Les Diaboliques

"Les Diaboliques" is the title of the film adaptation of the Boileau-Narcejac novel "Celle qui n'était plus" (She, who was no more). Written in 1952, the novel appeared in English in 1954, and in 1955 it was made into a film by H. G. Clouzot, who obtained film rights to the novel a little before Hitchcock could have. All the more interesting, that today the name Boileau-Narcejac seems to have lost its familiar ring to the fans of the thriller genre, unlike their American counterparts (e.g. Chandler). English translations of the novel are hard to come by and some sellers ask astronomical prices for them. The pseudonym refers to two authors, Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, who much in the style of Ellery Queen, divided the task of plotting and writing among themselves. The aforementioned novel is their first success to be followed by many other.

The first thing that comes to mind about the rather short novel is the strong atmosphere. The reader follows a murder plot, and as the characters move along in the dark and misty world surrounding them, one has the feeling that we are turning away from reality into a world of inner fears to complete a psychological journey with a dramatic conclusion at the end. It is like a landscape at night, with an interplay of dark shades that has some unearthly beauty for the outside observer, but crushes the main character with its deadly magnetism. The novel consists of such scenes, for instance a nocturnal journey with a dead body in the back of the car, where every little obstacle tries the mental stability of the plotters. Much emphasis was laid on the ending in the trailer for the movie. It should be mentioned that whereas the background had been changed for the movie, the structure of the plot, and the main twist survived. However, the film is much less pessimistic, the atmosphere is somewhat lighter. Nevertheless, it was made in the spirit of the novel, about the same aspects of human nature. Interestingly, there is an exchange of roles as the main character in the novel corresponds more to his wife in the movie, and vice versa. It seems the makers of the film did not envision a psychologically tormented, weaker male character, but a rather menacing and tyrannical one. Thus, in a way, film and novel are complementary, both recommended heartily.

Judge Dee

At one point, while writing parts of a history of detective stories, looking for possible oriental relatives, I stumbled upon the name of Judge Di (Dee). Di Renjie (630-700) is a historical figure, a capable minister of the Tang dynasty. Loosely based on Di and his reputation, an unknown 18th century author wrote "Di Gong An", a detective novel in which Di as a magistrate investigates a number of crimes. A copy of this was obtained by the dutch sinologist Robert Van Gulik in a Tokyo second-hand bookstore, and was later translated by him into English as "Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee". More precisely, he translated the first part of the novel, and argued that the second part is a later addition much inferior in style and plot. Van Gulik wrote a detailed introduction to his translation, in which he observed some differences between the oriental and western styles of detective stories. He intended to introduce to the Western audience an authentically Chinese detective, unlike the stereotypical Western inventions popular at his time. Then, he went on encouraging authors to write similar stories based on these rules. Eventually, he did so himself, and invented a completely imaginary career for Judge Di spanning over several locations and levels of Chinese jurisdiction. One of the most notable characteristics of the Judge Di novels is the parallel investigation of several cases in the same time, which are investigated by the magistrate with the help of his trusted lieutenants. Although the whodunit is not typical in Chinese crime fiction, Van Gulik often centered the mystery around the identity of the murderer in his novels, which he illustrated himself. After his death, many authors continued his work, most extensively F. Lenormand in French.

