phantasma, Frankfurt (Campus) 1996:198) ’A bad symtom is: not only not to finnish something to think but also not to finnish feeling a feeling to its end.’). Maximilian Theo Aldorfer, a former SS-’kaltenbrunner’-officer, playing ’doctor’ and taking ’sensational photographic studies’, is after yesterday today the night porter of the Hotel zur Oper in Vienna, choosing to ’live as a church mouse’, blended into the shadows, hiding yesterdays shame, consciouss of his ’sense of shame in the light’. Aldorfer is played by Dirk Bogarde, commenting in his biography the Germans: he wouldn't ”take an elevator” with a German. Liliana Cavani was inspired for her film, co-written by short story author Barbara Alberti, partly by own interviews with a Holocaust survivor. SS-officer Aldorfer had as master the luciaslave, us wittnessing this by flash backs. She as the only surviver is suddenly confronted with her captor. Max Aldorfer still loves ”his little girl” Lucia, tells the Duchess the ’biblic’ campversion of Salome/Lucia (At the imdb-trivia we read: ”According to an interview given by Charlotte Rampling on the National Public Radio program "Fresh Air", the nightclub scene was the first scene filmed, singing in a toppless nazioutfit 'Wenn ich mir was wuenschen duerfte', written by Friedrich Hollaender, the leading cabaret composer in Berlin in the 1920s, composed also the Marlene Dietrichs 'The Blue Angel' songs, Dietrich recording 1930 this song). Their ’then’-love, she a part of it, sees it as a surviving possibility, ends abruptly with WW II ending, unconciously the sexual/sadomasochistic relationship unended as shame and guilt in their mind. ’If’, lets say it: WW II was Germanwon, Max would have had Lucia as his serving slave-mistress, eventually ending it in whatever manner he had chosen. The cavanifilm is a good example for what Käthe Kollwitz meant 1921 and that the relation now continued as second chanse and end it. For Max as individual and member of his nazigroup it is a conflict. For them the war never ended, ”We want back the ranks we held. We’ve never given upp.” It is this Liliana Cavani wanted to ’focus’ – as the book and film Focus had. The chained slave Lucia says to Klaus: ”I’m here of my own free will.” Chained! – is she? And: is Lucia: guilty? Today the camp-survivors hear: ”What did you campdo that you are with us; where you a second faster for the crumsel of bread?” What did American Jews not do and the Jews in Switzerland, well aware of what happened? Primo Levi is one of them who could not live with this guilt. Lucias ’guilt’ is her pretty nakedness among the others, cameraseen and film-looked-at. The luciaslave and maxmaster are, guarded in their prison by the maxfriends, he himself as guard and prisoner. Finally they escape, taking his car and leaving it on the bridge, both bertkilled. The bridge we can see as optional symbol for freedom on the other side – impossible for both. What was ’yesterday’ started, the unended process was now thought, felt and acted to its end. The end of C Reeds 1953-’The Man in Between’, eight years after the war and eight years before the wall, has parallells: Cavanis Max, Lucia, the SS and Reeds Ivo, Claire and the DDR. The cavanifilm ends on a real, the reedfilm on a imaginative ’bridge’ as symbol to freedom – unreachable for Max, Ivo and Lucia, reachable for Claire. Lilians Cavani and Dirk Bogarde, together with Rampling and the other had the courage to re-think, re-feal and re-act yesterdays cruelty of a thought, feeling and act to its end. Cyting the 1996:199-author: ”… und einer diffusen Kollektivschuld, die bis heute nicht zu Ende gedacht und nicht zu Ende gefühlt wurde.” As German outside Germany, my believe is that ’Germans’ in Germany have difficulty to see clear guilt and diffuse shame as two different pieces: many saw, looked away, but had seen. How to live with this; how many say ”… I have a sense of shame in the light.” How give trial shame? It is good that we have a Dirk Bogarde, Liliana Cavani, Arthur Miller – and a Peter Nestler with his ”Die Verwandlung des guten Nachbarn”, 15.09.2002,TV, 3SAT.
stephanSE 2006-12-28
41 2006 FAR FROM HEAVEN. Cathy: ”You're all man to me! All man...”
Far from Heaven is quintessential sirkinspired All that Heaven Allowes (placed in the small eastern town Stoningham, NJ. The all-that-heaven-allowes-gardeners father died three years back and only ’today’ becomes his son-gardener Ron Kirby visible for the widdow Cary Scott. Both fall of course in hollywood-love. And when it comes to the lovetesting by society, her children and friends, Cary is instead of herself, a copy of the others. ’Nearly’ too late discovers she that Ron was right, citing his Thourau "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away": she has to choose between love and convention. Though Ron tells her ”To thine own self be true", she has to go her own way, awarded finally. To tresspass societys boundaries of society is not easy: never was, is or will be. Turning to the far-from-heaven-adventure: even here the boundaries are tested, copying the sirkian setup – but it is far-from-heaven. The movie timespan are seven months, from autumnseptember to springmarch. It filmstarts with the pleasentville-perfection. The picture-perfect houswife Cathy and her top sales executive husband at Magnatech are for the affluent northeastern suburb, Hartford Connecticut of 1957 the picture-perfect example. Everything should have gone on for ever and ever and ever – if Cathy had kept herself to her house-duties, not stepped into her husbands at-work-domain: peeping-tom looking at the forbidden, her base is pulled away. Mr Magnatechs homosexual illness is made by his wife public. Society sees homosexuality as illness, accepting it as such. But Cathys sidestep, the crossing-over of the racial border, is no illness; it just is the tabu which even the children accept. Neither her race or the black gardeners race can accept it. Both are tempted – and have to pay. Raymond leaves town and Cathy, coming to the station, waves a shy farewell. No excuse for Cathy, thrown into an abyss, tempted by well educated, kind blackness. Cathy’s friend, telling her again and again that she can rely on her: but when Cathy explains her platonic feeling for Mr Deasons Denis Haysbert, the friend can’t follow her. Homosexuality is an illnes – the racial bordercrossing is near a criminal act. Denis Haysbert, being 1957:s Raymond Deason 2002, is 1963:s Paul Couter in Love Field 1992. Both films focus the same question. Cathy 1957 and Lurene 1963 are have to choose between the illusion they live or following their heart. Both have to pay. Cathy waves a shy good by while Lurene returns. That Lurene can do it is due to the hardlly noticable timechange of 1957 and 1963. The hollywoodmovie All that heaven allows is a dream. The hollywoodmovie Far from heaven is also a dream, following the sirkian setup, but goes a step further, showing behind the dream reality. The sirkgardener is white, the other black. The white gardener as a natural, unseen item in Carys, the black gardener as an unnatural, seen item in Cathys garden. What Cary could have said to Ron, Cathy says to Raymond: ” You're all man to me! All man...” An experience the gay Mr Frank Whitaker was not able to offer his wife Mrs Cathy Whitaker, the experience of the lacanian ’Nom du Père”. Cathy had to travel ’far from heaven’ to have this experience, crossing the social and racial border. The pretending Hartfordlife allowed her husband to live ’normal’ as long nobody scratched the surface. But Cathy scratched the surface, seeing nothing – but seeing beyond the border: everything. It is meant what Troy Chapman explains: to "develop the ability to see things through the eyes of my enemies...". This ability can be owned if a third option is created: "where before there were only two, locked in eternal conflict. We create, then are able to stand, on the third side." What T Chapman 'thinks of' is the lacanian symbolic order and not only the stade du mirror, the lacanian imaginate ("where before there were only two, locked in eternal conflict...") order. "Through my enemy's eyes" - Link to the cited article
stephanSE 2006-12-28
40 2006 FOCUS Gertrude: ”I can give you names.”
Arthur Miller, the son of moderately affluent jewish-american parents, born in Harlem NYC 1915. His fathers coat-manufacturing business failed in 1929:s Wall Street Crash, after which, his family moved to Brooklyn. Robert Everts wrote nov 9 2001 (Chicago Sunday Times): ''Focus'' doesn't reach for reality; it's a deliberate attempt to look and feel like a 1940s social problems picture, right down to the texture of the color photography. The movie is based on Arthur Millers first (controversal) novel, which he says was written during a period of disillusionment with the stage; angered by American anti-Semitism even during the war against Hitler, he wrote it in a white heat. It's a didactic warning that it can happen here.” The backboneless Lawrence Newman, lives a quiet life with his wheelchair-bound (M)-mother (nothing about the father!) with precise habits and exact at his work; blinded looking away behind the blinds, having seen what he did not want to see: the rape. Finkelstein says later to him: ”It’s you they want, not me.” Lawrence needs by the ’Freds’ as scapegoats, to leave the middle and go into their corner. As Gertrude Hart sounds jewish, her future husbad turns her down, himself looking like a Jew, obeying his boss to buy glasses. Eventually the everyman Lawrence finds ”work and love” (… the keyproblem of our existence work and love according S Freud) growing into a personality, giving up the everyman-mothers-boys-attitude, standing up for himself, his wife and for Finkelstein. The first-time director in his middle age, Slavin read Arthur Miller’s novel Focus as art student at Cooper Union back in the 1960s, deciding to make a movie out of it. "I knew it wasn’t among Miller’s premier works, but I thought, ‘There’s something incredible about this book.” About Lawrence and Gertrude Slavin says: "The dynamic between them is very interesting. When you first meet Newman, he’s a Casper Milquetoast, and Gert, in all her flamboyance, is the truth, honesty, even in the way she walks." Together, he says, they come to realize that even if they can convince their neighbors that they aren’t Jewish, "that won’t solve the problem. They find out about the connection between perception and prejudice." And connecting it to Sept 11th :”I loved this book, not because of its insights into anti-Semitism, but because it was a metaphor for all racism, all prejudice and hatred, the blindness of it. Oddly enough, since the horror of [Sept. 11], it has become part and parcel of our times. Racial profiling is visual." That people looked at it as a beautiful film, Slavin says: "People say the film is beautifully shot, but for me, it’s not about beautiful shooting, it’s about meaningful shooting. What drives it for me are the visual layers that you don’t see in the photography. That’s why it was never-ending for me. During the rape [that opens the film], not for a minute do you believe that Newman is the only one watching, and that’s what the film is about, watching. When you see shots from inside people’s house, looking through their windows at Newman on the street, it’s about people watching each other, making ideas up. There are multiple perspectives, always, the characters’ and the audience’s. I wanted the audience to be seeing what Newman sees, but also what he is not seeing, to see how he is seen." My decision for a filmthought are the last sequences: Lawrence goes to the policestation. We do not see, we hear the authority Lawrence speaks to, asking him for a name or names. Until Gertrudes coming Lawrence is again the backboneless everyman, answering the voice that he knows them but will not name them, the voice: ”We can’t look for people without names.” The not book- but filmentering Gertrude answers, ”I have names. I can give you names.” The behind-the-veil-power is namefocused. For this courage is needed, accepting the consequences. The (lacanian) Father’s Name must be named. Officer Sharon Pogue in Angel Eyes takes this consequence, seeing her father abusing his wife and family, crossing the forbidden line: never forgotten by the family. Sharon can’t live with what Harald Welzer (”Opa war kein Nazi…” Fischer 2002) calls ’empty language’. Instead real names are used ’them’, ’that’. Is Focus possible without ’Freds’, germanlands third Reich without Nazis? Freds scapegoats, pushed from the middle into the corner, shameblinded behind the blinds of shame, are the unfocused guilty. It is easy to name and handle guilt of crime, using the law society offers. But how can shame in the corner be handled, having seen how the not-to-us-belonging where and are and will be treated? Officer Sharon Pogue is "tough and she doesn't compromise," explains director Luis Mandoki, "she will do whatever it takes to do the right thing, regardless of personal cost to herself". So does also Gertrude Stein, naming the ’Freds’. The lesson of both to us is mirroring back how ”I wash my eyes when seen too much," using Shlomos words, Train de vie, 1998. What we need is ’Angel Eyes’ to see and act accordingly by naming to ”Do the right thing”. At the Holocaust Memorial, Berlin we read Primo Levi: "It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say."
stephanSE 2006-11-05
39/2006 The Portrait of a Lady Isabel: "It’s the largest thing I know."The film-introduktion of a mother and her daughters kiss-talk is one of the films keymoments: "It means to find a mirror, the clearest mirror," while the following scene tells us that Isabel Archers portrait is "timeless".
The lacanian Nom du Père, of symbolic nature, promises the forbidden incest, is not allowed. But – reality is a different tale, far off Lacan telling wish. One of the reasons: it is far to difficult for the real fathers to be even ‘a good-enough-father’, Lacan himself had this difficulty. The heroine in the book and film, Isabel Archer lost her mother during childhood and her father just a year ago. Her English cousin Ralph, asking why they never had contact, is told that between his mother and her father was a disagreement. What the film doesn’t tell: the father was behind the loving, adored father-frontmirror a gambler, critised highly by Isabels aunt, his sister. Kates father in the James-book Wings of the Dove, even her mother died early, was a drunkard. The parentgift to to the child is the parent-matrix as start-off to form their own personality. Unknown for Isabel, her cousin inspired his father to think of her in his will. Henry James novel The Portrait of a Lady, first published as a serial, explored the question what a woman might do if she were given independent means, focusing on consciousness and morality, own freedom, responsibility, betrayal and sexuality – how Isabel Archer "affronts her destiny". Isabel explains her film-uncle, it is the films keymoment, why she turned down Lord Warburtons proposal of marriage: "But I think I have to begin to get a more general impression of life, you see. And there has a light to dawn. I can’t explain it. But I know it is there. I am not afraid, you know." And cousin Ralph hears that she can’t escape fait, pledges herself to "the usual chances and dangers''. Gilbert Osmond is her ’light’, this mephistophelian American widower and Serena Merles secret lover, the mother of their daughter Pansy. Knowing of Isabels fortune, Serena Merle innitiats the marriage, having her daughters safety in mind – and Isabel, unconsciouss of this, has found her light, her fathers hidden matrix, Gilbert Osmond her destined fait. Of course had Ralph something else in mind, explaining his father, why he should think of her in his will: "I call a person rich when he can meet the requirements of his imagination." Ralphs love to her is without hope due to his illness but ready to help whenever Isabel needs him. It is Isabels fortune which makes her visible for Madame Serena Merle’s problem – and Gilbert Osmond, her unvisible father and light, drawn to this light like a burnt child that always seeks the fire-light (thinking of the movie "Firelight"). The impression is that Isabel had to give up her ideas of independency, transformed to a tool for her husbands evilness (what he most critisiced was that she had too many own ideas) – but far off. Her husband never could put her into the cage – and if, it was her decision, taking with her the key. She is the victim of her Victorian timeframe. Today's Isabel Archer would file for divorce and sue for her money back. It is finally that her sister-in-law pulls away the veil of reality from truth. Against her husbands command she rushes to the dying Ralphs bedside, knowing now that he was the reason of her fortune, told by Serena. In the marriagegame she has carte blanche. That is the reason that Caspar Goodwood is told by Henrietta Stackpole: "She came here yesterday, and spent the night. But this morning she started for Rome." (437) Why? With fearless fear she waited for and confronted herself with her unvisible father Gilbert, searching truth behind the vail of reality, in her hand carte blanche. Neither Henry James or Jane Cameron give a clear answer. The film leaves her between the gazing camera and the door: "She never looked about her; she only darted from the spot. There were lights in the windows of the house; they shone far across the lawn. In an extraordinarily short time – for the distance was considerable – she had moved through the darkness (for she saw nothing) and reached the door. Here only she paused. She looked all about her; she listened a little; then she put her hand on the latch. She had not known where to turn;" The following booklines: "… but she knew now. There was a very straight path."(436) (http://www2.newpaltz.edu/~hathawar/portrait2.html ) the director left out, offering an openen-end-impression. Jane Campion wanted to re-imagine the early Victorian era-Isabel Archer, trapped by a weaker nature. Of interest is Serena Merle, Pancy’s unknown (M)Other. Isabel sees her, when visiting Pansy at the covent to say good bye. We have to look at Serena as a men-victimised woman, in her cage without key. She stands in front of a cricification fresque, in her arms the ’corpse’ of a doll for Pansy, as a Piéta. When both met years back at Gardencourt, walking in the park, Serena says: "But a woman it seems to me has no natural place anywhere. Wherever she finds herself …… on the surface and crawls.", Isabel answering that she never will crawl. That Serena did what she did seems to be rooted in the knowledge that her lover and her childs father neither had the ability of ha husband or father. Which (M)other should have done differently. Serena haden’t mistaken the part for the whole, as Isabels author phrased it in chapter 42: "But she had seen only half his nature then, as one saw the disk of the moon when it was partly masked by the shadow of the earth. She saw the full moon now – she saw the whole man. She had kept still, as it were, so that he should have a free field, and yet in spite of this she had mistaken a part for the whole."(191). For Isabel was the Gilbert-light "the largest thing I know". When Isabel finally had fulfilled her destiny, she was free to handle her carte blanche. She was with her dying cousin and free to stay in England or return to her husband. The Portrait of a Lady lessons how to handle the inheritated fathermatrix. Asking Ralph "Why should there be pain then? That's not the deepest thing," he answers that "Pain's deep... but it passes, after all. It's passing now but love remains." Assuring her to remember "that if you've been hated, you're also been loved." The campionmovie starts with a talk about kissing, saying "It means to find a mirror, the clearest mirror". For many Gilbert Osmond was everything but not a clear mirror - only for his wife. He never pretended to be another, consequently worshipping true, cruel egoism, being for his wife "the clearest mirror".stephanSE 2006-09-17
38/2006 VOLVER/Return Maura: "Ghosts don't cry"
Estrella Morente sing the Flamenco-ballad "Volver". http://www.clubcultura.com/clubcine/clubcineastas/almodovar/volverlapelicula/fotos11eng.htm
… Only women, ’ama de casa español desesperada’ – ’desperate’ houswifes……. a fairytale by gaydirector Almodovar, hardly happening in real life. The returned: a reality ghost – who firekilled her betraying husband, having an affair with their neighbours ’ama de casa’, Augustinas mother. Everybody believed that she, Soledad and Raimundas mother died in the flames (and that Augustinas mother ran away) together with her husband. Who raped his daughter Raimunda, giving birth to her /their daughter Paula. In connection with her aunt Paulas death, telling that her sister Irene takes care of her, the unvisible (M)Other Irene returns with the wish to put things right. The lacanian father is dead and killed. Killed and being put in the refrigiator to be later burried – treated as toyboy, useful for pregnancy. Left are the women: the (M)Others and futures (M)Others, the daughters. Significant for this movie is ’Cleaning’: of the graves, of the floor around Pacos corpse, (M)Other Raimundas profession of airportcleaning, the cleaning fire years ago and what has to be cleaned up today, the winds destruction vs the cleaning. A firekilled husband-father in the past and a knifekilled husband-corpse. Vittorio De Sicas Sophia Loren as Almodovas Penelope Cruz and Ana Magnani on TV. Soledad as hairstylist for her neighbours in her Madrid-flat and Raimunda, taking over the neighbours restaurant. Eventually, as said, we realise that the ghostly (M)Other is real, returning to clean the ’unfinished life’. ’Ghost’ Irene reminds her daughter that "ghosts don't cry", the shed tears, proving that she is real, available for her daughters. Volver centres on the tabooed Spanish subject; for many decades under Spanish criminal law a blood relationship (especially that of a father to a daughter) with a rape victim is considered a mitigating factor in sentencing. Neglected by her seeing-looking-away (M)Other Irene, the daughter-(M)Other Raimunda is forced to live with raged sorrow, daily reminded of the rape by her daughter Paulas visual existance as a fact. Almodovars unreal setup of a real is a female fairytale where the male is not accepted respect. Paco is cleaned away, the neighbour seduced and the filmteams man is reminded that the money is welcomed but not he. It’s a twisted film, with elements of thriller, melodrama and comedy, – an almodovarian thought, visiualised and executed by women - the male only used as toyboys as pleasure or need.stephanSE 2006-08-12
37/2006 GIGLI Ricki: "So... in review ... you're saying that it's men who are at the top of the Must Fuck Pyramid."
