Category: Film

Tidy Tidbits: Memoirs and Movies

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READING MEMOIRS

 As my regular readers know, I am fond of reading memoirs.  I am also fascinated by the dynamics within a marriage and intrigued by the nuances and tensions within romantic relationships in general.  Here are two new memoirs touching on these and other issues.

The Victorian and the Romantic:  A Memoir, a Love Story, and a Friendship across Time by Nell Stevens.

I included the full subtitle here because this little book is so much more than a memoir.  It’s an enchanting, frustrating, and somewhat curious account of this young academic’s struggle to find her place in the world and to fulfill what she views as her rightful female destiny.

Nell is in love with Max, an aspiring American writer, and employs all sorts of economies and part-time projects to fund trips from her home in London to his in Boston.  She even signs up for several research studies, including a sleep one that requires her to spend 14 days in a lab and be awake for 40 hours.  At the same time that she’s angling to visit Max, she’s grappling with the topic for her Ph.D. dissertation.   Eventually she settles on Elizabeth Gaskell and the several months Gaskell spent in Rome socializing with a group of noted writers and artists.

Elizabeth Gaskell (tattonpark.org.uk)

Although I occasionally had too much of Nell’s troubles, I found the sections on Gaskell in Rome and her relationship with Charles Eliot Norton delightful and creatively imagined.  As Stevens makes clear in her short introductory note, her memoir is based on true events, but is not truly accurate; so, reader, take heed and apply salt as seems appropriate!  One result is that I now want to read or re-read one or more of Gaskell’s novels.  (~JWFarrington)

 

Strange Paradise:  Portrait of a Marriage by Grace Schulman

What goes on inside a marriage is always something of a mystery to those outside it, no matter how close they are to the couple.  Poet Schulman came of age before careers for women and multiple roles as professor, wife and also mother were widely accepted.  She felt that her own mother had been compromised in her aspirations and her abilities in her marriage, and she, Grace, feared a loss of independence and freedom for herself.  Nonetheless, she and Jerry Schulman, a medical doctor and virology researcher, wed in 1959 and were mostly together for more than 50 years.  This is her account of their continuing love despite some years living apart and his long decline due to illness.  But it’s also about her friendships with other poets and writers and her years as poetry editor for The Nation and coordinator of literary programming at the 92nd Street Y.  As she writes, “the phrase, ‘happy marriage’ is a term of opposites, like ‘friendly fire’ or ‘famous poet.’  My marriage has been a feast of contradiction.”  Informed by her poetic sensibility, her book is both bracing and poignant.  (~JWFarrington)

 

WATCHING FILMS

In this new age of content available on iPads, smartphones and other screens, we rented these two films online and watched them on our own large screen TV.  Cheaper than the price of one movie ticket, and you can make your own popcorn!

(Image from imbd.com)

Three Identical Strangers   

How would you feel if you arrived at college for the first time and lots of students were greeting you warmly as if they knew you and then called you by another name?  For Bobby, this is a strange and unnerving experience, as he discovers he has not one, but two other brothers.  All three were adopted and each was raised by parents of a different socio-economic class.  What is the role played by heredity versus environment in one’s development, the old nature vs. nurture question, and why were these three boys separated at birth?  A film that starts out joyful unfolds to a more serious and somber set of issues.  A bit repetitive at points, but well worth seeing.

The Children Act

The Children Act by Ian McEwen is probably my favorite of his novels that I’ve read.  I was predisposed to like the film and, with Emma Thompson, a favorite actor, and Stanley Tucci, in the lead roles, how could it go wrong?  It’s a superb film and, with McEwen’s screenplay, the equal of the novel.  Judge Fiona Maye handles cases relating to children’s welfare.  She and husband Jack have hit a bad patch in their marriage which comes to a crisis just as Fi gets a difficult case involving a 17-year old young man.  He’s a Jehovah’s Witness, who needs a blood transfusion to treat his leukemia, but his parents are refusing it.  How this case plays out and its impact on Fiona and those around her is the crux of the film.  Thompson is wonderful in the role with the right combination of judicial dedication and exactitude mostly masking her inner feelings.  Definitely an Oscar-worthy performance!

Note:  Header image of Emma Thompson in The Children Act is from an article in the South China Morning Post.

Manhattan Diversions: Movies, Art, etc.

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RECENT FILMS
Free Solo
This is a breathtaking and stunning National Geographic documentary about free soloing on Yosemite’s El Capitan. That is, climbing its 3,000 foot rock wall without any ropes. The first person to ever do that was Alex Hannold in June 2017, and this is the story and the backstory of that historic climb. What makes this such a fascinating film is that you learn a lot about Alex as a person and what drives him and why, as much as he can articulate it, he feels compelled to undertake such a risky climb.

The film crew, several other professional climbers, and his girlfriend Sanni, are also prominently featured. I found the fears of the film crew on his behalf and Sanni’s candor about their relationship and her concerns about how Alex communicates emotion added a richness and intimacy to the film. Highly recommend it!