There have also been film adaptations of the character. A close adaptation of the Van Gulik novel "Judge Dee and the Haunted Monastery" was made in 1974. The Chinese television also started a series about the historical character, Di Renjie, and in 2010, Tsui Hark did "Judge Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame" featuring Andy Lau in the titular role. Both Chinese adaptations take place in the period of the reign of Wu Zetian. Wu is certainly one of the most intriguing figures of Chinese history, and the only woman to have obtained the title of huangdi as founder of the short lived Zhou dynasty (690-705). It is certainly an attractive proposition to bring together two such historical figures in one plot, though Di should have been around 60 when the events of the Phantom Flame were supposed to take place. Both Chinese film adaptations are wire fu, and there is a new Tsui Hark film coming out as a prequel. On the other hand, Haunted mystery is a sort of cheap but faithful adaptation. Faithful, I mean, to the book by Van Gulik. By the time he wrote Haunted Monastery, Van Gulik seems to put less emphasis on the court procedure and other details, e. g., the morbid details of execution in the end, and the setting of an old monastery with a spooky air where he takes shelter when his journey is interrupted by a storm gives just the right background to dispose of these formalities. Van Gulik still keeps that original feature of his novels to set his plot in the Tang dynasty but describe customs of the Ming, as did the anonymous writer of the original Di Gong An. However, the average viewer of the film version would notice few of this, and I don't think it makes a big difference given the rather improvised settings, nowhere near the sometimes purely imaginary magnificence of the past as in Phantom Flame. The environment also provides Van Gulik with the possibility to discuss the differences of thought advocated by Confucians and Taoists, but again, the film carries over little of this. However, the plot is almost unchanged, which is a huge advantage, as Van Gulik used elements of recorded case histories in his novels, and thereby one has the chance to get some insight into the Chinese way of thinking about, committing and investigating crime. While writing to a western audience, Van Gulik repressed the role of the supernatural, which occasionally occurs in Di Gong An. Phantom Flame restores this element to some extent, in the manner of a Chinese phantasy, though once one accepts these elements as belonging to a mythical past, the flow of events - even if somewhat on the fantastic side - can still be reconstructed by logical deduction, which is why this may be called a detective story after all. At this point, I would compare the Phantom Flame to the French movie 'Vidocq', which builds similarly on the myth (or reality) of alchemy.

Magic and Poetry. Miyazaki's Howl and Others

Reason is important and should play a large role in our lives. After all, we enjoy achievements of technical and other kinds that are largely thanks to reason. Many of the forms of magic is also reasonable, if not entirely scientific. However, the aspect of magic closest to me is its relation to the irrational and the imaginary. The latter two are important, even if we assume that everything can be explained on a purely rational basis. In fact, one of the major underlying theme of current social problems , I think, is the inability to deal with the irrational. On the one hand this means that there is an irrational aspect of the human existence (and again, it may as well be described by rational means), an important one, which does not want to follow rules and laws. Instincts, hidden desires and the sort, some of which are simply banned, ignored, maybe punished, until they possibly return in a monstrous form (to borrow an expression used to describe Gothic horror). On the other hand, there is a not entirely unrelated, but rather more purely aesthetic or atmospheric aspect, that I merely refer to as poetry. This latter aspect is the one that I wanted to deal with here, solely in the framework of fiction.

It is the appeal of magic, which is magical. Whether it is an an atmosphere of ancient wisdom and sorcery or enchantment by the beauty of something, it is the appeal that I like and not whether it works in the physical world or not. In this sense it can be a very useful, in a way surreal craft to approach real and unreal in fiction. There are plenty of examples. Lovecraft's myth and its deadly book the Necronomicon, that so effectively embodies the occult and fearful, since we never can read it but know that whoever did, went crazy or worse. There is Polanski's "Ninth Gate" which takes us to the realm of old books, very rare and containing hidden knowledge only to the initiated. There is Burton's "Sleepy Hallow", an adventure in the world of Gothic and magic.

However, I wanted to show a few clips from Miyazaki's "Howl's Moving Castle" as ones I especially like. It is the story of a magician, Howl, who gave his heart to a demon, and a young girl, Sophie, who is turned into an old woman by a witch. The country is in war, which Howl finds mad, and sometimes interferes with. He is also hiding from his teacher, the royal sorceress, Saliman, who wants to put a control on magical practices in the country. The first scene shows the discovery of a malicious magic spell. I merely post it because it has the appeal I was referring to. The second is the confrontation scene with Saliman, where Sophie, now as an old woman, poses as Howl's mother. I love the idea of danger hidden behind such innocent looking things as that chanting... Like in other works of Miyazaki, there are lots of surreal images, events and characters, which somehow look familiar but yet which would be hard to explain. In a way they are also about reality as experienced by the viewer, and yet things just "melt together" as if in a dream. Howl is especially a good example of this sort of magic...

Magic, Rituals, Demons. Ritualistic Magic

I remember a psychiatrist once telling me he didn't believe in god, but always he always prayed before driving. His explanation was that it helps him relax, remove anxieties of what might happen and so on. Indeed, much of the history of "common magic" is about attempting to remove such real or imaginary threats from one's life. Rituals, ceremonies, prayers could be a useful tool to achieve this end. Indeed, often the ritual is more important that the actual credence in the reality of the thus addressed deity. Still with any tool, I guess the secret is how to use it, and what it should not become is an automatic procedure of habit or tradition.