http://www.movieweb.com/movies/download.php?id=738&q=notes.htm. http://www.whysanity.net/monos/gigli.html
Martin Brest focused the "serious-funny side". Besides Brians historical disability highlights even the other characters more social disability of ’unsocial’, onesided traits of ’autism’. While they have to play unchanged their part, the members of the ’family’-team Brian, Larry and Ricki develop tools to take care of their disability.The mysterious out-of-the-blue Ricki is gentleminded, beautiful and must be "someone who can look you right in the eye and tell you exactly what she’s thinking, someone who doesn’t care what you think about her." With her sense of coolness, and logic she can see through the front-mirrors in this Gigli-movie. It is precisly this what Larry’s show-off attitude needs for his development. Brest about Larry Gigli: "The most important thing was to create a central character who is stuck in time, who has somehow missed the opportunity to grow and progress… a man that time forgot, someone who, despite his good looks and charm, lives in the past and is a bit removed from his contemporaries…His peers have moved on, gotten married, started families, and Gigli is still at his two-bit job, living alone in a dumpy apartment. Somewhere along the way, he took the wrong road and he’s stuck. So he postures, covers up, tries to pretend he’s a tough guy." For Brian is ’Baywatch’ not the tv-show but the life where normal people are, not longing to be part of it, he is aware of his situation, but be accepted for what he is. His togethertime with Larry and Ricki gives him the tool to handle ’Baywatch’-reality when he finally is a part of it. Not the goal – the journey transforms this timeout-’family’, offers human approach to each other. The lesson: if each one of them accepts the other, the lesbian, the tough guy and the handcapped can be handicapped, lesbian and the tough guy. When Brian has finally to proof the use of his tool as short-time-member of the ’Baywatch’-team – it does not happen in Rainman’s autistic "wet kiss"-style, though Brian cites for the astonished girl the Australian weatherforecast, Brian uses the right tool for the right person in the right moment at the right place; tool, person, time and place interact together. To be disability-accepted is mainly – not only!!! – the responsibility of society, but foremost the confronted individual in focus – here it is the girl. Not Larry Gigli is the turning-point in this ’bad’ Gigli-movie but Brian. They search for and find a way to comunicate with Brian, sensing what to do, has to be done and is done until Brian is readay when ’Baywatch’ opens. Larry-boy is the M A N ! ! ! at the ’top of the Must Fuck Pyramid’. But the lesbian is allowed to share this privilege, accepting and using his lacanian imaginary ’penis-toe’, sensing that the lacanian symbolic phallos starts being conscious for Larry. After the Starkman-scene everything is done and said. Being Peace rules. And Brian is, until his brother and his people come, a ’Baywatch’-member. And Larry is ready, as good as it is possible for him, catching up time and the others. And Ricki reveals her real name, inviting him to be with her, to be wherever it is ’clean’ and as long as it lasts for them. The book Rochelles Ricki reads is Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh. The first lines of the first chapter On Suffering highlight what the movie Gigli aimed at. Without denying suffering, Brian and Ricki show Larry-boy how a ’father’ could be, seeing the wonders of life."Life is filled with suffering, but it is also filled with many wonders, like the blue sky, the sunshine, the eyes of a baby. To suffer is not enough. We must also be in touch with the wonders of life. They are within us and all around us, every where, any time" Being Peace Thich Nhat HanhstephanSE 2006-07-08
Dedicated to: Jennifer Lopez and Marisa, Slim, Catherine, Jean, Karen … Rochelle
36/2006 OUT OF SIGHT. Karen: "He looks like – different."Once Jack escapes prison and Karen escapes him, the chase starts. Jacks only concern is Karen; she herself drawn to him.
U.S. deputy Marshal Karen Siscos relation with her (lacanian) Marshall-father is not lacanian ’imaginary’ but lacanian symbolic. As it should, must and has to be. Unknown is of course and as usual, if her father is her real father, thinking of the question by a Shakespear play, an actor saying "who knows his father?" We neither see or hear something of her mother, but her daughter is proof enough that there has been a pregnant woman, her mother. The relation father-daughter is as good as it can and should be. She is not only his "little girl" but also "my tough babe!". Out of sight is a romantic crimethrilling comedy, the frame of seeing individuals behind the recognising stereotypes. Inside of this crimeframemirror of the participating individuals the mirror of the lady Marshall and the bankrobber, the mirror of Karen and Jack, mirroring Garys and Celestes timeout. It is Karens luck but U.S. Marshall Karen Siscos bad luck, that she comes to the right place, but untimely too early, being involved against her will in the jail break, being suddenly Jack Foleys hostage, a career bank robber who prides himself on never having robbed a single bank with a gun. Leaving their own getaway car behind, Jacks partner-in-crime Buddy hides both in the trunk of her car. On their way to meet another partner-in-crime, Sisco and Foley talk, Karen and Jack stumbling into a lovetrapp. After her escape from Jack, she is his hostage – and he hers, lovechained to each other as the hunted hunter, hunting the hunter. From now on they seek each other. This is of course a conflict for the U.S. Marshall and the career bank robber! Out of Sights turning core are the six minutes of timeout as Gary and Celeste. While they talk we see as background, switching back and forth, their meeting as lovers. The six-minutes-scene is the frame in the frame, mirroring what they do as U.S. Marshall and bankrobber, what they are as Karen and Jack and what they are during the moment of ’kairos’, the right moment. Around these six minutes turns everything around as a merry-go-round. Everything what was before is here in this unique ’kairos’-timeout. But life has to go on. After the diamonds are found in Ripleys house, Jack and Buddy leave. But why returns Jack, hollywoodsensing that Karen, the U. S Marshall Sisco is around? Karen as exuting U.S. Marshal Sisco, chains Jack Foley, the career bank robber at the stairs landing, facing the entering SWAT-team. Karen answers the complaining Jack,"I am sorry, I wish it would have been different." Karen Sisco, the U.S. Marshall, represents the executing part of Law, the Nom du Père, never forgot her duty, having as such inside the father-frame as Karen Sisco, taken as Celeste her timeout. What she did as Karen andCeleste was never corruptious. And phonetalking to her father, "He knew what he was doing. Nobody …. (in one of the back-flashes and freezed frames Ripley offers him the lousy payed jobb of a security guard, which Jack angry turns down, Ripley answering: "You can only robb banks" enrages him that he minutes after robbs a branch of the SunTrust bank (the films introduction), gets caught, comes to Glades, is part of the jail break, hostaging Karen: the story has started ’out of sight’ before it started.) "… forced him to robb banks." She should have escorted the night before another prisoner to Glades but waits for Jack Foley. Giving him his lighter, she says that she must have it back before arriving at Glades. Much can happen between Detroit and Glades as, Foley says to the prisoner that it is a "long ride to Florida". It is our own phantasy, deciding what happens beyond Out of Sight. In her phonetalk with her father he seems to like her out-of-sight-romance much better, promising a more exiting future than with her silly, boring boyfriend Ray. Having in mind Maiden in Manhattan, Enough and The Cell the red thread is J L.. The Cinderellastory turns into a nightmare in Enough, needing Enough and The Cell to sort out things. The Cells Catherine, believing in the strength of the ’reversed feed’ invites against her teams will the coma-patient Carl Rudolphe Staghner to her Unconscience, telling that in her world her rules has to be accepted (in Enough Slim hears from her abusing husband "I make the money, so I make the rules."). The Out of Sight-kairos-situation with Celest and Gary is a step further – different. Like Karens say, looking at the picture in the newspapper of Jack Foley, "He looks like – different." The Celeste-Gary-timeout looks like – different. Both worlds rules are focused on. Such happens only once in a lifetime. We are born by a two-forces-conception, to be born as a person – and as a personality, looking for the kairos-moment. U.S. Marshall Karen Sisco and the bankrobber Jack Foley have as Karen and Jack mett as Gary and Celeste in this ’silly’ movie Out of Sight. Silly? Sometimes truth has to be disguised by sillyness.Dedication to Graham and Anna-Lena Lyksell, Stockholm
stephanSE 2006-04-09
35/2006 CACHÉ/HIDDEN "Caché" is a film of bottomless intrigue. "The unexamined life is not worth living," said Socrates. An examined life may bring its own form of disquiet. Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times, january 13/2006
Code Inconnu has the unforgettably sequence in which the angry young Arab Amadou torments Anne on a train in the Paris Metro.
When "Caché"s Ann realises that her husband George (a middle-aged bourgeois couple, successful careers and a parisliving in comfort) does not trust her, the viewer is reminded of Hal Hartly’s Trust. To the videothreat, unknown who authores them, comes her husbands ’betrayal’. Caché end is what Umberto Eco should see as an open work, to think beyond, a politico-psychological essay about denial and guilt, about collective subconscious, about colonialism and its aftermath. A boy-event linked to ’la nuit noir’, the october 17 1961, the masacre of Algerian protesters. 11 years later where 11 killed at the Munich Olympic Games (23 8 – 11 9 1972) and many more 2001, September 11th. Michael Haneke, European cinemas "conscience" is also as Cassandra sensing coming catastrophe (the French riots and the Danish event where after Caché), focusing the west's fear of the Muslim world and those angry pauperised masses once under our colonial control. Shouldn’t we have at last in mind Samuel P Huntingtons ’The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order’ – that culture follows power; rising civilizations follow their own ideals, not in need to glorify others; thesis that the central political actors of the 21ST century will be civilizations rather then nation-states. The personal event is the (lacanian) ’fatherkill’ of the cockerel by the boy Majid, forcefetched to a home, never forgotten and shared with his own son, played by Walid Afkir, perhaps the videofilmer. After the kill, blood on his face, Majid approaches the frightened George – end of sequence, not knowing what happened but the reason that Majid was not adopted. The grown-up Majid is now part of the Arab-Muslim underclass. With the videotapes come childish drawings of a boy spewing blood and a cockerel with blood flowing from its neck; corresponding the blood on the wall when the man Majid commits suicide in front of the man George, even this event taped and sent to his home. Question: those with similiar memories, can they link their private event to the national event – a subconscious, disturbing Jewish yesterday-memory with a corresponding todays event? We know nothing of Georges father, but George as father, only his mother, knowing well how her son treats repressed truth; well played by the master of detachment Daniel Auteuil, known in films as Un Coeur en Hiver. The last sequence offers answers and questions. We see a woman with her back to the camera and Majids son in the parentcrowd, schoolcollecting their children. In the way he talks to and with the 12-year-old Pierrot we have to accept that they know each other. Do they represent the hopefull future – for better or worse? Yes and of course!Dedicated to Gabi 22 3 2006 and her husband Wolf Emanuel.
stephanSE 2006-03-05
34/2006 THE CELL Catherine: "My world, my rules"
Catherine: Do you believe there is a part of yourself, deep inside in your mind, with things you don't want other people to see? During a session when I'm inside, I get to see those things.
Catherine tells the man Carl in her Unconsciouss that her worlds rules have to be followed – while the same actress as Slim in Enough has to hear from her husband Mitch, "I make the money, so I make the rules." Enough’s turning point is when Slim forces on him finally her rules. The Cell , filmed before Enough, is, as I want to see it, the latters followup, the by Lacan often used Futurum II/future perfect (the action that will have happened by a specific point in the future). The advance-consequence forces Slim-Catherine to focus on the question why Mitch/Carl is what ’he’ is; why can an ordinary child turn into an inhuman monster! The leading woman in Maid in Manhattan, The Cell and Enough is Jennifer Lopez. The Cell begins in Mr E’s Unconsciouss, Catherine as the guest in his mind, thanking for the horse. After the session Edwards parents arrive. The father wants to move his son to a hospital, having his doubts of success. Catherine, answering that the modells design is not hers; she just does a therapists work she has been asked to do, says. "But you’re not sure about me." "We have been waiting for 18 months for a sign of progress. There is no proof, Catherine, that the procedure works. What you have given me is the believe that your interaction with my son is no hallucination." His doubts is fundamental prototypical, well known despair, difficult to bear the sight of his son. The staff, though the experts, are unable to pronounce the truth in a communicative way. Instead caught in the web of their method, phrasing unprooved promises. Yet, the mothers trust in Catherine, soothes the father for another six months. After the fathers answer shows the movie a crouching turtoise in a field (the symbol for Carl Rudolphe Staghner, imprisoned in the turtoise shell) and Carl Rudolph Staghners approaching car, beside him his albino dog. Catherine and her team promise help to find Julias cell – by entering Carl Staghners Unconsciouss. To be in the Others Unconsciouss is challenge. Catherine must seperate the ’real’ unreal from the real ’reality’. During the first session his Unconsciouss reveals for the visitor Catherine that his father reasoned Whalen’s Infraction. Resting afterwards and unwilling for a second session, she says to agent Peter Novak that Staghner is not anymore him; it has gone too far. Only when agent Novak reveals the reason why he switched to the FBI she accepts a second session. During this visit in the Others Unconsciouss, loosing control, she becomes Carls ’unreal’ victim. Agent Novak decides to follow her, partly to fetch her back but mainly to mindlocate the Julia-place. Before he read Catherines journal, receiving facts. He succeeds bringing her back by reminding her that her brother, in a coma, died.The Cell belongs into the category of serial murder films/books as The Silence of the Lamb, Seven, Hannibal, a kind of ’neo’. But here is more! Agent Novaks question is answered by seeing the unreal clue, matching it with the real clue he ’saw’ in Carls basement. Catherine, forced against her will back, promises the boy Carl to come back. The final end is intercut with her ’reversed feed’ return and the timechase against time to reach in time Julia. What Catherine always wanted, against her teams advice, she does now: the reserved feed, inviting the boy Carl into her own Unconsciouss. By meeting the boy and (once more ’Mitch’ as) the man Carl, she kills now the man, telling him, "My world, my rules", knowing that the boy and man Carl are guesting her, she having the right to set her rules of her world. At the same time finds Agent Novak Julia and rescues, comforting Julia in her distress. At the same time comforts Catherine the dying boy Carl while the killed body of the ’mitch’-man Carl dies. What Slim was unable to do, Catherine does now: kill in her Unconsciouss the abuser. By inviting him to her own Unconsciouss, she is able to master the situation, eyefocus pure genuine evilness. The hollywoodhappyend is that she invites Mr E, the boy Edward and can master his boogyman. The movie started with her as guest in his Unconsciouss and ends with him as guest in her Unconsciouss. Carls father: he had no idea of the (lacanian) Nom du Père, did not know how to be a and act as a father. We see the religios rite of babtism, the son babtized by the father. Edwards father: he has the sense of Nom du Père. Catherine: we get to know nothing about her parents. But the link ’Edward mother’s trust’ allows Edwards father be a stand-in-father, saying to her: "What you have given me is the believe that your interaction with my son is no hallucination." He hints at: proof is not enough. More is needed. But how communicate that allready known truth is accepted not only by the brain but also of the heart.Dedicated to ’Cissi’, my supervisor.stephanSE 2006-02-09
33/2006 ENOUGH: Mitch "… where ever you are – and kill you."Gábor Vaszary describes women in his 1957-novel Alszik az Isten: "She becomes ruthless and without pity when she stops loving och brutally is awakend out of her dream." (mit 17 beginnt das Leben, rororo 1958:180)
Ginny: "He likes you!" Slim: "He's a dick."Ennough is (for me) the followup of the cinderellamovie Maid in Manhattan, in both is the leading star Jeniffer Lopez, the Puerto Rican workingclass girl Marisa/Slim. Everything was well for Marisa: but what happened at home, behind the closed frontdoor? The cindrellamovie Pretty Woman’s followup was for some Sleeping with the Enemy. While Julia Roberts crying week willed Sara gunmurders her husband, turns the abused, husbandhunted but strong minded Slim and meets weaponless her abuser. She is just herself. When the moment of spousal revenge gives her the possibility to kill, she is unable to do it. "I can’t do it. I’m not a killer. I’m not him" she mobiletells her friend Ginny, the latter saying, "You have a divine animal right to protect your own life and the life of your offspring." (we are reminded of the last Kill Bill 2-sequence. Alone is Beatrix Kiddo with her daughter, followed by the text "The lioness has rejoined her cub and all is right in the jungle"). Here Ginny is wrong: an animal kills but a human has other options to choose. We should not forget that it was Ginny, as Stephanie in Maid in Manhattan, who pushed Slim into the Hiller-marriage. As the ’dead’ Martin is not dead, he tries to shoot his wife with the (empty) gun ("I won’t let live you without me") Mitch wakes. Let’s imagine that Slim left the house: had Mitch learned the lesson? Both had past the point of (no) return. Slim could/should have stopped much earlier. The longer she is on the run, the more furious gets her husband. This is what the movie meant, to teach the lesson as a kind of documentary. The final fight, intercut by flashbackreminders, justifying for the audience the deathfall that "Self-defense is not murder." Michael Apted, director of Nell and Blink uses in the latter explaining flashbacks. The nature of documentary is highlighted by labeling the sequences of Enough: hey, how they met, to have and to hold, conquering hero, our happy family, more than enough, get out, new leaf, take care. Attorney Toller tells her what mistakes she has made and the consequences; she waited too long and the law is on her husbands side. It is now she decides to fight back. The last 27 filmminutes show the needed strength and conviction to do what she has to do – an act of courage. Now Mitch is the hunted! Her father helps her suddenly with money and advice. When ready and waiting in his home, Mitch enters a prison, as she was in his, out of which is no escape. She searches for his weapons, discarding them: the fight has to be between equalls. Tthe doubting man asks "All right, man against woman. Is that really fair?", she answering: "Fair for whom?" Pretty Woman/Sleeping with the Enemy 1990/1991 and Maid in Manhatten/Enough 2005 – was Enough possible 1991? Their confrontation is same-level-fairness while Susan/Laura gunmurders her husband, telling the lie the police seconds before the murder: "I’ve just killed an intruder", meaning not a thief but the intruder of her personality. Slim, reuniting with her daughter at the airport when everything is over, is, as it seems, as Beatrix Kiddo alone with her daughter. But this is not hollywoodtrue as a happy end is needed. Her boyfriend has prooved that a shared future can be good. But: can todays man be as husband-father only "a dick" for the to-be-mother; the Enough-message? In the book, not the film The Guy in the Grave Next Door offers Desirée Benny to pregnant her as "father unknown". Lacan, stressing on the Nom du Père, knew how badly men lived up to their image, himself a bad example. Slims peripheric father Jupiter helps her indeed, recognising his daughter in danger. Despite this kind of father and husband Slim senses the meaning of the Father’s Name, due to the stand-in-father. Mitch preludetells as the coming spousal abuse two things: "I make the money, so I make the rules." and: "I am, and always will be, a person who gets what he wants." Slim is not Mitchs and his policefriend Robbies first victim, helped by the FBI-men – but the last! Why did Mitch marry her? Robbie asks and tries to stop his revengeblinded friend Mitch. But he is too much involved and mitchforced to continue. Most of the critics where bad. Some asked why Mitch was for five years the perfect husband, was he? And that Slim did not notice something, did she not? The scale of abuse starts with a word, gesture or a look – all is hardly sensed/noticed abuse. Enough is the lesson how open abuse can be treated if the possibilities are offered. Actually it had gone too long, ready to be a second Farrah Fawcett portrayed Francine Hughes, the Michigan woman who killed her drunken abusive husband by setting his bed on fire in "The Burning Bed" or Susan in "Sleeping with the Enemy". Domestic violence is not only the victims but society's problem, found in all classes of society.stephanSE 2006-02-01/2006-2-09
32/2006 King Kong: "Oh, you’ve put on the beauty-and-beast-costume." 1933"King Kong" is a magnificent entertainment. It is like the flowering of all the possibilities in the original classic film. Computers are used not merely to create special effects, but also to create style and beauty, to find a look for the film that fits its story. And the characters are not cardboard heroes or villains seen in stark outline, but quirky individuals with personalities. (Roger Ebert,Chicago Sun-Times /dec 13, 2005).