A Star is Born
This is the fourth version or re-make of this film, this time starring Bradley Cooper who also directs it, and Lady Gaga. I’ve heard Lady Gaga sing a few times, but it was a new and amazing experience to see her develop in this part. The movie has lots of loud music and is as much a concert at times as it is a drama. Cooper stars as Jackson Maine, a popular singer on his way down, and Lady Gaga as Ally, the ingenue he discovers whose career quickly outstrips his.

I thought the film was a bit long and slow in parts, but appreciated that although Jackson lets her down repeatedly, Ally is never mean or nasty, but basically loving, not a side of celebrities that movies always depict. Go and you may leave humming the tune to “Shallow.”

EXHIBIT NOTES
Dorothea Lange’s America at Reynolda House Museum of American art
In North Carolina, this small gallery photography exhibit consists of a number of Lange’s portraits and scenes depicting poverty and hardship during the 1920’s and 30’s. Also included are photos by Walker Evans and others from the same period. What made the exhibit more meaningful for me were the longer explanations of context and setting on some of the labels. If you to to Winston-Salem, you can also tour the Reynolds home (he, the tobacco baron) and the attractive gardens on the property.

Delacroix at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The 18th century French painter, Eugene Delacroix, was a master draftsman. This small exhibit focuses on a variety of sketches and drawings he did in preparation for larger paintings. Several small watercolors are also included.

Chagall, Lissitzky, Malevich:  The Russian Avant-Garde in Vitebsk, 1918-1922 at the Jewish Museum

This featured exhibit covers a short period in Russian art after the overthrow of the czar when Chagall and others founded an art school.  The dominant art movement was Suprematism, founded by Malevich, which used basic geometric shapes and a limited color palette in both painting and architecture.  Chagall soon drifted away from strict adherence to it.

FABULOUS PLAY!


Most everyone has seen one version or another of My Fair Lady and probably one of the film versions which has a happy ending, not part of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion.  This new production at Lincoln Center is truly a My Fair Lady for our time. Lauren Ambrose is luminescent as Eliza Doolittle, who starts out as a lonely flower seller, but comes into her own as a woman by taking up Professor Higgins’ offer to pass her off as a lady.
The stage sets are amazing with a pointed contrast between Higgins’ elaborately designed house and the often bare stage on which Eliza sings or cavorts. Choreography is exuberant, occasionally to the point of boisterousness, as in Alfred Doolittle’s rousing rendition of “Get Me to the Church on Time,” complete with dancers in drag. Silver and lilac costumes in the Ascot scene are sumptuous and cooly elegant. All the songs and the singing are wonderful—both Eliza’s and the professor’s.

What might surprise you is how this production ends, but I won’t tell, except that it’s the right ending for today. Our performance featured a number of understudies including Tony Roach as Higgins and Joe Hart as Alfred Doolittle, and they were so good, I probably wouldn’t have known they weren’t the usual leads. If you have the chance, see it!

Note:  Header photo is of Delacroix’s A Moroccan Couple on Their Terrace, 1832.  Photos by JWFarrington.

The Literary Life

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TIMELY FILM—The Wife
I read Meg Wolitzer’s novel of the same name, but I think the film version of The Wife is better. Glenn Close gives a stellar performance as Joan Castleman, the dutiful, somewhat subservient wife of literary rockstar and new Nobelist, Joe Castleman. With just the slightest change in expression, Close portrays a whole range of suppressed emotions from anger to frustration, boredom, and puzzlement. Only once does she really erupt into a violent outburst and that is quickly transformed into the actions of a caring spouse.

As the couple proceeds through arriving in Stockholm and all the press and trappings leading up to the actual Nobel ceremony, it is clear that all is not hunky-dory in the marriage nor in their relationship with writer son David. Through flashbacks we see undergrad Joan, who has talent as a writer, and her mentor professor Joe and then the early years of their marriage. In Joan’s beginnings as a writer lies the crux of this too timely film. Also very well played is aspiring biographer Nathaniel who is like a pesky fly that keeps returning. Well worth seeing!

READING—THE LITERARY LIFE
A Life of My Own by Claire Tomalin
Before reading her memoir, I knew of Claire Tomalin primarily as a biographer as I’ve read hers of both Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy. Before she discovered her calling as a chronicler of other’s lives, Tomalin had a successful career as first a reader of manuscripts, a writer of book reviews, and then most significantly, as a literary editor at a number of notable publications including the Sunday Times.  

British by birth, her mother was a musician and composer and her father held posts with the United Nations and other NGOs. As a child, she was exposed to good literature, theater, and opera and in her youth and adulthood became acquainted with many of the literary luminaries of the time.  In short, her intellectual life was rich in culture.

Her personal life, however, had its challenges, particularly during the riotous 1960’s. Her first husband, Nick, was charismatic and an accomplished reporter, journalist and TV broadcaster, but also unreliable and regularly unfaithful.  Her youngest son was born with spina bifida and one of her daughters suffered from severe depression.  Left a widow with young children in the 70’s, she initially cobbled together a series of part-time jobs and kept on going with determination.