Magic always had a ritual aspect. Contemporary magical trends owe a lot to the work of Eliphas Levi, who developed a system of rituals and their theory, based in a large part on Renaissance traditions. The person who pushed ritualistic magic to its limits in the early 20th century was Aleister Crowley (see above). Being "the most evil man in the world", his hedonistic rituals including sexual practices and the use of drugs made him a scandalous figure of his time. He placed the notion of thelema, or true will (true in the sense that it also incorporates one's higher destiny) in the center of his practices, and experimented with I would say whatever the human body and mind could take, eventually ruining his health. As some of his practices would lead to less attention nowadays, I would also venture saying that some of the sort of hedonistic experiments he pursued are now incorporated into what is regarded as normal or acceptable, and such experiments may have played a crucial role in this change. Another development in this regard was the Satanistic movement of Anton LaVey (see below). LaVeyan Satanism is symbolic, i.e., it does not include worship of a Satanic deity, but rather uses Satan as a symbol of man's true nature. For example, the Satanistic parallel to the Christian Golden Rule would be "Do unto others as they do unto you", simply because it is considered false to expect the same consideration from others as one pays to them, since it is not in human nature. Here I would halt for a moment. While I sympathize with this dictum since it very often proves true in my personal experience, I think the same potential source of mistake is there as with the Christian parallel, namely mindless application justified by a doctrine. In other words, I think it is really the individuum that matters, and could make an intelligent decision whether in a given situation one or the other action would be appropriate. It involves risk as any action of free will. In any case, the modern satanist seems to pay much attention to individualism and materialism. Magic is now a psychological means to govern situations or focus one's emotions to a given purpose via rituals. On a final note regarding rituals of any kind, I think their danger lies in biasing ones own view on the world one way or the other, and so they may become the master rather than the servant.

While I do not fancy any form of religion or thought connected to churches or other organizations, since after all this is a private matter, one has to appreciate the role these organizations play in the course of history, and evaluate the appearance of newer ones as indicators of important questions of the time. Neopagan movements including modern Witchcraft, or Wicca, should also be mentioned among the practitioners of modern ritual magic. Their ritual practices appear much more light-hearted and playful than those mentioned above, they are perhaps advocates of an imagination less bound by reason.

Magic In The Renaissance. Natural and Spiritual Magic

In the history of magic, the Renaissance age plays an especially important role. While learned forms of magic were also to be found in the Middle Ages, it was because of the Renessaince rediscovery of ancient texts and cultural heritage that magicians felt they possessed a much fuller understanding of ancient traditions than their medieval predecessors. Magic became one aspect of a philosophical rediscovery of Platonic ideas as opposed to the Aristotelian scholasticism of the Middle Ages. Greek texts from the Byzantine empire, and arabic magical texts written under hellenistic influence became the primary sources for the Renaissance Mage.

Above all, the main influence was Marsilio Ficino's translation of the Corpus Hermeticum, writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistos, the supposed Egyptian equivalent of Moses. Although later scholarship discovered that this and other writings attributed to Hermes can be dated to the second or third centuries only, indicating a strong Neoplatonist influence, Renessaince scholars believed these texts to be much more ancient, and in fact to be the original influence on Platon. The authority thus attributed to them made Hermeticism and attached magical practices appear in a much more favourable light than did Medieval necromancers, and other learned practitioners of magic. Ficino then developed a sort of "natural magic", which aimed at exploiting the physically available forces in the Neoplatonist universe, namely those from planetary influences, which could be used to one's benefit through the arrangement of one's environment in a way sympathetic to a planetary force and the corresponding mental and other advantages. Furthermore, talismans could be prepared which would enhance the accumulation of such influences. Although the latter aspect was much frowned upon, Ficino avoided any attempts to manipulate spheres above the planetary one, inhabited by angels and other spirits, and he thus managed to avoid most accusations of heresy and the like. Later, this was to change when Pico della Mirandola introduced the Jewish Cabalistic tradition into Renessaince magic to attract angelic influences, and by the influential work of Cornelius Agrippa, who did not even exclude demonistic influence (see planetry symbols from his work below). The most notorious case was that of Giordano Bruno burned at the stake for his Hermetic beliefs now without Christian disguise. It was also on account of the importance Hermeticism placed on the sun that Bruno incorporated the Heliocentric view of Copernicus into his system.