The original film is based on the worldwide idea-tradition of ritual human sacrifice appeasing the Gods. While the 2005-too-long-version is detailoverloaded, is the 1933-version a matter of facts story. Both are violent, the 2005-version virtualy bathing in detailed violence. The too-much-length of 187 minutes and the violencedetails frame the place where the beast-and-beauty-romance is performed. While the 1933-Ann mostly screams, the 2005-Ann eyeconnects Kong, discovering beauty there ("Mirrors show us what we want to see, but sometimes we look into living , human mirrors and then, briefly, the fantasising has to stop." 1990:170 Ruth Rendell), matching her own ’beauty’, the wordless bond trustresulting. The vaudeville acrobat Ann is neither too much or too little but just herself and what she can, throwing a personal show for Kong the King. The enchanted master is from this moment her possessor, protecting her from the prehistoric creatures, machineguns and the Army Air Corps, safe as Kong can make her. Why? Ann, as said, is not more nor less but just herself, doing what she can. This is not worldtransforming, recognised globally but is more than enough, perceived by few and copied, seen again by few and copied … As the princess in the legend of S:t George leads the wounded dreagon into the city, tied to her silky girdle, Ann’s silky girdlefrienship appeases the Kong, able to cope with him on Skull Island and NYC; unable for the native uncivilised islanders and the civilised NYC-intruders. And as the dragon is looked at and killed, Kong is looked at and killed. Not, as Denham says, by beauty but by the darwinistic fittest-code. Searching for and finding the 1933-Ann in NYC, taking her against her will, the 2005-Ann comes to him romantically out of the mist. According F Schillers ’estetic letters’ are we human when we know to play – clearly seen in the Central Park icescene. Later, on Empire State Buildings roof, Ann is between her opponents Driscoll and Kong, the latter as tamed nature of the man Driscolls violent untamed instincts. King Kong 2005 is made after 9/11 – mankind knowing/unknowing worldwide participating in the global New War, unknown the veiled, invisible enemy on the undefined battlefield, void of a ’clear cut border between us and them’, (VSL/Istanbul july 2005). Before and during WW2 was a clear cut border between us/arian and them/none-arian (Welzer 2005) which made the unbelievable/impossible possible. In Else Lasker-Schülers 1940-fragment IchundDu it is said that Faust, playing a game of chess with Mephisto, can win and overcome him, if he confronts him in himself. Ann’s by others chosen ’enemy’, is the invisible/visible ’terrorist’ UBL/King Kong. The native islanders and her own species (clearly shown 1933) needed Ann to sacrifice her. But nobody imagined that Ann should/could unveil the enemy/beast, seeing what nobody before dared/cared searching for. She is not his kind, as Irena Dubrovna is in 1944:s Cat People, but different – coming from beyond the oceanwall, destined to be sacrified as our times ’native’ stereotype slave, owned by the orsonwellslike Denham by yesterdays/todays human stereotypes 1933-islanders, in comand of their body and a soul, their spirit in King Kongs hand while 72 years later the 2005-islanders are just corpses as Bladerunners replicants. Focusing the lacanian Nom du Père foremost on 2005-Ann. She is streettaken, pinching ’Adams’ apple. To have the 2005-courage, looking into the beasts eye and beyond, needs selfesteem, rooted to a never mentioned/shown good-enough father. Still, she has the courage, enabling her to do what she does. Perhaps is societies Nom du Père not as bad as it seems. If the 2005-Ann Darrow has seen it, why should it not be possible to be seen by others as well? Quakerfather Jess says in 1956:s Friendly Persuasion to his straight-laced wife Eliza, their son Josh wants to join the Civil War: "I'm just his father, Eliza, not his conscience. A man's life ain't worth a hill of beans except he lives up to his own conscience.", well aware of Nom du Père, to offer and not command. Similiar Ann, offering and being kingkongobeyed.stephanSE 2006-01-14
31/2005 FOOLS RUSH IN – Isabel: "we are too different and always will be''…it manufactures a lot of standard plot twists. …the movie sees how its two cultures are different and yet share so many of the same values … Most movies about opposites who attract do not really start out with opposites. (ROGER EBERT / February 14, 1997, Chicago Sun-Times)A romantic cornball comedy with a hollywoodhappinessending a few minutes after the movie started. Why that! Is more to come? Yes and of course. Two different cultures, far away and apart, struggling to reach the other. Not only their ethnic origin, also their statusdifference; she as Mexican-American camera girl at Caesars in Vegas and he a manhattanguy, now in Las Vegas, supervising the construction of a new club. As the Swedish title expresses it (Kärlek vid andra ögonkast/Love, seeing each other the second time). Both do not only recognise but see each other and, though Isabel believes that they "are too different and always will be", they forget not the moments second of their meeting on which every relation depends and stumbles, the guiding help during their and societys lovetesting. After he learned that he reasoned her pregnancy, he carfollows her to the Hoover dam. He agrees to face her family. "I ask only that you meet my parents--so when the baby comes they can at least say they met you.'' At this backyard barbecue-familygathering, two filmed slow-motion-moments are the key why they marry in a wedding chapel on the Strip. As angellike fools they rush into every day-marriage-life. Framed as a light comedymirror. On the Hoover dam-’bridge’, the real end continues where Grabben i graven bredvid ends; as Desiré and Benny are Alex and Isabel not the others type – though they ’foolishly’ again and again test their options, overcoming the borderline! The child, the reason of their one night stand, is born on the Hoover dam-’bridge’ – us wondering if all will be good beyond the film as all tests have been tested!?. Each handled with a hollywoodcompromise that everything can filmcontinue. Isabel lies once and Alex as often as it is possible, Isabel responding with angry truthful honesty. Is it that Alex familybonds are loose, seeing his parents only "on national holidays.'' – while her family has the traditional way of yesterday. While Alex has no idea what the lacanian Nome du Père means, Isabel is an unconsciouss part of this well functioning familysituation. What the isabelfamily has too much, the alexfamily has too little. A yesterday-todayclash. As too-much-daughter and too-little-son they borderlinesearching reach the middle. We, enjoying this hollywoodtale, listen at the edge of the canyon/the canyonmataphore, to Isabels story of the two sqirrels, so different but sqirrels. The, by their families never accepted vegas-marriage – has as the last picture of the movie the accepted marriage at the canyonmetaphoric symbol. The baby is born – and the mother ready to follow her husband to New York Curtain!For German Wendelin/Alex & Ghana Clara/Isabel
stephanSE, 2005-12-17
30/2005 The Guy in the Grave Next Door (a Swedish class-travel) "Are you ashamed of me?"
Grabben i graven bredvid. A woman and a man, stressed by their biological clock. Need and desire. They meet at the cemetery, tending their husbands/parents grave. Farmer Benny outside a somewhere-in-sweden-town and the librarian Desirée, the desired, in town. The farm is badly in need of a womans tending care and the mondaine librarian desires a sometimes-relationship to calm down her biological clock. Need and desire. Both are everything but not the others type (he likes Police Academy/Polisskolan, she the cameronfilm The Piano) – significantly seen how they have their coffee. Several times a bridge is crossed in the film – a symbol to bring them together, living on two different stars? The films ending climax is a hollywoodending with a car chase, climaxing in the middle of this bridge. In the films beginning the bleek widdow just manages the next hour of her day. But seen by a man, she discovers more and more the pleasure to be a woman. But Benny ends their stressed sexrelationship. He meets nurse Anita, being much nearer his and the farms needs. Desirée, feeling as an outsider with his friends, she is tense of shame when Benny is with her friends. Asking her on the cemeterys bench "Are you ashamed of me?" – she answers with silence. Book and film, a great Swedish succes, mirrors the Swedish well. It highlights many themes: one of these is the for Sweden so typical expression ’klass-resa’/class-travel (social rise/sozialer Aufstieg). The famous Swedish model was mainly designed for the working-class people who longed for a better life. Many weren’t aware of the classtravels transitional conflicts. It meant to be for a time a "marginal man"/woman (a 1937-E. Stonequist-expression). Desirée knows who Lacan is, (Benny pronounces it as ’Lacong’) and listenes with pleasure to Rigoletto while Benny snores beside her. A nearer look though tells that the modern, intellectual Desirée still treats Lacan, Soushi and opera not quite natural; she is still on her way.The class-travel is of course education and a good salary but also a maturing process. When not knowing to whom she should be loyal, to the past or the future, she should take Stonequists 1937-advice: "I am myself". How handles the book and film the lacanian Nom du Père? Both have good-enough-parents. Hers, an armyman, supported by his at-home-wife but they "never touched each other", careerfocused and daughtercoppied. Bennys parents married with the farms need in focus, in grief that he does not find a woman for the farm. In many ways Desirée is a todays modern Swedish woman and in need of a man when the biological clock rings too loud. Knowing that Anita has entered Bennys every-day-life, she refused it in the film and book, Desirée offers Benny a deal: to pregnant her as "father unknown". Denying the latter he wants to share parenthood. The interesting question is: can the farmerfather and the townmother cope with parenthood, when the idea has become a daily life reality for her in town and him on the farm? Of course have both schoolread the Swedes Carl Jonas Love Almquists Sara Videbeck/Det går an (1839) in which Sara explaines for Albert why marriage is a lie, offering a life together without living together. The Swedes live with Carl Jonas Love Almquists spirit, accused for never prooved murder. Desirée and Benny have in the book the courage to jump over his shadow – why not in the hollywoodinspired film? Fore sure had Desirée in the book Sara Videbeck in her mind. Is parentship as frame for Nome du Pére, for L’ordre Symbolique possible? It should be and is.These thoughts are dedicated to friend Pierre, one of the more consciouss class-travellers.
stephan 2005-12-02
29/2005 Maid in Manhattan "We connected"
The timerange are four days: fridays setup: 21 min, saturdays lie: 25 min, sundays mistakelunch 14 min, mondays cinderella: 13 min, tuesdays truth 15 min, followed by timeout and the second chance reward: 8 min
"Maid in Manhattan" is a skillful, glossy, formula picture, given life by the appeal of its stars. It has a Meet Cute of stunning audacity, it has a classic Fish Out of Water, it works the Idiot Plot Syndrome overtime to avoid solving a simple misunderstanding, and there won't be a person in the audience who can't guess exactly how it will turn out. Yet it goes through its paces with such skill and charm that, yes, I enjoyed it. (Roger Ebert,Chicago Sun-Times, dec 13 2002).