While Tomalin shares some thoughts about these tragic events, she is not the most revealing of memoirists. Her book at times reads like a diary of all the meetings, assignments, conferences, and lunches she took part in with a host of boldface names. Perhaps because I am interested in what goes into the business of book publishing and reviewing and the journals associated with it, I found these details mostly fascinating and, consequently, the book held my attention. Others might find this aspect tedious.

Nonetheless, Tomalin succeeds in portraying what it took for a woman of her generation (born in 1933) to carve out a rewarding career and, ultimately, to craft a happy second marriage. She is generous toward her friends, both old and new, and seldom spiteful. For another view, see the excellent one in the August 23 issue of the Wall St. Journal. (~JWFarrington)

OF LIBRARIES AND BOOKS
While visiting my Chapel Hill sister, we stopped by her local library, Chatham Community Library. What was interesting to me is that it is a hybrid library, a combination academic library for the community college and a library for the general public. It’s a new building and a very attractive one! I chuckled at some of the end-of-the-stacks posters and thought that the faux fireplaces were a nice touch.

 

We also paid a visit to one of our favorite bookstores in North Carolina and that’s McIntyre’s at Fearrington Village. As usual, I succumbed to a book for myself as well as a few for my granddaughters. Tired of browsing, the Chief Penguin and my brother-in-law made themselves comfortable on the bench outside.

Note:  All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).  Header photo is the interior of the Chatham Community Library.

Maine Time: Two Takes on Identity in Life

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This week Maine is sunny and Maine is always quiet.  Activity besides reading consists mainly of walks around the neighborhood, trips to the general store, and dinners with friends, punctuated by the occasional movie or boat trip.  Included in this blog are a few photos of the local scene plus reviews of a new documentary and a compelling novel.

FASCINATING DOCUMENTARY

The Gospel According to Andre

Andre Leon Talley, a black man, grew up in North Carolina in the 1950’s and 60’s when segregation was still the norm and options for blacks were limited.  Raised by his grandmother, his childhood was strongly grounded in the life of the church and the values it represented.  From an early age, Talley was drawn to fashion and after earning his degree at Brown University, he began working in Paris, writing and commenting on the fashion scene there.  Later he came to New York and worked at Vogue with both the legendary Diana Vreeland and the meticulous Anna Wintour.

Over time, Talley became an icon for others aspiring to a career in the fashion industry.  A large man physically, his mode of dress and his style have always been colorful, bold, and uniquely his.

Kate Novack is the producer and director of this excellent documentary covering Talley’s career.  She has creatively combined a wealth of archival footage of life in Durham, NC in the 50’s and 60’s and the fashion scene in Paris and New York in the 70’s with interviews with Talley’s contemporaries, colleagues, and friends from his childhood.  While racism is an underlying current, it is not dwelled upon.  The interviews with Talley himself take place interspersed throughout the film leading up to the 2016 election.  The scene on election night is remarkable for its restraint.

On a personal note, Kate Novack is someone I know a bit since she is the daughter of very good friends. The Chief Penguin and I had the pleasure of viewing the film at a special showing at the local nonprofit theater in Boothbay Harbor complete with a Q&A afterward with Kate.  It was informative to hear more about the making of this film.

Kate and spouse Andrew Rossi are also the creative team responsible for two other recent documentaries: First Monday in May, and Page One about the New York Times.  They are all worth seeing!  For more about Kate and the Talley film, here’s an interview by Garage.

 

SUMMER READING

Timely Novel about the Immigrant Experience

#13  The Leavers by Lisa Ko

This 2017 novel is another one that made multiple best books of the year lists and was also a National Book Award finalist.  It’s a vivid portrayal of a Chinese mother and her son who at various points navigate the different physical and cultural worlds of Fuzhou, China and the Bronx. Pregnant by a neighbor she has no interest in marrying, Polly leaves China for New York City where Deming is born. She works first on a factory floor and later in a nail salon.  When she realizes she can’t work and take care of him, she soon sends him back to China to live with his grandfather.  When he’s older, she brings him back to the U.S.

Deming makes the adjustment to the city, grooves to all its sounds and colors, and is comfortable living with his mother, her boyfriend Leon, Leon’s sister Vivian, and her son Michael who becomes his good friend.  Until the day his mother doesn’t come home.  Feeling abandoned and rejected when he hears nothing from her, he must then cope with white foster parents, being adopted, and living in suburban upstate NY.  Ten years later at 21, having spent the past ten years as Daniel Wilkinson, he seeks to locate his birth mother.  The novel alternates between Deming’s life in the United States and his times in China and sections in Polly’s voice about the torture of being deported and the new successful life she builds in her native land.

My only quibble is that it could have been more tightly edited at points to sustain the forward momentum.  Nonetheless, it is a richly imagined novel of identity:  how does one figure out who he or she is, how does he find a way to believe in himself, what must one do to belong, and what is acceptable behavior and what is selfish.  Both Deming and Polly wrestle with the issues of who they are and what living a fulfilling life means. Each is a multi-layered character with Polly being especially complex.  (~JWFarrington)

Note:  All photos ©JWFarrington.