At this point, magic and science are pretty close to each other, especially in the sense that both aimed at operations, producing effects in the world based on an application of knowledge, which was foreign from the contemporary scholastic thought. Hermetic influence decreased in the following centuries, especially since its sources were dated in the mean time, and as an operative explanation of the universe, the mechanistic universe was brought forward. Still, even Newton's mechanistic universe with gravity as an operational force reminded many of the invisible forces of the occult. Indeed, the better understanding of the nature of gravity came only through the work of Einstein, and continues arising questions until the present day.

Walking My Baby Back Home

"Walking My Baby Back Home" is the title of a popular song that gave its name to a musical made in 1953. Above is the title sequence of the movie, and the first musical piece, the equally popular "Glow Little Glow Worm". The story is about a musical band looking for an identity, and finally finding it by rediscovering to Dixieland Jazz. Probably not the most famous one of musicals, and not with an overly complicated plot, but what is important, with a number of good musical tracks. In the main roles are Donald O'Connor, probably most well known for his role in "Singin' in the Rain", and Janet Leigh, most remembered after her meeting a terrible end under the shower in Hitchcock's "Psycho". On a personal note, I think O'Connor should have been given more opportunity to show his talent... and it is on this note that I have mainly selected scenes in which he performs, although Janet Leigh is also charming at places, and it was through her that I learned about this musical in the first place. I guess I am not the only one, who after seeing her in the Columbo episode "Forgotten Lady", wanted to learn more about the musical so emblematic for her character, who kills her husband to revive her career.

If some of the choreography in the first video reminds me a bit of Michael Jackson, than the second video of Donald O'Connor's step performance somehow suggests Michale Flatley, not as if there was any more direct link between these performers that I know of. In any case, this step sequence should join some scenes from "Singin' in the Rain", in my personal list of favorite moments with him. Last but not least, a comical scene, where O'Connor's character has to suffer an opera lesson given by a "more" than enthusiastic matron of the genre... For those who want more, the whole musical can be found here.

A Note on Dramatic Experience

In 2008, I wrote a short note with the following title, which I rediscovered recently. I have read it through, and changed a few smaller things in it, and so I thought, it could be published here, as a relic from a part of my personal intellectual history. What I wrote was not meant to be a strict categorization, rather an attempt to identify certain poles in dramatic experience, between which many continuous stages are possible. Well, here it goes:

In the arts and literature, drama is the genre that is basically meant for performance. The word itself comes from the ancient greek for ”to do”, meaning ”action”. During history, in different times and places, many varieties have evolved, from classic Greek dramas to the absurd theatre of the 20th century. This variety is described in many ways by many scholars. In the followings, only briefly some notes will be made based on the effect drama has on its audience. The focus is on how the dramatic act moves the viewer, which will draw a fuzzy border across the field, splitting it up to two regions.

One may talk about monumental dramas, like Hamlet, or other Shakespearean dramas, or dramas of the ancient classics. They are usually built around grand scale emotions, that the dramatic situation creates in characters, and by viewing, in the audience. This will lead to catharsis, ”purification”, in the sense that the viewers’ emotions are moved by the drama, and thus become expressed, and the viewer therefore purified. Therefore, catharsis here comes from identification. Identification of oneself with one of the characters, or rather, with his feelings which are given a monumental setting. It follows that for this to be effective, there should be only one dominant point of view. Like although we know a lot about Claudius, we see the events through Hamlet’s point of view. Monumentality requires that only the part of reality should be considered, or rather be justified, which promote the break-through of the emotion the act is built upon, simply because that is the nature of emotions, they don’t respond logically, they don’t consider. Therefore the heroes and villains are typically personalities of a certain emotion, or other dominant characteristic.

The other branch would be observational dramas, like Brecht’s work. In Brecht’s work, the identification was deliberately disturbed by various alienating effects. This means that there is no catharsis here in the above sense, and the audience is invited to observe, rather than to identify with the characters. Monumentality is put into a kind of vacuum. However, one may experience a different kind of catharsis here, one which is based on recognition. Instead of becoming monumental, this approach moves to the other direction of emotional ”sizes”. In the absurd, it is frequent that the same emotional psychology operates as in monumental dramas, but with minute events - instead of the death of one’s father, the unability to tie a shoelace may become the centre of emotions. We learn something different of our emotions here compared to the monumental where they are maximized and cast out; through a different emphasis, we see where they originate from, and often how they are expressed in our lives. This expression is rarely of grand scale (hence harder to identify with), rather, it is in everyday terms and events, and putting all intensity of accumulated emotions into such means is where the absurd is rooted. Absurd is one way to shift to observation, and the recognition of the emotional process is what brings catharsis, as if for a moment one would see himself from outside. More views can be present here equally dominantly, which often makes the contradiction less sharp, and the consequences suddenly serious.

