Quitcher Bitchin'!

You know why we don't blog much any more?

THIS is why. We spend all our time reading about films and film-making and hiking and reading (Indian history & culture this year; last year was SoutheastAsian history and culture); next year we go BACK to reading Chinese/Japanese/Korean history and culture in honour of the several hundred new acquisitions in that field).

This year's book list had 160 books on it. Still haven't posted my reviews, but, akan datang as we sometimes say in (parts of) SoutheastAsia. I know this.

We've watched a fucking shitload of films from, basically, 1895 (the very first Edison & Melies & Gaumont, etc.) to around 1930/1950. Last night we finally got to Elia Kazan's film, "Gentleman's Agreement."

This film won FOUR Oscars out of seven nominations. Including one for Best Director to Elia Kazan. It got rave reviews from everybody. What I want to know is, WHY? If you haven't seen it already, be warned. This is a terrible film. It was probably a great book, and I'd like to read that, but the whole thing was filmed in a way that completely ignores the magic & power of film. It was plotted and blocked and shot like a play in a theater. The camera is almost always static and views everything from about eye-level. There are no interesting angles, no especial or notable beauty or power in the scenes. They're competent. There are no major flaws in the film, although it could have been SO much better.

I had great expectations of this film. Gregory Peck has always done a great job on the screen, which loved his handsome face and class and style. But the dialog poor Peck had to declaim in this film was so thunderingly wooden, I almost up and died out of sympathy for the poor guy. He did a marvelous job, but really. The writer gave nearly every other character witty, dazzling, clever dialogue. WTF happened when he got to Greg's lines? Did he just hate the handsome hero, or what? Because watching the poor man sweat through some of those clunkers was pretty goddamn sad.

I'm not knocking the subject matter. In fact, I wish it had been far MORE searing, exposing the fate of the poor Jews in the tenements of New York, rather than the elegant country estates of the supposed supporters of anti-discrimination measures. And the film was certainly honest enough to expose the hidden anti-Semitism of the very people most affected by it, the Jewish employee of the liberal rag who fears that the "wrong type" will be hired if discrimination ends. It was a socially important film, just as Gone With The Wind was. But I don't have to like a film just for being socially important, if it's bereft of the art, quality, grace, style, and imagination of other films.

I blame the director for my disappointment, but admit that there might be some ambiguity in that blame. I'm well aware of Kazan's testimony before HUAC that landed so many of his colleagues and competitors on the blacklists. I despise the man for the suffering he caused. Is that colouring my critique of him? I thought so initially, and wrestled with committing my thoughts to the InterToobz (which, as we all know, are a series of large pipes, not trucks, filled with pictures of cats). But then I found, on IMDB, several people who seem to echo my sentiment.

In all fairness, it was Kazan's first film and he trained as a stage director (the same could be said of Hitchcock, though, who understood almost instinctively the great power of the camera and worked some two decades earlier). I shall watch the rest of Kazan's ouevre before further comment. I do want to comment on a few things, though, and I welcome feedback.

1. The camera is almost always a passive observer of staged scenes in which two or more people converse This slows the pace so that it is almost always glacial.
2. All the action is limited to the frame of that stage. Hardly anyone looks offstage or walks out of camera range or moves across the observing lens, or towards, or away from, it.
3. The director seemed unsure whether to focus on the anti-Semitism that was the focal point of the story, or the romance.
4. The camera lingered on many scenes for far too long.
5. All technical aspects of the film were pretty good. Good lighting, good script (except for Peck's lines), witty dialogue, fine actors giving their best.
6. Lots of unfinished business and hanging ends. WTF ever happened to Anne's proposal to Phil? Did he take advantage of it? Turn her down? WHAT? Did he take back his resignation? Decide to stay in NY? He certainly couldn't move up to Connecticut with the lovely Dorothy McGuire. She was supposedly moving to CT to ensure that his buddy David could live in her cottage without problems.
7. Whoever did the sound for the movie should be shot as an example to similar sinners. The sudden sweep of wailing violins every time the hero approaches the heroine gets to be a bit much after the 47th instance, jesusfuckingchrist.

So yeah. Do Not Want.