Servant? According butler Lionel at the Beresford hotel, NYC "To serve people needs integrity and intelligence" – said to the Puerto Rican maid Marisa Ventura, "there are many people with money. We serve them but we are not their servants." – one of the keymoments in the comedy Maid in Manhattan, one of the prettywomanfilms, this at its best. Friday. Mother and son are late and in a hurry. While she reads in the subway on her way to work a book by Alice Miller, others headlinescan that playboy politican Chriss Marshall has without his latest girlfriend come to NYC, staying at the Beresfords York Suite. Another guest is Sotheby’s Caroline Lane in the Park Suite. Ty’s day ends bad as he messes up his nixonspeech. Ty is over the weekend with his mother at her work; his father has to work outside town. Saturday. Marisas friend Stephanie pushes her, cleaning the Park Suite, to try one of Caroline Lane’s Dolce-dresses. At the same time other things happen à la Hollywood at the Beresford, resulting that Ty suddenly stands in front of his mother with Christopher Marshall beside him. Dressed as she is, as unvisible maid they saw each other yesterday in his bathroom, he takes for certain that she is with her son the guest of the Park Suite. The three take the centralparkwalk. Marisa is unable to summon her courage, admitting why the maid has on her body a Dolce dress. Sooner than soon hollywoodlove takes over their mind – as it happened Judy Barton, being made again into Madleine in Vertigo. But, (as Judy Barton in Vertigo and Gilian Holroyd in Bell, Book and Candle, both played by Kim Novak, tried to tell the not listening Scotty and Shep the truth, both played by James Stewart) tries resultless Marisas ’Carolines’ to confront Chriss with the truth. Sunday. After the mistakelunch with Caroline, Chriss sees Marisas ’Caroline’ with Ty in the street. She says that her sirrname is Ventura and that she was brought up in the Bronx. Why did the politician not listen and start thinking? Monday. Instead she hears, leaving the ball that she is "mesmerizing", Chriss sensing that she seems "running towards something you want or are you running away from what you want." In Pretty Woman the whores clothes is bought by the edwardmoney. Here the berefordstaff cinderellatransforms the maid, promising that she will end at the Metropolitan benefits mondaynight all associations with Chriss Marshall. The nervous Cinderella hears of her friend: "No, tonight the maid is a lie; this is what you really are." It is easy to understand why Ty regards Chriss as the ideal stand-in-father; his own father is for us just a voice. If it is, the politician has to be the maids husband. But can this playboy, doing almost everything that he thinks of doing, be changed into a good enough father and husband by the unvisible housekeeper beyond the film? Is she able to serve, needing for this not only her conneting love but also integrity and intellect or is she just a servant as most of us are? Tuesday. Now its time for the truth – the Harry Winstone necklace around the maids neck rings bells in Caroline Lanes mind and everything falls into place. Like the Carlotta necklace opened Scottys eyes in Vertigo, Carolines and all the others eyes are opened and the papparazi have their headlines. Allready Sunday the open eyed butler Lionel, Marisas stand-in-father, underatands who "Caroline" is. Timeout. The meaning of the timeout is that the maid has to take her consequences and let the politician, heading for senate, think what has happened. After this is done both are ready for the awarding second chance, offered in the second chanse country (as the 1620 Pilgrim Fathers got it) the politician asking "Can we start over, second chance, second date, no secrets?" and the maid answering "Marisa Ventura, housekeeping." The red thread in this fairy tale is the keyword "We connected." Not money or knowledge but consciousness of what you are, connecting with the other. Not the seducing money- or knowledgewealth, which recognises without seeing the unvisible ’poor’ down there ’von oben’. Coming home on Tuesday, Marisa tells her mother that she goes her own way, taking "that chance without fear, without your voice in my head, telling me that I can’t." Does she remember what Stephanie said, not to waste her chanse: "We got to proove our mothers are wrong." Otherwise it will be what the butler Lionel told her: "Sometimes we are forced into directions which we ought to have found ourselves."stephanSE 2005-11-24
28/2005 Hable con ella: gored bullfighters, comatose ballerinas
http://www.clubcultura.com/clubcine/clubcineastas/almodovar/objetivo/objetivo.htm
The curtain goes up and the to-be-friends sit together among others, watching the Café-Müller-Dancers, one of them Pina Bausch. The journalist and travel writer Marco weeps, his tears looked at by the male nurse Benigno. Since four years he nurses a comatose-accidentvictim, the to-be-balerina Felicia. Flashbacks reveal, having his apartement across the dancestudie where she was a student before the accident, that he saw her and even "Talk(ed) to her". He talks, feeds, tends her and his for us unseen lovemaking results in her pregnancy: the reason for her lifereturn. Benignos horizon is narrow. For years he nursed his mother in their apartement, then Felicia in the hospital and finally confined to a prisoncell where he chooses suicide. His ’creepy’ caring is selfless selfishness Felicia, unaware of treatment whether it was kind or careless cannot choose. For me ’is’ Benigno the man in the silent movie ’The Shrinking Lover' we watch while Benigno tells the story for Felicia. Surounded by women he, he has no idea how to approach a woman, wo-men. Confined in his cell of his apartement, the hospital and the prison, Benigno never had the chans for a normal relation with a woman. Is he homosexual or not? The to-be-father without a father, who lives some where else with a new family, has not been an example.Marco is Benignos counterimage. Seeing a talkshow on TV with Spains famous female matador Lydia Gonzáles, fearless about bulls (but paralyzingly frightened of snakes) competes in men’s profession, the bull as the metaphore. Marco seeks an interview with her and has instead a short relationship with her which abruptly ends by a bulls attack, the reason for her comatose. As she is in the same hospital as Felicia, Benigno and Marco meet and develop even them a kind of friendship. Marco sits beside Lydias bed, but can’t talk to her or take care as Benigno does and advises him to do. What he does instead: he never crosses the line which the naive Benigno does. Marcos approach is real selflessnes, sitting in front or beside the lydiabed, giving room for the reappearing former lover. Marco takes more and more of Benignos ’empty’ place (his apartement and beyond the film the to-be-relationship with Felicia). From Benignos apartementwindow he sees her after her recovery in the dancestudio and speaking to her at a Café-Müller-Dancers performance. Marco is ready for Felicia beyond the film. We know nothing about his family and the father-relation. But as Benignos countermirror, Marco knows what is what; how to use the world as fathernames alternatives. Is it possible to put Hable con ella and the film Iris into the category of the american hollywoodproductions, focused on integration of handicap into society? Guided by ethical correctness, the message is: even the handicapped can be a worthy hero – as long as society accepts the outsider with its situation of otherness. Both films focus on a dysfunctional body without mind, just a corpse. Iris is the biography of Iris Murdoch, the brilliant person who had to make the journey into the dark alzheimercountry. The every-woman-question to her lover/husband is: will you still see me when my beauty belongs to the past, will love with respect what is behind the shattered front? is here answered with yes. Her husband John Bayley never forgot the innitiating moment of their meeting-the-other. Marco, having experienced Lydia before, has this memory in mind when he is at her bedside. He never saw Felicia before but now as body mindless (or as the Giorgio Agamben expression, "The open: man and animal 2004" "...simply the naked life.") – having exactly this in mind for their-together-future.Inspired by Sergio Benvenuto "Der andere spricht nicht. Reine Anwesenheit und die Wiederkehr des naturalistischen Denkens." LETTRE INTERNATIONAL 61,II/03:38
stephanSE 2005-11-03
27/2005 The Island: "Why is Tuesday night always tofu night?"
The Island shows that cloned humans can only survive in a corresponding environment, a setup in a not-too-distant future. We where shaken by surprise when sheep Dolly suddenly headed the headlines. Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel Never Let Me Go focuses the same question. The step from Dolly to cloned human is possible; cloning is not fiction but science. Kazuo Ishiguro message is: "The real world raises many of its citizens as spare parts; they are used as migratory workers, minimum-wage retail slaves, even suicide bombers." (Roger Ebert. Date).The (cloned) survivers in The Island, live in a sheltered facility after an earthly catastrophe. They are eager to be the lucky lotterywinner, the ticket to the island, the Earth's only uncontaminated spot left on the planet. In reality an auschwitzlike-factory where they are killed and their organs sold to the rich. That the white dressed clones believe the lie, they are held on the intelluctual level of 15-year-olds; in Blade Runner the replicants had an upper timelimit of their life. But as Rachel and Deckerd, the hollywoodcloneoutsider Lincoln Six Echo asks suddenly "Why is Tuesday night always tofu night? What is tofu? Why can't I have bacon? Why is everything white?" Then one day he sees a flying bug, where no bug should be, or fly. Discovering the truth, he escapes the sealed world, taking with him Jordan Two-Delta, when chosen to go to the Island and hunted by their keepers, to reach the real world.
The ethical question is: Whatever the good achieve as new predictable invention, it will be used by others for their ideas. Each predictiable solution is a ’cloned’ adjusting step to control behaviour. Novalis tells us. "Conscience is man’s immediate being in complete transfiguration; it is the heavenly archetypal being of man" – this organ which enables us not only to know but knowing that we know, consciouss that a human is not only a creature but a creator. The cloned human is held on the creature-level, unable to use the organ Novalis meant. But Lincoln Six Echo senses vaguely this organ, curious when not automatically recognising but active seeing (it is an estranging effect which Hitchcock used in his films and Brecht in his plays) a bug where no bug should be. Does the good invent something predictable, the invention should be placed into its context, safeguarded and hidden in the lacanian way (J Lacans lecture on Poes ’purloined letter’ http://bau2.uibk.ac.at/sg/poe/works/p_letter.html ).stephanSE 2005-09-18
26/2005 The Girl in the Café. Gina "That is not true"
The shy civil servant Lawrence has in a Londoncafé the classic chance encounter with Gina, asking for a lunch ("I scrubbed up for you, tonight."). The "meek" Lawrence, devoted to his job, works for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, always behind the guy on the news. After some togethernesstime she accompanies him to the G8 Summit in Reykjavik, Iceland. Gina sees from the car to the hotel the demonstrators (we saw them Wednesday 6th july on TV).The BBC/BOC-production is/will be broadcasted in connection with the G8 Summit at Gleneagles, Scotland 6-8 july 2005. The question is: what has to happen that the average person Gena can talk to and be listened by the upper class G8-politicians? Of course she has to do, before she utters her first word, her homework, asking Lawrence questions that cut through all the complicated political issues. The crescendo in this film is her apeal at the ’big dinner’, her speech ending ".. You knew what to do stopping it happen and you didn’t do those things. Shame on you. So that’s what you have to do tommorrow. Be great instead of being ashamed. It can’t be impossible. It must be possible". The Girl in the Café reminds of Lost in Translation; the stay abroad in an expensive hotel, the age gap, the loneliness and search for warmth and love. When finally the expected sex is a fact, impossible for Susan and Bob Harris, it is "tender and true", Ginas oppinion of Lawrence, saying it to him at Keflavik airport, "you are tender and true amd that’s unusual". Both are the right kind, fitting together. The fourth of the four Reykjavikthings (Björk, the chessgame between Fischer and Spaskij, that zips shrink in Reykjavik) is "… it is possible in Reykjavik to have a night something quite close to love." Is after her ’crime’ a British hollywoodhappyend possible? He phones London, telling her to watch the TV; what she wanted she got! Her tender courage opens doors, to halve extreme African poverty is not sidelined. Their relation switches between personal conviction and professional obligation,helped by her rare grace and his gentle nobility. The lacanian focus: That Lawrence has no idea of what the Naame of the Father means is obvious, crouching in front of a cruel and mean real and an imaginaire father. Also Genas fatherexperience seems not very good. We here that her boyfriend has left her; it seems that he is the one who hit and killed (their?) child. In a way Gina has given upp but actually not. She is not like Susan, in need of Bob Harris help. Her identity is not smashed to pieces by "dirty, dirty Blair"-men. Does she pity Lawrence? Perhaps in the beginning of their togetherness. It develops to what empathy means; Lawrence get Ginas helpoffer but has to be himself an active part. Thus both get a kind of knowledge of what the Name of the Father means. Both have gone too far. In London their relationship will continue. They are the right kind, fitting together. Her rare grace and his gentle nobility will watch that the Name of the Father is respected in their togetherness. It is this which the people around them at the hotel sensed an acted accordingly.In a reality-setting a nothing-to-loose-Gina invites high ranked politicians. Both Ginas are guided by their own ethic setting and disregarding societies moral framework. They reach and touch the heart of privacy, able to communicate. Consciouss of a conscioussness, making them aware to listen to the alarmclock. It is well known that politicians disregard most of the obligations but must accept for his own political futures sake the between-obligations and ready for the few Ginas questions. The paparazzimedia focus not the first and last but the between group. Thus the long term-development is innitiated by the unvisible Ginas who sees/is seen.
stephanSE 2005-07-06
25/2005 Kill Bill "You look ready"
Beatrix Kiddo akka The Bride, Black Mamba and Mommy is told by her master, teacher and lover that Pai Mei hates women, whites and Americans: "… Whatever - WHAT-EVER - Pai Mei says, obey. If you flash him, even for an instant, a defiant eye, he'll pluck it out. And if you throw any American sass his way, he will snap your back and your neck like they were twigs, and that will be the story of you." Ellen Driver disobeyed with a defiant eye, was eyeplucked and revengepoisend him. The obeying Black Mamba denied to eat like an animal and treated as a human the rice with her sticks. Finally Pai Mei teached her (Bill assured that he never will do, never did) the five point palm-exploding heart technique. Bill told her the story, explaining "… the deadliest blow in all of martial arts. He hits you with his fingertips at five different pressure points on your body. And then he lets you walk away. But after you've taken five steps, your heart explodes inside your body, and you fall to the floor, dead." Black Mambas question, why Pai Mei accepted her, Bill fancied "because he's a very, very, very old man. And like all rotten bastards, when they get old, they become lonely. Not that that has any effect on their disposition. But they do learn the value of company." But it wasn’t that simple. Beatrix Kiddo man-respected Pai Mei whatever demanded as he was worth the respect, him consciouss of her acceptance. The Bride vowed after her 4 years-coma vengeance on the Deadly Viper Assasination Squad for that they destroyed her future at the Two Pines Wedding Chapel in El Paso. Parallell to the five point palm-exploding heart technique are:Vernita Green/Copparhead, O-Ren Ishii/"Cottonmouth", Budd/"Sidewinder", Elle Driver/"California Mountain Snake". The woman Black Mamba killed Copparhead, Cottonmouth and California Mountain Snake, symbollic killing Bud by Elle’s Black Mamba. The revenging woman Beatrix Kiddo is the best of the best but even vulnerable and this is often focused on. Though we know that the hero has to survive, her vulnerability is shown and makes her human as the best of the best. She does not know but senses her still existing motherhood. She was/is a mother, could seperate, explaining it to Bill: "Before that strip turned blue, I was a woman. I was your woman. I was a killer who killed for you." Bill/"Snake Charmer" had to be deathapproached with the five point palm-exploding heart technique. She answers his question "How do I look" before he took the five steps with "You look ready." Then… while B.B. watches a televisioncartoon, Mommy lies, clutching a soft, brown transitional object in her arms, on the bathroomfloor, at the same time laughing and weeping. The final end shows, followed by the text "The lioness has rejoined her cub and all is right in the jungle" the mother and daughter, watching the televisioncartoon. Is this setting a signal that the male is used only to be pregnant as the father-boy seldom is able to accept the lacanian Nom du Père! (only in his last five lifemoments Bill was manlike). Kill Bill can also be seen what happens when father and mother misunderstand each other. Bill believed that Pemperton was the childs father. Wondering why she told him so late, she answers "Before that strip turned blue, I was a woman. I was your woman. I was a killer who killed for you. Before that strip turned blue, I would have jumped a motorcycle onto a speeding train... for you. But once that strip turned blue, I could no longer do any of those things. Not anymore. Because I was going to be a mother. Can you understand that? (Bill "Yes. But why didn't you tell me then instead of now?") Because once I would have told you, you'd claim her, and I didn't want that. (Bill: "Not your decision to make.") Yes, but it was the right decision and I made it for my daughter. She deserved to be born with a clean slate. But with you, she would have been born in a world she shouldn't have. I had to choose... I chose her."Mommy was wrong. The way her daughter B. B. welcomes her as mother, the moment she enters the room, tells us that she was in her motherabsence all these years with her daughter. The fatherparent, waiting for the motherparents right moment to surface, the motherparent was daily included in their daughters mind. How and why that? The master, teacher, lover and father was able to devide and separate himself as master with the killer Black Mamba from himself as lover and father with Mommy. Bill is consciouss of the lacanian Nom du Père. To be regarded as fatherparent/motherparent is needed its counterpart, the motherparent/fatherparent. This knowledge, the red thread throughout both films, was the approach, that B.B. never forgot the motherparent in her mind. Volume 1 starts with that Bill hears that the child is theirs, asking when volume 1 ends if she knows that their child lives, finally in volume 2 confronting their daughter. The answer why Black Mamba had to kill Snake Charmer and not accept each other as parents is that a togetherlife with their daughter was unable to trustballance the other scale, their life as Black Mamba and Snake Charmer.
Seeing Kill Bill, gives us the experience of one single man, Pai Mei, worth respect but killed and of one single father, Bill, worth acceptance but dies by the mans gift to the mother.
stephanSE 2005-05-21
24/2005 Blackmail “Did she tell you who did it?” Again: strong women, conciouss what they want. Even! - Alice. And as usual, the performance of the males weaknes. Tracy with his criminal record gets his wanted fun. He enjoys his own weaknes, a mirror for the others of his kind with which he jesters as long it goes. Mr White is stupid and kind devotion. The artist Mr Crewe doesn’t know where charm ends and violence starts. A marvelous mirror is his song, shortly before he tempts paying destiny. Franks stiff stubborness batch-betrays, unable to seperate love and work. The selfdefenc-murdering Anny Ondra performs brilliant her guilty fear after her snippiness, ready to confess. Why, is she?, freed!: that her date, the investigator-in-charge, Det. Frank Webber, is together with her condemned to be their guard in their prison-of-marriage? Had the 1928-audience, leaving after the movie not their doubts; could the star of the day really go free? In the Bennetplay Tallulah Bankheads Alice’s goes to the police. Hitch, a similiar ending in mind, was companystopped. The public wouldn't want to see Alice/Any Ondrar in prison. We know of Vertigos ‘European ending’, forced on the sullen Midge and Scottie. While Scotland Yards boys deathchase Tracy, writes Alice, as later Judy in Vertigo does, her letter; more for the audience than for Scotland Yard Chief-Inspector and Det Webber, being in the room. Putting the letter on the table, she tells that she has done it – as Judy indirectly told Scottie. But neither are listened to, shall not! The glove is hidden and the letter destroyed; 28 years later does Judy it herself, 'remembering'! Alice.The deathchased Tracy has to be Alice’s stand-in. The observant landlady rememberes “when he spoke to you, he smiled like this.” The fadeout of the his hands rubbing Chief-Inspector, behind him is the jesterpicture, fades in of Tracy, doing the same. A moment later the jesterpicture fades in. In the audience mind is the tracysmile connected with the jestersmile. We see the tracyshadow entering the artist house, shortly after Alice left. Was Tracy the artists modell for his smile? And Alice’s alicetruth? As Marnie in Marnie, she is imprisoned in her marriage. In mind the lacanian Nom du Père: can Det. Webber, betraying his batch and unable to live up to his profession, be the lacanian ‘husband/father’ for his wife and their children? What he is instead: the sternlooking wall-picture in Alice’ room – moved after their marriage to the sitting rooms honour-of-place. In opposition: the picture of the artist. The jester pointing and tracysmiling – frightening Hitchs first ‘Blonde’, holding her and Frank in ‘suspense’ as long as they live. stephanSE 2005-03-03
23/2005 Une liaison pornographique. Lui: "Dans en café."