Mishima

Mishima Yukio is the pen name of one of the most significant figures in the postwar 20th century Japanese literature. His aesthetic combination of traditional and modern has a long lasting influence, and this as well as other aspects of his life has been greatly publicized through various means of scholarly effort and public media. I merely would like to view him through the looking glass provided by two of his works, and fill in some necessary details to make a more or less complete story out of it.

 
The book I read from him some time ago was his "Confessions of a Mask" (1949), one of his early works, and the one that actually made him famous. In short, this is a semi-autobiographic novel, and tells the life experiences of a young man called Kochan raised in the militaristic contemporary Japanese society. Kochan is a physically weak, sensitive child, who is raised largely in isolation, and becomes involved in a fantasy world. A central element of his fantasies is his fascination with death. On the one hand, he finds romance in the idea of death as an escape into heroism from the realities of life. On the other hand, he increasingly fancies idealized male figures, whose full attraction is apparent to him only in the moment of their heroic and often grotesque death. The latter fantasies become the basis for his latent homosexuality. Later he admires a classmate for his masculine strength and body, something that he did not have but had always felt attracted to. At the same time, he develops a personality, the titular mask, behind which he hides these desires. Eventually, he even gets involved with a girl, going as far as kissing her, but while speaking about a sort of sympathy to her, he still remains amidst his fantasies. The most telling is perhaps the last meeting of the two near the end of the novel, interrupted by a description of a bloody fantasy involving a young man whom Kochan spotted. The fact that this novel made Mishima well-known is also worth pondering. I guess the degree of reality with which he wrote it, lends in itself artistic value to the novel, even though the topic it deals with is far from pleasant. Bloody fantasies at a very young age, and latent homosexuality, these are topics most readers of the book would perhaps not admit to have experienced, but which may have nevertheless formed part of the formative period of one's life, a part which he may later choose to forget. Mishima's realism is sensitive, not merely the automatic, unveiled and all revealing naturalism of a misguided surgeon cutting out a tumor only to kill the patient with it. That he was able to write a confession that was still interesting to wider audiences is alone a testimony for his talent.

The other work of Mishima that I intend to write about takes us near the end of his career. "Patriotism" of "The Rite of Love and Death" (1966), is a short film directed by Mishima, in which he also plays the main role of a Lieutenant of the royal guard and member of a group planning to overthrow the government they see unworthy for the service of the emperor. He is not participating in the actual coup d'état, mainly on account of his friends' appreciation of the devotion between him and his young wife. However, when the attempt fails, he is ordered to execute his friends. To deny this possibility, and at the same time remain loyal to the emperor, he decides to commit ritual suicide as the only honorable solution. He is rejoiced by the devoted decision of his wife to follow him in this act of honor, preceded by an intensified sexual experience brought about by the closeness of death. One might wonder, knowing what similar events took place later in Mishima's life, what happened to the character of Kochan, who falsely admitted having tuberculosis to avoid military service in the war, leading to almost certain death. In the mean time, Mishima has gone through a number of changes. He took up weight lifting, and overcame his initial weakness, becoming a male model. He also adopted a sort of nationalism, which clashed in a number of points with the mainstream patriotism (e.g. on the bushido). He also got married in 1958. Seeing from the point of view of only these two of his works, it appears that his fascination with death (and perhaps also that with the ideal male) was satisfied in the romance of nationalism, a historically supported possibility for heroic and honorable death. This possibility was perhaps more important that any other aspect of his nationalism, a way of expression for "tendencies" Kochan had to deal with. Mishima's real life attempt for a coup d'état, seems also to have been authored within the same spirit, as if anticipating failure, and leading to a romantic end. He did indeed commit seppuku in 1970, though the romance could have been somewhat spoiled by the several failed attempts by his aid to behead him. In my opinion, Mishima was an immensely sensitive and talented artists, whose romantic urges were impossible to satisfy in his contemporary social environment, which lead to his fantasies turning into a tragic reality. This leaves me thinking whether we have nowadays reached a level of awareness in dealing with sensitivity and "tendencies", which would make such an outcome less likely...