Books: Beauty Should Be Part Of The Experience

I'm reading a book by M.C. Ricklefs, titled A History of Modern Indonesia Since c.1300, and if a book can make your blood boil, this one's certainly high on the list. Professor Ricklefs peppers his account of the exploitation, murder, and selling (and buying) of hundreds and thousands of Indonesian peasants, farmers, aristocrats, merchants, sailors, and fishermen with words like "compelled," as in "The Dutch were compelled" to put 20,000 people to death, or burn down cities in which men, women, and children alike, perished. (Note: paraphrase; emphasis mine.)

What compelled them, it appears, was the desire to fill their coffers with Indonesian gold, and monies earned from the wholesale theft of Indonesian pepper, tin, gambier, rice, cloves, mace, nutmeg, and human bodies. So their burning of clove plantations farmed by Indonesian peasants was "necessary" and "important," while the Indonesian resistance to such naked greed was "foolhardy" and marked by "deviousness" in breaking treaties in which all advantage accrued to the Dutch, and precious little to the indigenous people. Having forced the natives at gunpoint to send some 20 million per year (in modern terms probably something close to a half billion) to the "home country" (the home of the Dutch, that is), they then had the unmitigated gall to add to this "debt," which was negotiated by treaty, the additional cost of enforcing it. That is to say, they charged the Indonesians for the cost of Dutch military and arms required to subjugate the Indonesians in something close to, if not actually outright, slavery.

To his credit, Ricklefs has admitted that the so-called "Ethical Policy" of the Dutch which led them to stop slavery and the trade in human flesh was more honoured in the breach than in the practise; that is to say, when the bottom line was threatened, all ethical considerations flew out the window with unseemly haste. Moreover, the Governors General who "governed" the Indonesian colonies were current or former directors of Royal Shell, more interested in seizing the oil riches of Sumatra and monopolizing the spice trade than educating the "natives." How many Indonesians were exiled to Sri Lanka and Suriname and South Africa, we will never know. How many died there, unable to speak the language, friendless, betrayed, isolated, yearning for their beautiful and beloved homeland.

No wonder the Indonesians took their Independence from those wretched people with such rage, when they could. The miracle is that they did not slaughter outright every man, woman, and child of these shameless, greedy, exploitative bastard children of syphilitic turtles.

Pardon my French. Or should I say my Dutch.

In the event, it was absolutely necessary as soon as possible thereafter, to find something a tad more soothing, if you get my drift. One requires one's prandial excursions to be accompanied by things soothing to the soul. A pleasant glass of wine. A vase of flowers on the table. The strains of delightful music. A book to read betimes, one which, hopefully, calms the soul and aids the digestion.

Therefore I turned to the (borrowed, coveted, expensive, hard to obtain, but available here, if you want it) following book, to the delight of my soul and my digestion alike.

Luntaya acheiq, An Illustrated Book of Burmese Court Textiles

If you have the money to spend, you should buy this book. Of course, I'd prefer you buy it for ME, but I'm willing to concede that you probably don't know me. Buy it for yourself then, see if I care. Selfish lout.

Srsly. The photographs alone are worth the cost of the book, but it does include delightful information about the techniques used, Burmese costume, mythical birds, how to make dyes from rocks, bark, roots, and the like, and the history of silk. You, too, could have a better dining experience with this book carefully placed far away from any potential dangerous spills yet available to your feasting eyes. Everyone should read at least one beautiful book a year.

Did you know it takes 200 shuttles for the warp (or is it the weft?) of one of these incredible pieces of fabric featured in the book? It can take up to six months for two weavers to create a single longyi (the national garment of Burma, a simple, yet stunningly beautiful piece of fabric sewn into a tube and worn wrapped tightly around the waist). There's an interesting little digression into the nature of gold and silver tinseled thread, which is often used in the weaving, especially of the more formal garments; and the longyis worn for certain special Buddhist ceremonies are the most delightful shade of a wild, passionate pink. In fact, pink is too wussy a word to describe that hue. Let's call it a muted red, instead, with blue tones. Woof! (Or warp?)

Another book (which I did get my grubby little paws on) that lovers of the beautiful ought to break down and shell out the shekels for:

Nakshi Kantha of Bengal

There are many books available on Nakshi kantha, which is a Bengali folk art using embroidery to make recycling a beautiful thing. Basically, the art of nakshi kantha is mostly found in rural communities. When clothing such as saris and dhotis becomes too worn for wear any more, the ladies of the community cut out the most frayed and worn parts and incorporate the rest into a new article of great use: the nakshi kantha. They stitch together several layers of old saris or dhotis or a combination thereof, making an article of the softest cotton, but with some weight and heft, thanks to the number of layers used. Then they embroider the entire article, first with a border, which is often an elaborate sari border, sometimes with zari (gold or silver thread). The center of the piece hosts a scene from the needle artist's own life or a rural scene or whatever the artist wishes to create. Often, this includes, or centers upon, a tree-of-life, or a mandala. At the corners, the artist may position am-pata (mango leaf shapes, known as "paisley" to non-Indians), elaborately decorated. Depending on the artist, the piece may include appliqué. Shapes are outlined in darker or heavier stitch and filled in with delicate running stitches. Other types of stitch are also used.