We make the decision to stop smoking and stop. But deep inside us is still the smoking-desire. We have not stopped. To do this we should enact smoking until we are not disturbed by the suppressed wish. Now we have stopped smoking. Like this it is with many of our more or less conscious/unconscious phantasies we nearly never can enact. For most of them we need the corresponding Other. “Une liaison pornographique” (A pornographic affair, An affair of love, Une affair d’amour, En erotisk affair, Eine pornographische Beziehung) describes such a nearly-never-situation. The actors are the 17 years older Nathalie Baye and Sergi Lopez (1999). It’s an interview after their years-experience. She and he disclose not their name, age, occupation, or where they live – emerging from and disappearing into the peopled blured crowd, two normal every-day-people of the respectable middle class. After he answered her ad they meet in a Left Bank café before they go to a neighborhood hotel, closing the rooms door nr 118. We are outside and the offscreen interviewer is not told what happened. It is the "Belle de Jour"-box or the "Pulp Fiction"-briefcase – or the forbidden door in the fairytale the hero opens, or Tjernisjevskijs europeinspiring novel: a common room for togetherness and the two rooms to which the other was forbidden to enter – or the lacanian short hour: after the patient has said the word, he enters without Lacan the room. Of their years relation we witness eight sessions. After the first three we jump to the last; the protected frame-deal is designed by her. The desire itself is focused. As Roger Eberts wrote “It is about having a part of you that has been your precious secret since you can first remember, a part you thought you could never share, and finding someone whose own secret part is a match for your own” (Chicago Sun-Times oct 27 2000) The relation ends as it started: in room nr 118 without us as witness. Enclosed the six experiences, headed by a keyword: the deal, restaurantdinner, cabylian legend, love, boy, disintegration, rescueattempt, deal-return – the process of a curve. After their second encounter he suggests a restaurantdinner the same evening. Seeing them talking, we hear the interview. During the dinner is the sexual undercurrent of saying one thing and thinking another disturbing; both are free. Leaving the restaurant they againreturn to the hotel and before she steps later into the taxi, he hears that he is ‘nice’. After some months, she suggests to love, we invited to watch the nearly nine filmminutes. When they part, she weeps. Until this moment he was an adult, polite behaviour and tender attitude. Roger Eberts: “You are not in love with the other person, so much as the two of you share a tenderness because each knows how hard the other has looked, and how hopeless the search seemed at times.” But after their public-lovemaking he changes into the boyish stubborn attitud, paired with its latent male brutality. Against the deal, he follows her without her knowledge – or does she? – loosing her in the métrolabyrint. Even she is nervous, sensing that he, against their deal, needs not her but her as (M)Other. The idea of the restaurantdinner did not belong to their deal. A new deal should have been made as the deal was for them the lacanian Third, forbidding the mother-child-incest. She accepted the dinner, admitting for the interviewer “What was it? One sentence, two? Words he said, those few, started off everything. But I didn’t understand that then.” A deal helps the male to be the adult, but changes him into a boy when the deal is not taken seriously, not changed when the contents changes. The event with the old man is the result of the deals desintegration. She looses her self by trying to rescue the relation. She suddenly believes that she loves him, telling him that she wants to share their aging life together. Now it is his turn for his tears. Unable to answer, they return to the hotel, having a bath and seeing them after having made love: “For one second”, he tells her “you gave me everything.” (this moment is the coverpicture of the VHS/DVD). Their last time in the café: we hear their thoughts – he translating her bodylanguage different. The affair has to end as their years experience is not enough for a every-day-relation. For a last time they return to room nr 118 to enact what the deal was, closing the circle, sealing the together-year as a memory-jewel. Departing, they briefly kiss goodbye and dissolve into the blured crowd. It is in todays big-brother-is-watching-you-society easy to find the other – they never did that. Are they now tempted to use the offscreen interviewers knowledge, aware of that their phantasy still tempts? As long we live with the wish of smoking, even that we have stopped, we still smoke. stephanSE 2005-01-29
22/2005 Lost in Translation. Charlotte: "So don't. Stay here with me. We'll start a jazz band."
Tokyometropolis weekvisits by actor Bob Harris for "getting paid two million dollars to endorse a whiskey when I could be doing a play somewhere.", treating the tokyowork with unkind tiredness but not too unkind. At home his Lydiavoicewife sends faxquestions about their new, unfinished bathroom. Now and then they phonespeak to each other, she asking: "Do I need to worry about you, Bob?" and he answering: "Only if you want to". Ages ago they lovelost each other and embarked parentship, playing his part not too bad and not too well. His fatherapproach is real. He loves his own children and likes children generally. He assures Charlotte that "your life, as you know it... is gone. Never to return. But they learn how to walk, and they learn how to talk... and you want to be with them. And they turn out to be the most delightful people you will ever meet in your life." Charlotte could be his grownup daughterchild, what she exacly is during their tokyoweek, the agedifference is 34 years. Has it been real, the three could have been together as he and her husband had the same week in the same town work to do. Johns young wife Charlotte is an academic ("Evelyn Waugh was a man") wich irritates John ("Why do you have to point out how stupid everyone is all the time?"). Bob Harris and Charlotte are 'lost in translation', unable to communicate with Tokyo, but they do talk and can listen to each other. The 'one-week-daughterchild' Charlotte touches Bob Harris intact fatherfeelings. To be invited/invite for the usual lovesexuality in a hollywoodfilm is here out of every question; instead invites Bob Harris the singer in the hotel bar for a night in his bed. With 'daughter' Charlotte it should be pervers and wrong. The film describes actor Bill Murray as Bob Harris and actress Scarlett Johansson as Charlotte. One with and the other wthout familyname, a significant indication towards what Lacan means with Nom du Père! Behind the tired boredom and unkind behaviour Bob Harris has a knowledge/consciousness of the lacanian Nom du Père which he even can practise. Officially in Tokyo for the moneymaking commercial - but the undercurrents meaning of this week is the timeout of this man to be a father for a 'adrift-searching' daughter and be recognised/seen as a father. Often we do something - but behind-between the every-day-curtainmisery is the real thing. On his way home to Tokyo-airport, discovering her in the tokyocrowd, he leaves the car and runs after her: the films precious moment. They talk, with us seeing but not hearing, though we are so near. Sure is that they are satisfied what is said, returning to the car and disappearing into the crowd. Even without this scene it should be for Charlotte easy to contact each other as he is the celebrity and she knows his full name - different to Jesses and Celines promise in Before Sunrise. Jesse had to write a book about their nights experience, hoping that she would read it and contact him (in Before Sunset).
stephanSE 2005-01-03
21/2004 Marnie - "... you Freud, me Jane?"
According Alfred Hitchcock is Marnie "a very difficult picture to classify. It is not Psycho, nor do we have a horde birds flapping about and pecking at people willy-nilly." The woman Marnie is a habitual thief, targetting wealthy businessmen and robbing them. Marnie's latest target Marc Rutland, having heard of her by chans in the films beginning, discovers her scheme and blackmails her into marrying him. His right-from-the-start-goal is his seeking for the reason for her kleptomania and hatred toward men. Mark remembers shortly efter the Strutthefft, Strutt describing her to two detectives. And when Marnie applies as Mrs Taylor the advertised Rutlandjob, he orders Ward to take her, Ward asking the why-question and getting the answer: Let’s just say I’m an interested spectator in the passing parade. As such he senses that he has ‘knows’ Mrs Taylor, unconscioussly rembering Strutts description: Five feet five, 110 pounds, size 8 dress, blue eyes, black, wavy hair, even features, good teeth. Mark Rutland and the actress Tippi Hedren share the interest in wild animals life. When Marnie tells Mark, I'm just something you've caught, he agrees but aims for more. You think I'm some kind of animal you've trapped!, he answers, That's right, you are. And I've caught something really wild this time, haven't I! I've tracked you and caught you and by God I'm going to keep you! Using freudian knowledge, he wants to culture ‘Janes’ natur (We've established that you're a thief and a liar. Now, what is the degree?, Marnie answering,You talk as if this was some kind of regular thing I do! Did!). Mark does all this in the frame of the prison-of-marriage, being the example of the good-enough man who accepts and lives according ‘Nom du Père’. Marks father and Marnie shae their love for horses. Her unsafe, of decency clean life she trust-controlls her horse: Oh, Forio, if you want to bite somebody, bite me! Marks wish goes beyond to tame the wild animal Marnie – he wants to humanise her as his wife beside him. Therefor he has time to wait for the right moment by observing her, searching, takes each unpossible as a possibility. His mind is open. Nothing is taken for granted, nothing put aside but looked at with care and interest. Before him we know that the colour red is an important sign, observing Mark how he treats the bits and pieces, leading to underatanding. With this attitude of trust he does not believe his wife but waits for the right moment, for the hidden ‘more-to-come’. He ‘knows’ that somewhere is the (M)Other. Mark is able to embark on this crusade due to the trust to his own father, though this same father had not the VD-ability for his company. It is known that the Marnie movie was A Hitchcocks last personal work, belonging to his ‘Mothertrilogy’, not very well directed and not well received. The end offers the audience depression instead of the famous suspense. Marnie seems to circle around a void space it is forbidden to focus at. It is the mothers knowledge, passed on to the daughter as unconsciouss knowledge as truth behind her fears. When Marnie tells Mark that he has "a pathological fix on a woman who is not only an admitted criminal but who screams if you come near her!", he answers "I never said I was perfect", well aware what he can and what not. He knows when Marnie tells him that "Men are filthy pigs. In case you didn't recognize it, that was a rejection." Belonging to the male race he knows that his kind is weak, not behaving well against women, not able to accept the Law of the Father. What Marnie finally has to accept in her prison-of-marriage that there are a few exceptions and that her husband is one of them. By no means is Marnie cured, leaving her mothers home with her husband. Her bad style of life will continue as it is a part of her personality. Seen Marnie from this angle Marnie is suspense – suspense beyond and cared by us as it is done so clearly in ‘Monsters ball’.stephanSE 2004-11-01
20/2004 Decemberbride (Sarah Gomartin "What ails my name?" ,1990:133)
Sam Hanna Bells (1909-1990) Decemberbride, published 1951, was republished 1990 after his death in connection with the movie. The movie starts and ends with the of society defeated woman Sarah Gormatin. The marriage, ending the film, is the books startingpoint. Society demands to know who the father is, asking for not the but a name. The ceremony in church is silent , the daughters eyes blindshaded, choosing not to see what society does to her mother. This society, not caring who of the two the father is, namedemandis a father if the daughter wants to marry. In the movie Sarah must choose one of the two brothers, choosing of course the master of Rathard, Hamilton. Saskia Reeves (Miriam in Butterfly Kiss) Sarah Gormatin, unmarried mother to two children, lives together with the two brothers as father/s to the two children; a daring, remarkable printed and filmed thought. Sarah answers society that 'my name is good enough'. Sarah asks the presbyterian priest: "To bend and contrive things so that all would be smooth from the outside, like the way a lazy workman finnishes a creel.", "is 'smooth for the eye'! On the survice we belive that Sarah Gomartin disobeys the male, favouring feminism. What Sarah critises: how society treats the symbolic father. At Rathard, the home of the Echlins, Sarah obeys accepting the symbolic Law. We see it in her respect towards Andrew Echlin, telling after his death Hamilton that he is now the master when he pulls down the boatshed, yesterdays fathersymbol. Neither brother, the boyish week or the boyish stubborn are able to replace the dead father, serving the three Irish Curses: "Priests, Parsons an’ Porther!" Sarah has the courage not to accept them. The daughter answers her mother that time changes, reminding her what Andrew said in his moment of death, that times change. Even Sarah Gormatin seems to believe that "our young must live, things move on" – but! really? Sam Hanna Bells Sarah alternative of truth had to accept reality. She had to accept (as Miriam in Butterfly Kiss) that the weak boy, using his physical strength of violence, is the one who dictates the Law. Only a few are permitted to look at and experience truth, hidden behind reality. Sarah did it without asking and had to pay. Decemberbride is beyond a hollywoodfilm and a mans fiction. At the end we are where we always are. But, reading the book and looking at the film, we wittness a woman who knows even in her defeat what she wants. But is not the Irish puritan Ulster communitys victory a defeat? When the book tells of her defeat on the first page, the suspense lives with us until the daughters demand.stephanSE 2004-07-17
19/2004 The Family Man: "You're not really Daddy, are you?"
The Family Mans actual moviedream (86-minutes) has a 16-minutes before- and 14-minutes afterframe. Its keymessage is in the title: how a wealthy workaholic manhattanbachelor hollywoodtransforms into an able family man. Jaques Lacans phaloism tells of the difficulty accepting the symbolic father, living up to the image of the Nome du Père - be in daily life an acceptable fatherability. The Family Man shows one of many ways what has to be done to come near the symbolic goal of the fatherimage. In the beforeframe is Jack urged by Kate 1987 at JFK not to take the Londonflight, sensing they never will marry and have their family. Hollywoods dreamfactory describes a dream in a dream (every movie is in this aspect, prjected on the whiteness of the virginlike screen a dream, said in Pretty Woman). That the dream is recognised as dream, the hollywoddtradition has to time-fiddle with a supernatural arrangement. dreamJack, returning from London the day after has sacrified his career, married Kate, getting their family. Jack is employed in his father-in-laws firm, selling tires while dreamKate is a none-proffit-lawer. All this far off from the comfortable upper class life in NYC:s Manhattan. Of course has Jack, otherwise the dream is meaningless, in the dream his manhattanmind, knowing exactly what has happened - while Kate pretends in the awkward moments not to 'knows' that a stranger is inhabiting her husband's body. But bright dream-daughter Annie sees it all, telling him: "You're not really Daddy, are you?" (in "Me Myself I" asks one of the three children 'When's Mommy gonna be home?), helping her alien-father in the awkward moments to grwow into the part of her fatherreal. When it happens, she says satisfied "I knew you would come back." What Annie actually tells Jack: as you have accepted the (lacanian) bachellor-castration, you can be a member of the symbolic order, able to take your part as family man in the social arrangement 'family'. Jack wants to stay, content what he has achieved: "I've got kids, I'm going home (to the Jerseyhouse)." Back as manhattanbachellor, Jack returns Kates beforeframe-christmascall by taking a taxi, meeting realityKate in the middle of her breaking-up-Parismove. “A cup of coffee? Lets have it, when you’re in Paris, café au lait,” is her answer. What happened Kate 1978 at JFK in the beforeframe happens now 2000 at JFK Jack. Dreaminfluenced, Jack persuades realityKate to take next Parisflight for the sake of "one cup of coffee" now! Jack shorthandtells her in front of everybody of what dreamhappened. What the beforeframeKate, not knowing if and what happens, asked for 1987 at JFK, of this tells the afterframeJack 2000 at JFK, that it and what has dreamhappened. RealityKate point out that "I was heartbroken, Jack, but I got over it and moved on. And you should move on too", meaning in the lacanian sense that the woman is from the beginning reality-castrated. It is easier to cope with imaginary penis, expressed by Kate with I have "moved on". What happens at JFK 2000 is that we see both having in a manhattanrestaurant the one cup of coffee! The dreamtransformed bachellor is a family man, ready after all these years to marry the unmarried Kate. The bachellor-boy, unaware of the Nome du Père meaning, has in the dreamfactory Hollywood dreamlearned how to do it, accepting him. To stand upright as a man, ready as family man for children, dog, house, neighbours and Kate, quoting dreamKate: ".. it is more important than the adress. I choose us."stephanSE may 2004
18/2004 LOLA RENNT "Bist Du gerannt - was hast Du denn da drinn?"
The core of Lola-Rennt can be found in Scrooged (even in Its A Wonderfull Life), in Sliding Doors, Twice Upon Yesterday, Przypadek (Blind Chance), Groundhog Day and, why not! in Vertigo. In this "second chance" films, mostly produced in the "second chance" country America, what do they say? Phils Mondays in Groundhog Day gives repeatedly the second, third, fourth ...chance, trapped in a kind of time warp, until he has changed his faults so that Rita can like him. Twice Upon a Yesterday shows Victor that not Sylvia but Louise is the woman in his life. The Vertigo-films show that some 'Scotties' of us men are not able to take the offered "second chance". And when Sliding Doors tells that fate can't be prevented, offers Blind Chance three possibilities: wht happens if Witek misses the train, bumps, running after the train, into a railway guard or gets the train. Time and time-money is focused in Run Lola Run. Lola is one/1! minute late, comes three/3 minutes earlier, comes in time. She comes too late and her boyfriend Manni (Money) puts into action the robbery (she is not in time). Too early: she puts in her fathers bank into action her own robbery, the father as her hostage. In time: coming too late to her fathers bank she, using her scream, roulette-wins the needed money (while Manni solves his problem). As the lacanian thought is in focus: how deals Lola Rennt with the Nom du Père? Her father has an affair with a woman, a member of the banks board, telling him that she is pregnant. Lola rushes in, asks for the money: her scream smashes the clock (time!) on the wall to pieces. In the third part, missing him at the bank, finds him, after he was involved in a carcrash, initiated by Manni, chasing the man with the money, in an ambulance: in peace holding his hand, saving his life, eyecommunicating.Three attitudes how to deal with time and time-money. We, as the Third, have as Nom du Père, the choice how we can time-run after visualised time, time-money. We are too late or too early but never in time. As time-slaves we serve what P Virilio describes as dromology, the science of speed. To meet the friend, living around the corner for a chat, means a 'dentist' appointment in your calendar while it takes only a couple of airplane-hours to visit the other friend, living in another country. The travelling experience of the journey is gone as we arrive before we have started; todays speed is global-local. The "Present Moment" is Lolas peaceful togethernes with her father in the ambulance, "Buzzy, doing nothing" (a TWILFIT-ad some years ago). At the same time articles and books are written that we should own the moment, have a timeout, denying burn-out. Nonetheless we are at war, not at peace with time. This begins with that time-money and time-needs are not ballanced with the received reality. If it is ballanced, not to forget the social interaction with the environment we are a part of, we can recognise the reality of the too-much/too-little, emerging from the unvisible into the visible. Instead as speedslave, searchhunting the time-animal and be rewarded with time-money, time is searchballanced, sharing/receiving time-money. Again the journey is in focus, the moment in the ambulance. The running Lola meets a woman with a child and a bycicling young man, their to a few seconds comprised life as reflected mirror in the Lola-mirror. In G H Lessings Faust-fragment asks Faust seven demons who the fastest is: "We all are", choosing the seventh: how quick it takes to come from the good to the evil. The faustian Lola prooves in the ambulance its reversal: how slow it takes to come from evil to good. Important is in this process the part of her father as the Third, Nom du Père, is time, father Cronos. Time was, as the legend says, socialised by son Zeus when he introduced the frame of the family, setting an end of his father Cronos traditional cannibalism. The father, time and money - they belong, interacting, together. As Manni solves in the third alternative without Lolas help his problem, the question is, not filmanswered: what is done with Lolas too-much, Manni asking: "Bist Du gerannt - was hast Du denn da drinn?"