Pagliacci

Pagliacci (Clowns) is an opera composed by Leoncavallo. The basic storyline concerns a group of traveling actors (clowns), whose repertoire includes a comic scene between a cheated husband and his wife. This scene is played by the actor Canio, and his real life wife. However, by the end of the opera, Canio realizes that his wife indeed cheats on him. The final scene includes the performance of the supposedly comic scene turning into tragedy. Canio tries initially to play his role, but the lines are now filled with real emotions, which first their audience applauds. Confusion arises when gradually all pretenses of a play are dropped, and finally a real crime of passion is committed. It is under these circumstances that Canio sings the arietta of his role No! Pagliaccio non son! full with real emotions. Many a famous performance of this peace is known, it was for example considered a signature role of Caruso. The version I am now posting here is with Pavarotti. I have found this on youtube, and I was happy when I did, for I think I found treasure. Please, enjoy!

My Favourite Villain From 'The Tick'

The Tick was the title of a comic and TV series. The parts I am now posting are from the 1994 animated series episode 'The Tick vs. The Uncommon Cold'. As viewers of the show may well know, this was a comic turn on the superhero concept, practically by inventing a big-muscle-small-brain superhero who has to face all enemies that the creators of the likes of Superman or Spider Man never dared to imagine. In this particular episode, Thrakkorzog, evil ruler of dimension 14B, who rents an apartment in the neighbourhood of the Tick, plans on world domination by creating an army of Tick clones. However, he only manages to obtain a tissue sample in the form of a used tissue...

Thrakkorzog is an especially crazy villain... He and his speaking tongue plan on a brain eating mayhem with the manners and language of a fine gentleman. Table manners also seem to belong to his strong points, which is normally unusual from a slime based organism. But the thing I like best is the brutal reality that even an interdimensional space crawler and would be conqueror of Earth will have to submit to an even more universal and ruthless force: the written and unwritten laws of apartment renting...

Ligeia

I have just found a short video I pasted together years ago. It is worth posting since it is made up of many things I liked that time, and even today. It is from "The Tomb of Ligeia", part of the Roger Corman series of low budget Gothic horrors featuring Vincent Price. I have already posted earlier a stage like Poe adaptation featuring Price, one of the iconic actors of the genre. He would probably have preferred that over the Corman series, but nevertheless, there aren't that many Poe adaptations, and the latter series definitely has that particular "Price appeal" that made him such a popular performer. Then, of course there is Poe himself. His short stories are rarely more than a few narrated scenes, but it is the dense atmosphere he is able to create in them that makes him enchanting, and at the same time his stories so hard to adapt to the medium of film. I mean it is not impossible (e.g. the aforementioned stage film), but in terms of the plot requirements of a more "standard" movie, they needed expansion, even risking the integrity of the original atmosphere of a Poe story. From this respect, the Corman series performs better than most other popular Poe adaptations I can now think of. Finally, the music... Divano from Era. Perhaps the overall atmosphere of the song is not that of a story as Ligeia, but I also remember that when the idea occurred to me to make this clip, I had in mind only the first part of the song, which is somehow slower and darker. I still like the whole song tho, and many others from Era. After all, the idea behind editing is to get parts of different things we like for one reason or the other, and paste them together into a new whole to reflect something of our own inner view on the world...

Haunted By The Past...

This is a patched up version of a chat conversation I had recently with a friend that I made into a standalone text. I like allegoric things, but I have not yet done too much which would put this tendency into some purely fictional context. So my best chance to show something of this is to take one such episode, improve it a bit, so that it would be more independent of the specific situation, and post it here as a sort of self expression... Well, here it goes:

"Midway upon the journey of our life…

Haunted by spirits of the past I find myself facing a house without a door, whose grandeur promises safe haven, and yet its strong walls forbid entry. There are other houses around, but still I want to find a way to get into this one. Yet this does not stop me form sneaking in whenever a neighbor forgets to close the window. By the fire it's easier to forget that yet another spirit from the past has tracked me down… I spend a little time there until someone notices that there is a draft and decides to close his window. Then I have to leave too… mostly back to the house with no doors… because for some reason I cannot get it through my head that I cannot get in, and expect that maybe out of a thousand I will be the one who will manage to dig a hole into a stone wall with my bare hands.