An artist might include events from her own life, depending on the size of the piece; often women embroider kitchen implements, stoves, sacred words or objects, words of wisdom, expressions of affection, and the like. Sometimes they depict stylized elephants or peacocks, cows, birds, cats, chickens, and other elements of their everyday lives.

The finished product is most often used as a quilt, although smaller pieces are used to wrap religious books or gifts. Some end up on walls, as part of a family's history. Some of the more elaborate kanthas depict British soldiers confronting villagers. I'm sure there's a political history somewhere in there, if I can only uncover it.

The book, published in India, is filled with photographs of ancient and beautiful kanthas collected over several hundred years. It also includes some excellent modern examples of the art, which continues to flourish in the most lively manner in the current states of Bangladesh and West Bengal. Interspersed between the photographs (which alone are worth the price of the book) are discussions of the art of nakshi kantha, the lives of women in rural areas of Bengal, and other important historical and folkloric information.

Anyone who is feeling especially generous ought to buy me both books. Alternatively, buy them for yourself and write me about how you liked them.

Lorraine Hansberry, Rest in Peace

Gorgeous photo by David Moses Attie (c) 1960.

Today would have been her 78th birthday. May she rest in peace.

Last year I read A Raisin in the Sun and loved it. It remains an extremely powerful play. Highly recommended.

Here are some quotes from Lorraine Hansberry:

• There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing. Have you cried for that boy today? I don't mean for yourself and for the family 'cause we lost the money. I mean for him; what he's been through and what it done to him. Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most; when they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain't through learning -- because that ain't the time at all. It's when he's at his lowest and can't believe in hisself 'cause the world done whipped him so. When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come through before he got to wherever he is. [from Raisin in the Sun]


More quotes from Lorraine Hansberry ...

"Do I remain a revolutionary? Intellectually -- without a doubt. But am I prepared to give my body to the struggle or even my comforts? This is what I puzzle about."


• "The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely." [This quote really struck me. I'm gonna think on this all day ..]


• "Some scholars have estimated that in the three centuries that the European slave trade flourished, the African continent has lost one hundred million of its people. No one, to my knowledge, has ever paid reparations to the descendants of black men; indeed, they have not yet really acknowledged the fact of the crime against humanity, which was the conquest of Africa. But then -- history has not yet been concluded -- has it?"

And I must include a quote from the poet, educator, and activist -- Nikky Finney. She wrote this dedication for her book of extraordinary poems The World is Round:

For the tender-hearted insurgent Lorraine Hansberry, who "finished my thoughts" long before I had them.

And let's end with this one:

Let your motto be resistance.

No One Recalled a More Cowardly Sound

Photo credit: André Natta

16th St. Baptist Church

Birmingham Sunday

Come round by my side and I'll sing you a song.
I'll sing it so softly, it'll do no one wrong.
On Birmingham Sunday the blood ran like wine,
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.

That cold autumn morning no eyes saw the sun,
And Addie Mae Collins, her number was one.
At an old Baptist church there was no need to run.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom,

The clouds they were grey and the autumn winds blew,
And Denise McNair brought the number to two.
The falcon of death was a creature they knew,
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom,

The church it was crowded, but no one could see
That Cynthia Wesley's dark number was three.
Her prayers and her feelings would shame you and me.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.

Young Carol Robertson entered the door
And the number her killers had given was four.
She asked for a blessing but asked for no more,
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.

On Birmingham Sunday a noise shook the ground.
And people all over the earth turned around.
For no one recalled a more cowardly sound.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.

The men in the forest they once asked of me,
How many black berries grew in the Blue Sea.
And I asked them right with a tear in my eye.
How many dark ships in the forest?

The Sunday has come and the Sunday has gone.
And I can't do much more than to sing you a song.
I'll sing it so softly, it'll do no one wrong.
And the choirs keep singing of Freedom.

-- Richard Fariña