stephanSE 2004-02-15
Vicky Parker, "Get out of here"
17/2003 "The ‘Icon’".If there are icons, the icons icon was Norma Jeane Mortensen Baker – used by everybody for everybody. The girl next door, one of us, has shown that everybodys dream has the possibility to be real. Her life belonged each one of us: yesterday, today and tommorrow. And she enjoyed it. Each second. Aware using us, playing with us as her toy. Dictating the rules. As she had noting to loose she put everything on the card. Lived practical the forbidden of which the Kinsey report wrote. She was in love with her mirror, the camera, knowing that we all saw her through/in this mirror. She constantly posed for us, the audience. This had of course its price – to pay finally "norme mâle". MM/Vicky Parker/Hoffman in There's no business like show business, the movie that she "did not care for", knew exactly what was wantedc and what she wanted. Vicky had since the age of six the shining goal clearly ahead – right from the start. MM:s entrance in There’s No Business Like Show Bussiness as the hat-check girl Miss Vicky Parker happens after 27 minutes, her back turned to Tim and us, the audience. That Vickys dream of a star is no phantasy she shows minutes later as Vicky Hoffman. MM was 1954 still a rising star, behind her 1952:s "Don’t bother to knock" and before her the 1953-Niagara-breakthrough. Aiming for Bradway, Vicky tells clearly the producer Lew Harris why she won’t bear the blue dress (on todays VHS/DVD-cover!) – as Kim Novak did with the hitchcockian, vertigious grey suit – knowing exactly what is good for her. The blue dress is the centerpiece of the films hidden suspense. Tim, as part of a family in show business, can’t understand that the show ‘Manhattan Parade’ means for Vicky, being alone since sixteen, "to make or brake it". Still not getting it, she is accused to be as girl in debt for producer Lew Harris. Her icy answer is "Get out of here". As she was not sure who her real father (Stan Gifford?) was, she had to live with a matrix-phantasy, checking for better or worse phantasy with reality. Spoto tells us, that her choice were often focused on mean-acting men. She knew that, expressing it in ‘After You Get What You Want, You Don’t Want It’. Her NY-period with the Milton Greene/Lee Strasberg-family was a time-out. She experienced that matrix-phantasy can match reality.Photographer David Conover discovered her 1945, packing parashuts - to be ten years later the icon Marylin, to die seven years after The Seven Years Itch. Picture: MM:s last picture, taken by Leif Erik Nygårds 39 days before her death. She was interested in him as he gave her Swedish language information for her Swedish part in "Something’s Got To give" (from an interview, SVT2 2000-12-14 18.00 with Nygårds).stephanSE, Christmas 2003
16/2003 The English Wife: ‘If we don’t see you, I know that you really love me".The English au-pair (H)Elena takes care of the autistic boy Bertrand, son of the English mother Caroline and her Dutch husband Jean Paul Griveau, both engaged "at the fringe of the underworld". The father drives Elena and Bertrand to the familys countryhouse in Aubersac which is renovated by a group local workers, one of them the summerworking lawstudent Alain. Seeing Elena mothers ring on her finger, Jean Paul gets the idea that she should act as his wife, supervising the lazy workers. But Elenas lowkeyed kindness has no effect. Telling Alain to do the work they leave. A loveaffair develops between the aupair and the student, being Bertrands alternative ‘parents’. The sudden arrival of the Griveaus makes it impossible for Elena and Alain to meet, as was promised, ‘next day’. In the course of Ms Griveaus sexual abuse, Elena, selfdefending herself kills him and being involved minutes later in the death of his wife. Elena tries to wipe out all traces in a fire, takes the run with Bertrand.Two years later realises the young lawyer Alain Dercourt, visited by an English detective, who shows a newspaperclip of the Griveaus, that Elena never was 'Mme Griveau', memorizing her question, ‘Alain, suppose I am not Mme Griveau?’. With the help of taken photos and inquieries, he finally finds her, living with ‘son’ Bertrand in a village. As she discoveres him first, she leaves a note at the hotel, asking him to meet her. She tells him: ‘If we do’nt see you anymore, I know that you love really me.’ Not accepting her demand to leave, he comes to their house. Taking the newspaperclip next morning to school, Bertrand shows it to the teacher, who contacts the police. Thus the Law reaches Elena who accepts the No(me) du Père.Until Bertrand feels safe in the symbiosis of Elena and Alain, his transitional object is a red toycar, loosing it into a well, not needing it anymore. Another transitional object is Elenas ring, a gift from her dying mother, the cause to act in Aubersac as 'Mme Griveau' and given seconds before she meets the police to Alain as token for the future. Other estranging objects is the chesspiece, the white horse and the pair of scissors. The by Alain broken and repaired chesspiece is Elena as memory, using it as recognizing key when Alain gets her note in the village. He has it when goes to their house, Elena giving it back after their nights lovemaking: ‘Take it and go.’ The scissors is a castrating symbol, strongly disliked by Elena, causing Mme Griveaus death. Befor the film starts we see scissors among the instruments of the man, sharpening the pair of scissors which should cut Bertrands hair but kills the mother. Another object is the newspaperclip, showing for Alain the real Mme Griveau. The speachless Bertrand makes sounds, being with Elena and Alain, pronouncing at the end of the film when showing Elena the newspaperclip with a picture of his parents: ‘Pappa, Mamma, Mamma, Pappa’. Elena introduces herself to the Griveaus as Helena, but is called (H)Elena. We hear something of her mother and hear a lot of Alains father and his profession. Eleneas lack of border-defence against Griveaus abuse, causing Carolines jealousy and her death, is against Bertrand castration. As she has no surname, we may guess a weak, unvisible father. Her life after the Aubersacexperince in the village with her ‘son’ is a dyadic prisonexistence without the Third. She tells Alain that she had a choice in Aubersac andher choice was Bertrand.‘ We can’t live together with you and we do not want you.’ Later she repeats: ‘For another person is no room. I told you how it is, I have made a choice and my choice is Bertrand.’ This is the tale of a prisoner, speaking the lacanian forclosed language. Alain does not accept. He asks Bertrand, showing the newspaperclip: "What has happened to them?", Elena stops him to the answer. But the Fathers Name is said of the Third, though this Third, persuaded by his love to Elena, is Alain tempted to corrupt the Law. Sensing his sudden weakness, Elena forces him verbalise what she has done: ‘If you love me, say it. Say it!’ His answer that it doesn’t matter is not listened to: ’Say it that I can hear it.’ She sees outside Bertrand, his teacher and the police. Ensuring her love to Alain, she gives him the ring and listenes to Bertrands words, showing her his parents picture. Beyond the film is the future for Elena, Bertrand and Alainas the Law is accepted, the ‘No(m) du Père’. The nameless Helena will after the effect of the courtsentence be Mme Dercourt. The film is Elenas story: ‘For me it was a lovestory, besides what others think, it is still like this…’ is her introduction of the film.stephanSE 1995-06-15/2003-10-26
15/2003 The Love Letter. “To light up like a christmas tree.”20th century computer games designer Scotty Corrigan (Campbell Scott) sees with his fiancé Debra in a secondhand store a not-for-sale-weddingdress and buys a $ 800 antique desk. Later in the evening he discovers a secret drawer and there a Civil War (1861-65)-era letter, dated april 16th 1863, written by an Elizabeth Withcomb (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a pen, ink and yellowed by age paper. Scott answers, posting the letter with an old-time 1 cent stamp at the Manhassets Post Office from 1857, a precivil postwar building. His ambivalent feelings for Debra causes his lovefall for Lizzy. Mothers comments to her “you’re stuck in your own little universe” son is H G Wells believe in timetravel and Einsteins thought that time is just another dimension. Everything has happened 1863, nothing can be changed – but Scotty tries. Because of his accident during a bicycle race he meets Elizabeth as Colonel Caleb Dunby. Back from hospital and 1863, Scotty finds all her letters, answering the letter, dated june 28th 1863 in which Lizzy shares her fear for Calebs life who, after an injury at Chancellorville (the parallel is Scottys bicycle accident) has to return to his Massachusets 19th Infantery. Scottys computersearch tells that 50% of the 50000 soldiers had died during the 3-days battle at Gettysburg and that Dunby was “killed in action july 2nd 1863”. In his answer he urges Elizabeth to persuade Caleb to delay his return. But this is not the Three Days in which destiny could be fiddled with. Elizabeth receives the slightly burned letter too late (Scotty posted it in the burning Manhassets Post Office) – only to comfort him in his last dying minutes, citing for him their poem: “Stranger, not on this earth we meet/Though I have surely lived with you/Dreamed of you/I would for ever have waited for you/To touch you/Not in this world of sighs/Looking forward never to loose you.” When Scott visits the second time her home at Willoughby, 3 Will Plain Road, after he had talked to her sister Flossys granddaughter Clarice, both meet, he going down and she coming up the staircase, sensing the presence of the other: “to ignore what happened would be to deny a miracle.” And Lizzy answers that “reality is that you live in your time and I in my time. But we will live and love across time.” Pictures are exchanged: of Bostons 20th century Christmastree and themselves – realising that Caleb, Scotty, Lizzy and Beth (Jennifer Jason Leigh) at her grave are the same. As Elizabeth and Caleb visit june 1863 a nearby tearoom after they have met in the doctors surgery, does Scotty and Beth the same:hinting at a together-future. Scotty and Beth have learned to obey the voice of the heart. Elizabeth never married Everett Reagle and Scotty broke his engament with Debra. The suspended nature of law contracts to normal. Against conventional common sense, societys expectations, the duty to obey father and teached knowledge – both have learned how the approach to the other conscioussly as humans can be processed – a time- and roomless event, a heartbeat away from each other. Visiting her home a third time he learns of the maid that Clarice has died and that Elizabeths chest is for him. In there are the books with her poems and his letters. Scotty published Lizzy poetry. We who see this romantic teleplay, travel back and forth, experiencing in another dimension time- and roomless parallels of their coping with questions everybody in the past, today and in the future has to take care of – to be in meeting the other, consciouss of each others humanity. Jack Finneys (Body Snatchers) short story The Love Letter was published in The Saturday Evening Post, Aug 1, 1959, reprinted 1988 and filmed 1998. stephanSE 2003-05-14
14/2003 Dance Me To My Song 1998, 98 min,48 sec - PAL Vertigo productions, 3 Butler Drive, HENDON SA 5014
"Dance Me to My Song" takes place in Australia, and tells the story of a young woman trapped in a wheelchair by cerebral palsy, and trapped psychologically by a cruel, manipulative caregiver. During a time of excruciating frustration, she wages war against all of the barriers around her, and succeeds, amazingly, in attracting a lover. The film stars Heather Rose, who also wrote it, and who plays, as she must, a cerebral palsy victim much like herself. It is the kind of film where the human will and spirit overwhelm you. It was directed by Rolf de Heer. (from the Hawaii Film Festival, by Roger Ebert)
As this fictious biographical films disabled co-writer Heather Rose stars the disabled Julia is this event a "difficult-to-watch-important-movie". Julia lives in her house, together with her facilitys of communication, hovering above her the institutional Southwind-threat, delivered by her emotionally crippled "care giver" Madelaine. Countries, having with great care closed their prisonlike institutions, offer integrationfocused (todays term is “inclusive”) clean, homely residentials: of course a good thinking gesture. But run by unclean, abusing Madelaines. One of the introducing scenes show Madelaine in the (front-)mirror, forgetting the (behind-)mirror. Most reviews regard Madelaine too black. But her diabolic feeling for the work ("I wish you could eat like a normal person instead of a bloody animal") is clever designed, unvailin true reality – how the unclean staff behaves behind cosy-looking residentials, themselves abused by official and private run authorities. Liberating help comes from the mysterious outside-neighbour Eddie, without a connection to the political framedecision or its abusing contents. Without this outside-Eddie, Julias imprisoned skills never could have come near even the shadow of help as unwritten biographies tell. At least one brave outside-Eddie is needed. Consequently is in focus the neglected, abusing object Madelaine, living a life of social misery with an unhealthy wage, unheard screaming for help to be seen. Madelaines abuse has no other way, as she is not seen, meaning a way out for both herself and Heather, she is forced to recognise her own faults in the julian Heather-mirror, unbearable to look at. Madelaine has no ability to cope with this experience; she acts out her hate against the producing (front)mirror. For the julian Heathers is this a common, daily experience, rooted as history in the medieval times of yesterdays today: only the fittest born are allowed to live (not to forget Luthers and Hitlers Tabletalks). A possible why-answer gives Valerie Sinason : the Guilt at being different – inability to process this guilt and the three faces of Defence against grief (to be mad and stupid) - society (frequent change of the word handicapp), the staff (changing the timetable as often as possible) and the disabled (pretended happiness as cover-upp smile). Heather Rose doesn’t copy but plays her own situation as an actor. This gives the film real reality, hurting the normal-disturbed in a new way, far beyond Hollywoods normal disability-films. An idea comes always to the border beyond which only those can unharmed go around who are at home or know that they are guests. Heather was at home and the others knew they where invited guests.stephanSE 2003-04-12
13/2003 Autism/Disability - Valerie Sinason - Heather Rose - Mary Mandy - Lévi-Strauss - M Verhoeven
Autism (and handicapp), experienced pure at its core, is unbearable to look at. Shame and guilt paralyzes the ‘recognising’ onlooker, ‘seeing’ the own well hidden faults, magnified in the distorted mirror. Revenge and violence is the answer; described by history: back in the times of the Vikings (Jan Fridegårds “Trägudars land”, 1940) and the Greek: only the fittest born could live. Not to forget Luthers and Hitlers “Tabletalks”. In three ways autism (and handicapp) can be looked at: by scientific research, a biography or a dreamlike attitude which wishes to see a vision, neglecting reality. A possible why-answer delivered Valerie Sinason: (Stockholm 1990 11.12). 1: Guilt at being different – inability to process guilt 2: Defence against grief (mad and stupid). To hold grief in its boundaries three defences are practised..Society: frequent change of the word handicapp. Staff: changing the timetable as often as possible. Patient: pretended happiness as cover-upp smile. K Kieslowski turned to feature, leaving documentary: “Not everything can be described. That’s the documentary’s problem. It catches itself in its own trap… That’s probably why I changed to features…” (2002:72, The Fright of Real Tears, S Zizek, bfi 2001 ). For Doris Dörres is sex an inner feeling while the cameras angle is outside; two things which never can meet. She smashed to pieces (“komplett zu zertrümmern”) the love scene in “Bin ich schön”. And Melissa Bee sees her autism-in-filmlist http://hunnybee.com/autism/autism-movies.html) as a theoretical construction of autism, transforming the audience to a Peeping Tom. My filmlist, inspired by U Frith (1989:36/Beyond enchantment) started with My Stepmother is an Alien. The “autistic behaviour” is here a sideoff event as ‘autism’ is not on the agenda. This frame, housing ‘autism’, offers an attitude of why autism (and a specific handicapp generally) behaves as it does and how it can be approached. Celeste in My Stepmother is an Alien does not want to return home. Something completely new offers Dance me to my Song. Heather Rose, co-writer, co-director and the leading star Julia, is herself a case of severe cerebral palsy. Dance me to my Song is a Between of documentary and feature as “the central story is really an offbeat love triangle. On one leg, there's Julia, who has the same emotional and sexual needs as any other woman. On another leg is Madelaine (Joey Kennedy), her caregiver, who's as emotionally crippled as Julia is physically damaged. And on the third leg is Eddie (John Brumpton), a kind (and somewhat mysterious) neighbor who strikes up a friendship with Julia while being sexually attracted to Madelaine. Dance Me to My Song is about Julia's struggle to win the battle for Eddie's heart and body…” (© 1999 James Berardinelli). The possibility of the fright of Real Tears is here not provided, otherwise in such films freely provided. Once it was said that a person with cerebral palsy should avoid in a play with disabilied people have the part of the own handicapp, choosing one of the others. But: crossing the border, the disabled returns as an actor and, as Heather Rose in Dance me to my Song, is more convincing and real than a documentary or a feature. The actor provokes not the fright of real tears - to be sacrifided in yesterdays and todays Hadamars gasschambers. Dance me to my Song offers the solution which Kieslowski searched for, never found and had to choose silence at the end of his life: ”If documentaries intrude into and hurt the personal reality of the protagonists, fiction intrudes into and hurts dreams themselves, secret fantasies that form the unavowed kernel of our lives.” (2001:2/77) as S Zizek comments. Is it a question of male dominance (discussed in Mary Mandys “Le désir de filmer: Voyage à travers le cinéma des filmes des femmes” with Agnes Varda, Lilliana Cavani, Sally Potter, Francesca Comencini, Safi Faye, Moufida Tlatli, Jeanne Lebrune, Deepa Metha, Patricia Rozema, Paule Baillargeon, Catherine Breillac, Lea Pool, Doris Dörrie, Carin Adler) as the norme mâlle is ‘handicapped”, described by C Lévy-Strauss in ‘Anthropologie structurale’: the names Labdakos, Laios and Oidipus, express a “difficulty to go uppright”, though dictating societys ‘norme mâlle’. Lacan used silence in his ‘short sessions’. When the patient came to the fairytales locked door, Lacan ended the session and the patient entered the room alone. At his point, avoiding point of no return, silence must be respected: well expressed in the last sequence of M Verhoevens (1989) “Das schreckliche Mädchen”, hiding in the tree, freezed, thinking what to do next? stephanSE 2003-03-01