The past haunts me… call it dramatic, if you wish. It is as dramatic as waiting for Godot. A kind of human-paced drama, without gigantic heroes and the cathartic experience that goes along with it. That is unless you create yourself a world in which you can be the dramatic hero… but this world will be the one in which we are really left alone, because here "everybody" is just a marionette figure who does nothing but our will…

Yet I don't want you to give the feeling that there is no happiness in life. It would have been long over if not so. But the stone wall of that certain house still attracts me, maybe for the very reason that it is nearly impossible to get through, or at least not the way I have tried so far. Yet it calls me still, as at the bottom of my soul I think, I know, I feel that there still is a way… it even teases me by saying it's not that it's impossible to get in, it's just that I am unable to learn how... and it annoys me that in reality this translates to the fact that this is almost the third decade of my life when this stone wall still throws me back whenever I try pushing it… Don't laugh! I'd rather not push… I'll just stay there and watch hoping that I discover a crack on it, because there has to be one! But at the same time I am afraid, because after three decades, I feel I am somehow late. My joy comes from sneaking in to neighboring houses or strangely from the fact that while I am sitting by this wall I do sometimes think that for a moment I did see something shining through the wall from that light that I hope to find inside. These moments, the little things are those that still matter, and these are the things that keep me trust in being as much as making me want to continue…"

A Funeral And A Poet

Films are often thought of as belonging to the dramatic genre, like theatre, with an emphasis on dialogue and the resulting confrontation of characters leading to a final catharsis. However, the medium of film is quite capable of expressing more poetic or narrative features as well. In this scene from Doctor Zhivago, the young poet attends his mother's funeral. What may take a few pages to describe in a novel, the way he feels, is done here by silent acting and visual poetry. Things that would be clumsy if they were told in a dialogue, and probably less effective via simple narration. A way to describe a sensitive person in film is to guide the camera to see what he perceives from what is going around him. The fall of the leaves and the blow of the wind, the slow but powerful accumulation of gentle feelings interrupted by the disturbing reality of the sight of someone whom one had seen living, walking, breathing... enclosed motionless in a box and buried underground. Meanderings of a perception quite easily attracted by the subtle ways reality is wrapped around us, among which death is only one; one, perhaps not fully understood at the first encounter, one that may not even seem more important than others, yet stubborn and unalterable. A poet's way to introduce a poet...

Daft Punk - Interstella 5555

Daft Punk - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger von Darksith47

Interstella 5555 is an animated film for the album Discovery of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, better known as Daft Punk. It is a bitter-sweet story of some alien musicians who are abducted from their home planet to be brought to Earth and form a band here. The animation was supervised by Leiji Matsumoto, a veteran of animated space sagas. I have chosen two tracks to post here. "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger", which I often hear when I work to give me the feeling that my work is great and important... :) The other is "Aerodynamics", which simply just communicates something exciting to me... like my electric nerve impulses were part of the music, and somebody was able to play something nice using them...


Daft Punk - Aerodynamic von EMI_Music

Columbo And The Case Of Intelligence, Talent And Genius

The above video is from the Columbo episode "The Bye Bye Sky High IQ Murder Case", which actually made me think about this question of intelligence, talent and genius. In fact, there is some difference between these terms, tho they overlap, as people often seem to freely exchange them. There is this notion of intelligent people as being the great puzzle solvers or others that can tell you the square root of a 40 digit number up to 10 decimal places... Intelligence has to do something with the ability to give some proper reaction to situations. If we look at it like that, puzzle solving may indeed have something to do with it, and yet I don't think it is just that simple. Not everything can be included in a puzzle, and I would even venture that some very intelligent people would have hard time with them. We are different... Also being able to deal with large numbers, is what I would rather call a gift, a talent, it does not necessarily mean intelligent behaviour otherwise. And if they asked me which is a genius, who can deal with large numbers or who, while not being able to do so, invents the pocket calculator, I would tend to pick the latter. Tho, "genius" is perhaps the hardest of all. Talent is perhaps the easiest to realise. Intelligence may take a while to see and could come in many forms... But genius... is more like being able to do something unique with either or both of these. The genius must create to make himself known, otherwise he has buried his talent. He may not be successful tho. Success depends on politics at least as much as on whether you are genial or not. I do think that there are quite some intelligent and talented people who cannot get along well, whom we know nothing about, because they cannot handle people. And then there are those who adapt in some way... And this is the story and method of Columbo, a disguised intelligence, who anticipates people looking down on him, even annoys them with it... The video below is from the very first Columbo, "Prescription: Murder" in which he is analysed by a wife murdering psychiatrist.