12/2003 VERTIGO revisited …When some weeks ago Vertigo was focused at MacGuffin@yahoogroups.com I revisited again Vertigo. Years back I read Lennart Lagerwalls Swedish translation of Den Levande och den Döda , Strömbergs 1957 (already 1955 came the Denny tranlation From among the Dead). Elsters Paul Gevigne persuades Scotties Roger Flaviéres to follow Madeleines Renée Sourange, haunted by Carlottas Pauline Lagerlac 1840-1865. The places are in Paris the Marigny theatre, the Passy graveyard, Avenue Kléber, the house where the Gevigne couple lives is located at Rue des Saints-Pères, she jumpes into the Seine at Courbevoie, the church is Saint-Nicolas, the mission is between Sailly and Drocourt, the hospital is located at Mantes. The car is a Talbot Simca. After the faked death and WW II Roger sees her, in company with Almaryan, a black market dealer in Marseille in a newsreel, Paul died in a German air raid. In much, as stated in D Auliers book, the screenplay follows the basics of the Narcejac/Boileau D’Entre les Morts story.We should have in mind that Judy is the one who knows everything from start to end, the truth and nothing but the truth. Closely looked at (we must read the script) offers Judys Madeleine dedective Scottie Ferguson many disclosing hints to unclose the planned murder in time. More clearly are Judys hints after the murder, trapped by her love to say the truth. Her letter tells us why she wanted to meet Scottie again, stayed, going through the transformating ordeal again. When she “sees” him at Bodesta Baldocchi she went a longer way home: consulting the citymapp we see that the way home to the Empire from Magnins, 135 Stockton Street, passing Bodesta Baldocchi , 224 Grant Av, to the Empire Hotel, 940 Sutter St, is no shortcut. She stumbles at the curb, “seeing him” before he recognised the madeleine-unlike Judy Barton, who, leaving her company in front of him – is not astonished when she, followed by him to the Empire, opens the door. Why does Scottie recognise the madeleinelike women at Ernies, in the museum, by the car, that it is not Madeleine – but sensing Madeleine in the madeleineunlike Judy? All the way is Judys plead not to love the picture but her, again and again said throughout the film. The neclace-accident is for me not a mistake, she had allready on the grey suit and right from the start as Judy the give-away-birdspin; actually a (unrecognised) hint for us by Hitchcock. Shortly before she takes the neclace, asking for help, Scottie wants to muss her. But it is too early as she has put her (Madeleine-) face on, only a minute later allowing and begging him to muss her, put aeay the Madeleine-face as she now belongs to him: everytrhing he asked for had she painfully done. Looking for her lipstick, Judy didn’t realise that Scottie could only with her help close the Carlotta-case. In Elsters plan was not included Judys lovefall. This made it possible that both opened simultaniously each others human most confined depth for each other. That’s the reason why Scottie says: “ it’s you too. There’s something in you that …”, tragically only sensing that he saw behind the picture-model the person. What the films Scottie only hints at, the books Roger Flavière answers Madeleine Gévigne Renée Sourange when she told him: “I have allways been Renée Sourange; I am really Renée Sourange you allways have loved. You never have known Madeleine Gévignes.” – “The front tells me a fascinating story. About the back, I know nothing, do not want to know anything. But when I held you in my arms, knowing you as the only woman in my life; Madeleine, I experienced the front.” Roger and Scottie express the saying that men prefer sexuality while women, as Renée hints at and Judys whole enterprise is focused on: want to have love. The book and the film tells the tragic tale of the womens search for love (even Midge does it in her way): wanting a man but have to love a boy. We can focus on the actor Stewart and Novak. The naïve boy James didn’t need to learn acting: he was loved what he was, the everyday boy – while the piece of meat Kim in Hollywoods butchershop never accepted the cattletreatment. The book and film are mirrored lessons for the mature women to accept reality, living with their menlike boys. Look at Vertigos unknown follow-up, the “whimsical comedy with hilarity and romance in equal portions” (Variety) Bell, Book and Candle, shot a few weeks after the shooting of Vertigo with Vertigos leading stars as the witch Gil and the naïve boy Shep. Gillian Holroyd, transformed by love into a human, has to accept and wants to live with the boy Phil.stephanSE 2003-01-26
11/2002 Behind the vailed scene: Lili “There is the right time for everything in the right order.” Lili, an 1953-Oscar-musicalwinner: the bizarre fable of orphaned Lili Daurier, taken care by a circus troupe, getting a job after singing to the four puppets of the crippled pupeteer. ‘The angry man’ never could reach a friendly attitude for his warinjury, unkind and harsh to everybody. His assistant Yacov says Lili that he was before the war the great dancer Paul Berthalet, telling her that she never should mention the injury. Paul sees himself as “half man, half mountebank”. Everybody, recognising reality, must pretend not seeing the truth. Lilis only friends are the puppets Carrot Top, Golo the shy giant, Marguerite the vain beauty and the sly fox Renaldo: different sides of the for her hidden pupeteer behind the veil, forgetting that she speaks to him in her pure innocence. Thus she transforms into a mature woman. “We don’t learn, we get older. I’ve been living in a dream like a little girl, not seeing what I didn’t want to see,” she explains for Marc. The two centerpoints of the film are the dream-scenes: the first with Marc, his assistant Rosalie and Lili; the other with the puppets and Paul. While Lili dances with them they tranform into the quickly vanishing Paul. Lili sees suddenly what he earlier told her, that the puppets a part of him. She runs back to the circus troupe, to Paul, waiting for her as most of the Hollywood-movies need their happyend. What exactly happens that the veiled truth is able to be seen fearless by ‘the angry man’ Paul: what does Lili do? “She’s like a little bell that gives off a pure sound no matter how you strike it, because she is in herself so good and true and pure,” says Paul. The surface-believer Lili believes the shopkeeper offering her a job, believes Marcus’ easy charm; but that same naiveté builds an interacting bridge with the puppets, reaching Paul: it believable. Saying it herself, she always forgets that they are not real, that Paul and Yacov are behind the vailed scene. Just as Paul needs the puppets to open up, Lili opens up to them, growing into a mature woman. The puppets as shortcut, make love between Lili and Paul possible. It is her behaviour, bare of prejudice, taking handicap not as a failure but Handicap as culture. stephanSE 2002-11-09
10/2002 BLADE RUNNER: autismthought revisited as filmthought, caused by a recent 'Robert'-experience
"Deaf as a culture, deaf as a handicap. Elena was deaf." (E George 1993/11:195)
Six of Blade Runners Nexus-6 replicants highjack a spaceship and returne to San Francisco in search for their maker Eldon Tyrell at the Tyrell Corporation. Blade Runner Deckard has the task to 'retire' them. Testing eye-reactions with the Voigt-Kampff-test shows the difference between a human and a replicant. "They designed the human copies in every way, except their emotions. The designers reconned that after a few years their own emotional responses as hate, love, fear, anger; so they build in a failsafe device: a four years lifespan." We hear that the woman Rachael is and knows that she is a replicant without the four-years-lifespan: but knows the man Deckard is perhaps a replicant too? U Frith points at "the thin borderline where human and android may or may not be distinguished."(Autism 1989:47). Temple Grandin collects her ‘thinking pictures’ like videotapes, calling them when needed: "Every experience builds on the visual memories I carry from prior experience, and in this way my world continues to grow." (Thinking in Pictures 1995:40). What is Normality? Who is responsible for the set up of 'norme-mãle'? In He, She and It lets Marge Piercy terminate the robot Jod not only himself, but knows that Shira, herself a human-robot-halvcast, will destroy the traces how he was designed; not power but love is the leading keyword in this decision. That a robotlike being can truly experience love, shows Deadly Love. The vampyre Rebeccas answers Seans question, if she loves him: "With all my heart. So much so. I can't think of only what I want." Among us are many, acting like Eldon Tyrells who decide who allowed to live Handicap as culture, as Rachael and Deckard ... while the others have to exist its handicaped life in 'The Cage' (this expression was given to me by parents to a child with Asperger Syndrome, who, not accepting the cagelike institutions in there country, fighting for a better life outside ‘The Cage’). Societys 'Tyrell Corporation' denies Handicap as Culture as this decission results in a flood of unforseen questions, the leading undercurrent of all goodhearted gatherings. Societys 'Tyrell Corporation' believe is that it is too expensive to afford too many 'Mr Carlocks' who, described by Temple Grandin: "... was my salvation. Mr Carlock didn't see any of labels, just the underlying talents. ... He chanelled my fixations into constructive projects. He didn't try to draw me into his world but came instead into my world." (Emergence labeled autistic 1986/93:86). Nonetheless: the incaged Robertina and her in-the-same-situation-friend 'Robert' signal their need not only to be recognised but also to be seen, respected for what they are. It is needed the small group, selfrecognition in the mirror of the own Others and the staffs theoretical knowledge and practical experience. But real life teaches with cruelty the truth: again and again it is astonishing how little of scientific knowledge and shared experince the daily-life-staff accepts and makes to their own knowledge and experience.The why-answer gives Blade Runner. stephanSE 2002-10-13
9/2002 Angel on my Shoulder 1946
The script of Angel at my Shoulder is based on a Harry Segall story, a rwork of his celebrated play "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" into a more sarcastic, wicked form. Here Comes Mr. Jordan had Claude Rains playing an angel finding a new body for Robert Montgomery. Despite Angel at my Shoulders seamless merging of comedy with drama, it was a difficult production. Veteran director Archie Mayo clashed repeatedly with Paul Muni (Scarface and Oscarnominated for The Story of Louis Pasteur and The Life of Emile Zola), who was so embittered that he would not make another film for eight years. Angel at my Shoulder was remade 1980 for television with Peter Strauss and Kim Novak. Eddie Kagel in Angel at my Shoulder is killed with his own gun by his partnerfriend Smiley right after his release from the penitentiary, finding himself in hell, the twincopy of the incorruptible Judge Fredrick Parker whose policies has caused a labor shortage in Hell. Satans deal with Eddie: he is offered the chance to get even with Smiley while he as Judge Parker has to ruin Parkers reputation. Satan as the unvisible Nick at Eddies side fuses Eddies mind with Parkers body during a fake heart attack.The servant Albert and the secretary/fiancée Barbara Foster see clearly the difference of the rough minds former working class racketeer and the academic none drinking or smoking body. But Dr Matt Higgins has for each of their telephonequestions the well known expertanswer: like this deceiving Barbara and Albert to recognise. Though the fallen Angel at Eddies shoulder, pulling him frequently back online, Satan cannot evoke Eddies love for ‘his’ fiancée Barbara. The rough nature of Eddies working class mind is cultured by Barbaras upper class manner, suddenly perceiving until now unknown traits of her lovers character. Eddies developing love for this woman, in the beginning he treats her like a sexual object, is a new experience for him. When finally even with Smiley, without killing him, has time come for Eddie to take care of his part of the deal. He does it in a way Satan never could have imagined as Parkers body has changed Eddies mind.Taking farewell of Barbara, Eddie tells everything without revealing the truth: that he has to go away and will not return, that she will marry Judge Parker, will live in that house she showed him and will have children. Barbara, sensing what he speaks of without asking, is in the same position as Susan in the remake Meet Joe Black of Death takes a Holiday: Susan afraid to ask, contrasting the lifeloving Gracia with her burning curiosity for death, following without asking. Focus in Angel at my Shoulder is Eddie: what does he with his second chance and not Barbara; she has not to ask, which Susan could have done and Gracia did not want to. We are no onlookers when Barbara leaves Eddie, responding to the call of the real Judge whose body does not drink or smoke!?. Angel on my Shoulder is a visitorfilm in the autismfilmlist. As former earthmember he is with his workingclass-mind a clumsy visitor in the for him unknown academic body. Though the servant Albert and Barbara see clearly truths estrangement, obey both the expert, who in the film never visits his patient after Satans ‘faked’ heart attack, forced to recognise what the expert tells them to recognise. During his guesting revisit Eddie is Satans instrument, forced to do what the fallen Angel tells him to do. But the unknown life showed him what he as former working class racketeer only could have a distant look at. Returning to hell with this knowledge will give him a better life: both, Satan and Eddie are the winner of the deal. stephanSE 2002-09-28
8/2002 Little Voice 1998
LV lives since her fathers death, send to his early grave by his wife, her cagelife with her fathers beloved LP:s which songs she sings for herself, copying them perfectiously. Otherwise she hardly says a word with her ‘little voice’, her fathergiven nickname. The father: as picture on the wall and as frequent visitor in her mind. Mari, her loud and blowzy M-other picks up lads at the pub, the latest the onetime London club promoter Ray, now managing strippers. Ray, hearing LV singing, senses in a second the big money. Ray accompanies together with the films other men, the Fathers empty place: this weak person, unable to have marked the bounndaries for his wife; not an unusual behaviour of to day. Maris behaviour is one big scream of disapointment to have married a boy, never got the expected husband, respected as woman and mother. We sense that neighbour Sari, throughout the movie saying not one single word as well the elderly telephone line mans wife whose younger collegue Bill mixes her up with the girlfriend, have the same experience. In the novel “A Woman like that” declares Susan for her mother: "Who want's a boy? I want a man. A grownup. Somebody strong, somebody sure of who he is..." (C Barthel 1985:148) Bills letterdove Duvaine, lost somewhere in France, is a good picture for the incaged LV. When she finally is on stage, singing for her father,visible for her in her mind and visible for us among the thriled audience of the local club, she leaves in fact a golden birdcage. The Fathers place is occupied by men, weak and boyish and screamed at by the depressed Mari, hoping that one, only one of them is able to mark the boundaries. When the play Little Voice, written for the leading star, appeared as film, the connection was made to ‘asperger syndrome’. The grand old lady on autism Lorna Wing has said: “Autism is a diverging pathological trait, generally seen with men.” One of the reason for autism is, as I see it, the absence of the "Nom du Père", the lacanian Fathername. The todays fathers are daddyboys, wisely pointed at by Milan Kunderas Chantal: "Die Männer haben sich papaisiert. Sie sind keine Väter, sondern eben Papas, was bedeutet: Väter ohne die Autorität eines Vaters." (Identity 1996, 2000:16). Or as the worlds mighties man said: “My mother always said, 'When you're eating pretzels, chew before you swallow,'' meaning “Always listen to your mother.'' (2002-01-14 by Lauran Neergaard, AP Medical Writer). Little Voice sideoff-event, Bills and LV:s lovestory, gives hope that LV:s unsettled hamletian fatherghost finally finds peace in his grave. It seems that Bill is able to fill the empty place with meaning; able to do what the Father never could: offer a place with boundaries. Thus it is not the husband and father but the daughter, bordermarking M-other Mari the boundaries. As she earlier bordermarked Ray: it was he who suggested only one appearance for the sake of her Father, without the believe of a secondf that she was serious with this deal, his own idea – and his final enboundered end. stephanSE 2002-09-08
7/2002 Pretty Womans seven ”My Fair Lady” days and ‘Cinde-fucking-rella’ nightsThe Hollywood dream Pretty Woman asks "What's your dream?". And that this fictious dream is more than reality, we recognise by knowing that Julia Robrerts body on the poster and the bodycloseups are Shelly Michelles http://www.bodydouble.com/main.html. The tie, the males weakness’ disguising symbol, devides reality and fiction. Even Roberts character Vivian tries with the wigg to be another, Carol Charrin, replacing another, Edwards girlfriend Jessica, denying what the hooker does, to be a ‘back-and-call’. Th seven pygmalian days and cinderallian nights transform the cold out-of-town millionaire and his hot hooker. At their side are the stand-in-fathers James Morse and Barney Thompson, not to forget Edwards bad friend Phil and Vivians good friend Kit. Each day has the sex-selling whore and the money buying dealer to cope with a task before going to the next task; nothing else but a modern version of the Greek “Know yourself!”. The week starts off with the Sundays afternoon/evening: both engaged in selling and buying sexuality (the hooker does everything, “but I don't kiss on the mouth”), followed on Monday with by the $3000-frame-contract. Tuesday focuses on “how to shopp”, experience kindness; the day before the hooker had to experience that money alone has no power at all; the hooker needs the help of the protecting dealer, educating the accountance: “Not me – she”. The second and third cinderalian night is reserved for the man Geres therapy in the penthousepool and the woman Roberts therapy in the penthousebed, which is awarded by him on Thurday night with the visit to the opera in San Francisco (innocently inquires the whore, "Where's the band?") and responded by her on Friday after the day-off with the ‘the kiss on the mouth’ and their act of love. Reality is tested on Saturday before Sundays happy-end ending. One of the lectures of Pretty Woman is the weak mans process towards the ability to climb to the top, without knowing that he will be met halvway down: neglected by Love Storys Terry and Vertigs Scottie. Terry, not wanting to go, ran and missed the topp and Scottie unable to see. Though Edward frightened of hights, he challenges step by step as the ‘lonely-at-the-top corporate raider’ this anxiety: on Sunday he sits near the door to the balcony, later on he is on the balcony and on Saturday he can look down: ready to take on Sunday as the White Prince the fire escape. Pretty Woman is for Edward, Vivian and the audience a ‘heady ride to the top’. Though at home in their own room of society, explaing what he, as ‘takeover artist’ does, the hooker answers ”Then you do the same thing I do." Some themes are worth to investigate more closely: the tie. On monday he is helped by her with the tie; the shops accountant has on order of his boss give his tie to her, the gift for Edward as only ‘dress’ when he comes home: the tie as signal of Edwards change for the bad friend Phil. The tie in focus at the pologame and while she tells her story on Friday, putting it, as on monday, in place. Protection: the dealer protects the hooker, lending her his coat, excusing her in front of the elevator and at the opera, educating Hollister, warnes and beats up Phil who treats her as a whore. Though a dream, it opens the door to reality. The film ends, reminding us, as it is Hollywood, to "keep on dreaming." This antifeminine dream, secretly seen by many feministic disciples, as Jutta Prasse (RISS 52/2001-3:11) sees and recognises “in verschämter heimlicher Lust” “Wer wird Millionär” http://www.rtl.de/ea/millionaer/ , this womanly tale was a huge financial pretty succes. stephanSE 2002-07-01
6/2002 Day after the Fair “Because I can read and write.” The Harnham households maid Anna goes on her day-off to Salisbury fair where she encounters a young man, Charles Bradford, a lawyer from London. ‘The Day after the Fair’ they meet again, enjoying sexual pleasure. Soon Anna receives a letter from London and, as she can’t read or write, the letter is read and answered by her mistress Edith Harnham. Others come, even those ‘Cyrano-like’ answered by Edith, using the peasants bodyframe of Annas words, but the contens is her own culture and growing feelings of love for the man in London. He, believing corresponding with the peasantgirl, discovers that the bodysexual pleasure is transform by the (Edith-)letters into to love. When Anna discoveres that she is pregnant, telling it to her mistress, Edith takes this as reason for a London visit: to meet Charles and urging the marriage, eagerly accepted by Charles. The ceremony takes place at the Harnhams home. During the party, Mr Harnham while talking to the bridegroom, he encourages the serving maid that she should be the next bride. Mockingly she answers that Mrs Harnham does not need to write her letters, “because I can read and write”. Hearing this, the chocked bridegroom confronts his bride with what he has heard and seeking for Edith, to confront her with the cruel Cyrano-crime. The peasants and the lawyers bodyframe of natures sexual pleasure has as contents Charles and Ediths love, in need of mind only. Visible, natural lovepleasure of the body and unvisible, eternal desire of love, bodily room for the souls mind. To understand the lacanian boromeic knots are needed, Lacans visual thought of Le Désir, Séminaire XIX, XX, XXII. The ‘speaking writing’, to be discovered on several levels, is also God, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Not knowing exactly, we trust that God exists; this as the lacanian God. Anna, Charles and Edith as the Imaginary, Symbolic and Real or The Trinity. To love is to give, what you do not have. Suffering castration without forcing it on the other… here Edith as example, together with Anna, bearing Charles child and Charles, representing the Symbolic Law. “Vertigo” and ‘Day after the Fair’ . To own the others love and money, Edith Harnham and Gavin Elster use instrumentally the workingclass girls Anna and Judy and Charles/Scottie. That truth is revealed, Carlottas necklace and the comment of Annas disability has to be used. While ‘Vertigo’ deals with bits and pieces of the truth outside the context, with betrayal, accusation and crime, unable to accept reality, ‘The Day after the Fair’ deals with bits and pieces of the truth inside the context, with betrayal, accusation and truth, able to accept reality. While the deceived Scottie, unable to accept reality, he looses 'Madeleine’ as he is not able to accept Judy – the deceived Charles accepts the body Anna, telling Edith: : “Legally I married Anna, in my heart I married you.” stephanSE 1997-06-16,1997-12-24; 2001-12-21 2002-05-18
5/2002 La Double vie de Véronique/Vertigo: first and second chance.