Misery

Misery is originally a novel written by Stephen King, about a writer who suffers an accident and is rescued by a fan. The writer soon has to realize that he is actually a captive, and forced to correct his mistake of killing off his heroine... The film version here was made in 1990, and is usually remembered for the award winning performance of Kathy Bates as the obsessive fan, Annie Wilkes. About what I have read of Stephen King, I often felt the urge to describe his work as "the horror of stereotypes". A sort of small town environment, with people and situations intensified to a grotesque and often supernatural level, which still remains recognisable. Sometimes they are so well written that it hurts me to read, because the fact that people can live following and make others follow a mindless pattern, as often they do, though they have the ability to do better, just annoys me. In this case, however, there is no supernatural, just plain obsession. The book was planned to be one that King wrote under the pen name Richard Bachman, which he used for these less supernatural, and more explicit writings, until the identity of Bachman was revealed. The horror is based on the entrapment of writer Paul Sheldon in a hopeless situation. In his isolation and helplessness, he must find a way to break free. King builds up new and new hopes to achieve this goal, and breaks them one after the other followed by some not too pleasant retaliation from the captor. This builds up tension and hatred up to the point where there is no choice left for either of the characters, and hell breaks loose... I find the story interesting for many reasons. First, because of the way Wilkes "loves". I think this is a far more common way people think of love as it may seem at first sight. People often love what they imagine another person to be, and not what he is. They are not afraid to cause pain in the interest of the "beloved", so that he could become the image they love. There cannot be love without the possibility of change, and perhaps loss. Misery is a nightmare of being a helpless victim to such a love. On the other hand, if anybody ever tried to create something, they will know that sometimes it goes only if one has no choice. With choice come other things to do. Of course what one creates may or may not be what he wanted or what he likes... but high impact events tend to open up new ways. There is some difference between the film and the book how the experiece influences the creative artist, and also the amount of violent love the nurse is willing to give... but still, I think has more than enough to make the point... If I had to pick a Stephen King film at this very moment, Misery would be my choice.

Drawing A Face

It's been a while since I draw a human face, until I have decided to sit down and do it again last year, based on a bw image of a friend. I used a mechanic pencil (and rubber), on simple office print paper (about 15x20 cm). These are normally available when I am at work, and I often draw, though mostly only things that others would not recognise or make no sense at all, except perhaps in some far corner of my mind, like the image in one of my first posts. Nevertheless, sometimes I get the motivation to make something that actually expresses something out of me in a more approachable fashion, or just simply create the likeness of something to see if people recognize it. A human face is an ideal subject for that, but then it can be a very hard combination of 3D shapes one has to project to 2D. I had a somewhat easier task here since I worked with a photo. It is still a challenge to give a perception of light and shadow, which defines a nose, or in the case of such a smooth face, the presence of a sublime smile. After scanning, now that I can see the drawing in a much larger size than the original was, I can also discover some places of possible improvement. First of all, I draw faintly, I always did. Somehow I find faint things more attractive, but it may also be true that stronger lines are harder to control. I am not sure if I want to change this, but seeing the scanned image, and comparing it to the original, I can only see some of the subtler details if I tilt the screen due to the stronger brightness. I normally start from an eye, and measure distance in "eye-widths". I started off from the left eye this time, and I can sense a slight disproportion looking at the right, though this may be due to the fact that the head was slightly turned on the photo, which I tried to mimic on the drawing. And how to draw the hair when at moments it appears to me that each piece points to a different direction, in a somehow naturally arranged disorder? All in all, I am not sure if I served full justice to the qualities of the model... but it was recognised, and I should not disappointed at least about this. Maybe next time I will experiment with a 3D model...

French and Saunders

French and Saunders is a long running British comedy show of the duo Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. They often did spoofs of movies and celebrities. I have just collected here a few I especially liked. The first one is a Kill Bill parody, with all the gestures and sound effects... Then there is a parody of Björk, whose style seems particularly suitable for this sort of parody. And finally a more complete spoof a Whatever happened to Baby Jane?, a Robert Aldrich thriller from 1962, featuring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.