Iréne Jacob (Weronika/Véronique) and Kim Novak (Judy/Madeleine), two different persons, destiny-string pulled by their pupeteer. Kim Novak as Judy and Madeleine is doubtless one and the same person in Vertigo. But is Iréne Jacobs Weronika and Véronique the same person as S Zizek wants to see it in The Fright of Real Tears (2002:83)? Both have a lifethreatening heart condition, connected to the gift for music and singing; both use playfull a ball and a string, both use for the inflamed eye a ring. Véroniques ’prooves’ with her Prague-photo Weronikas, the others existence, sending unconscious a signal to change the course of life-destiny. Which she does. Sliding Doors though tries to say that nobody is able to avoid destiny. To Véroniques school comes the pupeteer Alexandre. During his performance she acts as Peeping-Tom: looking at his reflection in a mirror while he works behind the scene, unaware that he is looked at and seen; Véronique trespassing ethics. J Bergers (Ways of Seeing) “man is a seer, woman is a sight” is her reversed; she as the seer and he as the sight. Her seeing is a ’seeing-through’, offering the first chance which Scottie in Vertigo never had the permission to have. Véronique ‘knows’ who the silent phonecaller is and who sends the letters, having the possibility to cope with Alexandres unethical tresspassing of her border. She has done it before him. As she was first, she has the free choice and not as Zizek means: ”the staging of her ultimate unbearable freedom” (2002:151). But why does she seek her father, the ’megapupeteer’?, passing on her way to him the graveyard where her mothers grave is! Distance is needed to look at something, recognising and seeing it. Véronique has this distance as she watches peacefull while the pupeteerr performs his work, her lover-to-be. In fact is she the pupeteer and not the pupeteer Alexandre during the shortness of their relationship, even as it seems that she is the puppet in the pupeteers hands, wanting as the dominant male, take charge of her destiny. Her watching him in the mirror is answered by Alexandre, sensing her looking gaze and looking back, he locks his gaze with hers. But it was she who looked first, Alexandre unconscious of it – as Scottie in Vertigo is unaware that he is looked at and used by his enemylike friend Elster. Véronique has her first chance and uses it. Scottie sensed his first chance when he and Elsters instrument Madeleines Judy fall simultaniously in love with each other: see each other and opening each others door. Scottie never used the sensed first chance when he was offered his second chance. stephanSE 2002-04-05
4/1998 Love Field Paul Cater: ”We are not the same”, Paul Cater in The roadmovie Love Field lectures on open public violence in society and hidden private violence in the family. The MacGuffin-motor is the assassination of John F Kennedy and Dallas housewife Lurenes interest for the First Ladys doing. Though forbidden by her (violent) husband Ray, Lurene takes the nightbuss to attend the funeral in Washington. She befriends with Jonell, the young black daughter of Paul Cater and, sensing that something is ’wrong’, her good intentioned interference leads the three on an increasingly difficult journey with both the police and Ray chasing them. Love Field demonstrates how the recognising Lurene sees violence. Jonell is sentenced to dumbness by experienced violence while her father is racial each second abused, recognised by Lurene in the mirror of her husbands violence and shown clearly during their stay with the Enrights. The (by violence) paralyzed Mr Enright, applauds violence by TV-wittnessing the shooting of Harvey Lee Oswalds by Jack Ruby. At his side his wife and victim Mrs Enright (Louise Latham, the mother in A Hitchcocks Marnie), a paralyzed statue of cold misstrust. We are reminded of Lacans visual thought “R” and “forclusion”, taken from Freuds “Wolfsmann” (1918/12) and Freuds idea in ‘Schreber’ (Freud 1911/12:117); oidipal origin is an unfinnished conflict with the father, returning as ‘Wahnvorstellungen’. Love Field highlights unsettled conflicts of the public and the private father as ‘Wahnvorstellungen’.Like this is the Lurenes environment during her awakening process, initiatet by Paul Caters three-step-truthconfrontation at the buss-, the gasstation and in the Enrights barn, telling her ”We are not the same”. That Lurenes passive recognition can in this ‘forclosed’ situation change into active seeing, she has to develop interest for the man Paul and the child Jonell. Paul Cater, conscious that society has forbidden the phallic place “Nom du Père” for his kind, crosses with courage this same border, beeing thus the good-as-it-should-be-(behind)mirror for the woman Lurene and the child Jonell. He reflects Lurene her hidden faults in her own (front)mirror, able to see without denial the otherwise ‘invisible’ faults, the guilt of being different (V Sinason 1992:74). Paul Cater, the lacanian, disturbing Third, offers Lurenes visible imaginary picture-reality the seeing unvisible symbolic word-truth. Using Lacans visual thought “L”, shows Paul Cater, the the “phallic father” together with Lurene as ‘Mother’ (he doesn’t compete, her place is safe) Jonell the good-enough example: Jonell doesn’t need to fall into the incestious tempting trapp. Love Fields centerpiece is the moment in the car; the three eat, sing and talk ( A Maslows motivations are the basic, relational and own needs), conscious of past violence and sensing coming violence. Hollywood gives with Love Field a “L”-ight in the otherwise forclosed dark “R”-society. Violence in Love Field has as its partner Love as the title says. stephanSE 1998-12-053/2002
3/2???"He may be a virgin, but he is a man – are you a man?", Ellen in Under Solen 1998 Herbert Ernest Bates short story The Little Farm (in ’Colonel Julian and other Stories’, London 1951) appeared 1973 in Granada Televisions serie Country Matters. Colin Nutley transplanted the novel as Under Solen to the region of the Swedish Vännersborg of the 50ths. While churchbells ring and a jetplane is seen, a voice reads lines from the Preachers chapter 1 and 3: "What has been will happen..." In focus is Olofs incestious friendship with his friend Erik, disturbed by Ellen Lind as the Third. The blond, red lipped and high heeled ’housekeeper’ Ellen is, as the farmer Olofs polarity, cause and reason for the mirrordiads 'going-to-pieces-process'. "Teach me" is Olofs violent plea after their first sexual encounter. And she does! He learns what ’jouissance’, pleasure is. But Olof hides the fact that he cannot read ’soap’ on the shoppinglist, disabled to spell the ’Lettre’. For Erik, loving horseracing and his Ford Forlaine, modell 56, is this a possibility to rescue the friendships imaginary mirror, described by Lacan as ’stade du mirroir’, fighting the intruding Third. The first evenings Mirrorscene shows a Blonde behind Olof as a picture in its frame and in front of him the blonde Ellen in the mirrorframe of the door, speaking to Olof, with mothers clock beside him in his doors mirrorframe. The Blonde as recognised ideal and seeing himself in the Ellenmirror. And time: the clock, belonging to mother who died nine years ago, which has to be cared for daily at nine. The mirrorscene is followed by Ellen in the mirror with Olofs first signal of what he really wants. When the strawberrys have the colour of Ellens well manicured nails and the dress is bought, time is ripe for the first kiss. Conscious of his shyness, Ellen takes the lead, a welcoming offer for many, but not for Olof. After a sleepless night the second try. This scene of its best kind, seldom seen and estranged by the polarity of how Erik treats his girlfriend Lena: as it shouldn’t be but often is. Eriks och Ellens walls brake down when she tells him that she knows that he sheats Olof, furiously beaten by her, he screams "Here is nothing for you to take with you". And when he at the dancinghall sees the ring, Olof gave her, his mocking question is "Where is the other?", meaning her husbands ring. When Ellen has left, the scarf is left: as signal for Erik that change has taken place and for Olof as promising transitional object for her coming back when everything at home is settled. But the illiterate Olof knows nothing of this. In turns Erik and Ellens voice read the letter, seeing her go to the buss, waiting there and leaving. Ellen: "Dear Olof. I have left the farm." Erik: "and I will not return." Ellen: "From the beginning I wanted to tell you something." Erik: "From the beginning I took the money Erik payed back and kept it." Ellen: "I know that you trust me and I know that I have betrayed you. I am married to another man. I go home to settle things. Untill then nothing else is possible. I am sorry that you have to read this, but I couldn’t tell you. I will always love you." Erik: "Ellen." Ellen comes to the farm and leaves in the same kind of grey suit Kim Novaks Judy was forced by A Hitchcock to wear as Madeleine Elster in Vertigo, even she a beautiful mystery: a conscious setup by Elster for Scottie, who had to fall in love with Madeleine and wittness her ’suicide’. Something is known of Judy but nothing of Ellen. Judys love for Scottie was not Elsters design, but was it Ellens? With the fall she returns, in bleak makeup and like Judys Madeleine in the last scene, in black. Judys never sent letter, read for Olof by Erik, has Ellen to read, now hearing why. Though a virgin, Olof is for Ellen a man. "He may be a virgin, but he is a man – are you a man?" gets Erik as an answer. A virgin with 40 (39 sounds better) is indeed charming. But hiding a disability (what did he do to get the driving license as he drives the Buic, modell 49) is far off manhood. Had Ellen known, she should have done as Judy, written her letter for the audience. As Erik "didn’t manage housekeeping", Olof advertised for a housekeeper, choosing the most able Ellen, but blinded by her own questions. Had Olof told Ellen that ’housekeeping’ included even other things, Olof had really been a man, worth learning about ’jouissance’. Vertigos Scottie never should come near ’joussance’, suffering vertigious dizziness when thinking of it. Scottie had to meet Judy and not Ellen. Under Solens introducing voice ends: " and what has happened will happen; nothing is new under the sun." That is the french future perfect. To describe an action that has started in the past but will be completed in the future. As Lacan means med "gewesen sein werden" it has happened imagerinary and has to be completed in the symbolic sphere… (factinfo by Sweetwater AB, Aberdeen/Central Library, Granada Television)stephanSE 2002-01-19
2/2002 "And then all this happened", Evelyne in Pearl Harbor, 2001
I recognise and see (Sklovskij 1925) Pearl Harbor as a docu-soap, translating truth to fictious reality which has lost its true connection with - truth. Written by Randell Wallace (Braveheart) and directed by Michael Bay (Armageddon, The Rock) the 40 minutes centerpiece is encircled by the man Rafe, the girlish woman Evelyne and Danny-boy. Evelyne falls into love with Rafe and his friend Danny-boy who fathers her, but must die as Hollywood needs a martyr, calling Rafe to be the standbyfather. Pearl Harbors centerpiece reminds of Camerons Titanic-scenes of which the silent waterscene leads the thought to Ingmar Bergmans waterscene in 'Skammen'. Pearl Harbor was designed by Japan as a chock, repeated 60 years later by global terrorism, referred for all futuretimes as the "11th", unable believing what the wittnessing eye saw, commenting, "it doesn't seem real", mindthinking of Towering Inferno, King Kong (the 1976 remake, which featured heavy artillery attacks on the World Trade Center) and Independence Day (the Finnish Television Broadcasting Company showed a clip from Independence Day and the collapsing of one of the WTC tower), catapulting planet Earth into a trauma, forgetting every other trauma in other parts of Earth. Japans ancient culture proclaimed 1941 war against the oilwells in Texas (Dagens Nyheter 15 july 2001) and Admiral Yamamoto pondering: "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant.". The same day, Adolf Hitler eventcommenting, "Now we can not loose this war", had to withdrew his troops from Moscow and in Chelmo were the first 700 jews gased to death. Nurse Evelynes false lovefall helps the dyslectic Rafe to pass; a clear cheat as he can’t read the words on the chart. Is this a metaphore for that we aren’t anymore in need of what Lacan means the ’Lettre’? More than ever accepts society visuality, the picture, the icon. Will in future only a few be able using Danny-boys ability to read (his death a metaphore for it)? In focus is Rafes (mindblind) dyslectic task, educating Danny-boys and Evelynes child, the future.Todays visual society, believing that fiction is more real than reality, has an unsatisfied visual hunger for all kind of perceptions, spiced with medias brainwashing mixture of infotainment and docudramas, docu-soapcommunicating with the ’lacanian’ o(O)ther. To recognise correctly, seeing excluding, is of importance the docu-soapslevel. As a kind of proof it is noted that Les Cahiers du Cinéma 2002/1 has the docu-soap Loft Story on their special topplist. But we do not forgett: the http://www.imdb.com counts only 131 Pearl Harbor-critics (Camerons Titanic has 190) of which not many are nice to the film. Recognise Pearl Harbor – and see it in From Here to Eternity!stephanSE 2002-01-12
1/1998 TitanicRose:"I don’t even have a picture of him. He exist’s … only in my memory." 1997 James Camerons ’doomed enterprise’ Titanic was for many a surprise. Without being a copy of other Titanicfilms belongs it to our times beloved catastrophefilms. Cameron tells Roses own story and the known Titanic story, mirroring the parallleles. As it is the former actor Rose Dawson-Calverts story, Cal Hockleys power on her is more in the limelight as Ismays devastating power over Titanics captain Smith. Knowing of DeWitt Bukaters debts, ’hidden by a good name’, uses Cal against his fiancé the well known brutality, experienced in a marriage. Was for Rose Titanic ’a slaveship, taking me back to America in chains’ was the last minute ticket, won in a pokergame for Jack the promise to freedom and wealth. When a few days later the romance was a fact, answers Rose Cal: ’I'd rather be his whore than your wife.’ Rose and Jack smash societys jail: the first time it is Jack, helped by many – the second time helped by Rose and the stewards key. Before these events the princess, not the prince (as in Pretty Woman) has to rescue the prince, chained by Cal (’I always win, Jack, one way or another’). Roses promise is to follow Jack, in his eyes a stupidity, answered by Rose: ’That’s why I trust it.’ The answer of their sexual act is Titanics collision. Zizek believes that the collision had to take place to safe them from the even more painfull collision, caused by society. Jacks death gives meaning to the spoiled upperclass girl Rose DeWitt Bukaters. She is amiong the thirdclass survivors, giving the officer her name, Rose Dawson, Jacks name. As Rose Dawson she takes care of Jacks promise: ”I don't know about you, but I intend on writing a strongly worded letter to the White Star Line about all of this. You're gonna go on, and make lots of babies, and watch them grow. You're gonna die an old lady, warm in her bed. Not here, not this night.’ Winning that ticket, Rose, was the best thing that ever happened to me. And I'm thankful for that, Rose. I'm thankful. You must do me this honor, Rose. Promise me you'll survive. Promise me now Rose, no matter what happens, or how hopeless.” Rose: ”I promise.” Jack: ”Never let go.” Rose: ”I'll never let go. I'll never let go, Jack.” Zizek believes that she in fact let go, breaking her promise in the final second (LETTRE INTERNATIONAL 1998/43:84). What Rose does: she took his name, accepting the symbolic ’Nom du Père’, the Fathers Name. Cal gives her Le Coeur de la Mer, saying: ’There’s nothing I couldn’t give you. There is nothing I deny you if you not deny me. Open your heart to me, Rose.’ He says it while she sees him in the frontmirror. But Ludwig XVI:s Heart of the Ocean is offered to Jack, ’the king of the [symbolic] world’ It is for him Rose has opened her heart: ’A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets. But now you all know there was a man named Jack Dawson, and that he saved me, in every way that a person can be saved. I don’t even have a picture of him. He exist’s now only in my memory.’ The Swedish expression for memory is ’minne’, the same expresion for the old medieval German ’Minnessänger’. Jacks and Roses encounter is for Rose not to be a Titanic-survivor but offers as R Dawson a Titanic-life, with only the memory. ‘I don’t even have a picture of him. He exist’s now only in my memory.’ stephanSE, 1998-12-23