Category Archives: Character

Finding Vivian Maier

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Vivian Maier, street photography, Rolleiflex, camera

(photo: wikimedia.org)

Another Netflix possibility, if it’s not playing in your local theater, Finding Vivian Maier, (trailer) is the story of the prolific photo-documentarian whose work came within a hair’s breadth of being lost forever.

According to a Wired story by Doug Bierend, the dedication of the filmmaker, John Maloof, in bringing her story to the public is a tale of equal parts dogged detection and appreciation of the joys of street photography.

A five-star rating from Rotten Tomatoes: 97% of critics liked it! If it’s as good as the documentary of legendary street fashion photographer Bill Cunningham, it will be a gem!

Many of Maier’s works can be seen on the Artsy website’s Vivian Maier page.

UPDATE 10-22-14: Good rundown of the increasingly complex copyright claims and counterclaims swirling around Maier’s work in this Jillian Steinhauer article. I wonder how many of the men now vying for rights to her work would have given a nanny with the photography bug the time of day when she was alive?

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*****The Crossing

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Cormac McCarthy – Part II of McCarthy’s The Border Trilogy. This book is a force of nature, describing three lengthy horseback journeys from New Mexico to bleak and impoverished Old Mexico before and during World War II. The prose mostly moves forward at the pace and with the deliberation of a man on a horse, with occasional galloping, heart-stopping passages. The poor people 16-year-old Billy Parham encounters seem mostly willing to share what they have with him, including their stories and their hard-won philosophy, while the well-off, few in number though they be, seem intent on stealing or denying him what little he has. McCarthy never tells us how Billy feels about any of this, only shows us what he does about it, as he struggles to maturity and to maintain his integrity. The detailed sense of place makes the reader feel he has been on these melancholy and bitter treks, too. A thrilling read for the purity of the vision and the power of the words. Some favorite metaphors: “As if the darkness had a soul itself that was the sun’s assassin hurrying to the west as once men did believe, as they may believe again.” ” . . .the fence running out into the darkness under the mountains and the shadow of the fence crossing the land in the moonlight like a suture.”  And his matchless dialog, half of which is in Spanish but easy to follow.

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Oscar Winner: The Great Beauty

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The Great Beauty, Toni Servillo, Paolo SorrentinoWanted to see The Great Beauty (trailer), the Paolo Sorrentino’s movie that won this year’s Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. And could have won for cinematography—in it, Rome is The Great Beauty. Nice score, too. Toni Servillo makes the essentially selfish main character actually charming.

It’s the story of Jep Gambardella, who won fame with one novelette many years before and survives as merely a social creature, someone who knows everyone and whom everyone knows. The send-ups of performance art—and artists—are genuinely funny. But most of the film is linked together only by being in some way over-the-top, with the only authentic exchanges ones Jep has with his maid. You keep waiting for Jep to wake up, because scenes’ link to reality seems so tenuous. The botox clinic, the man with the keys, the giraffe.

The disconnected scenes—from the profane to the sublime—just didn’t add up to much for me. Roger Ebert liked it better than I did. Rotten Tomatoes rating: critics (91%); audience (79%).

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**** Fighter Pilot: The Memoir of Legendary Ace Robin Olds

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By Christina Olds, Ed Rasimus and Robin Olds. Narrated by Robertson Dean. A tale of modern derring-do, with Olds–a flying ace in both World War II and Vietnam, who led that war’s most renowned air battle–fighting both the enemy and the Pentagon. The authors credit him with impeccable judgment about strategy and tactics in both the immediate flying situation and long-term for the U.S. military. His heavy drinking, failed marriages, and lack of diplomacy are glossed over as “I am who I am.” He was a larger-than-life personality, and it’s a great story. His views about Vietnam don’t square with contemporary assessments, but reflect the frustrations of military men at the time that, if the country was going to commit young lives to the effort, they should plan to win, not pull their punches.

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Tim’s Vermeer

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The Music Lesson, Johannes Vermeer, camera obscura, optics, Tim's Vermeer, Tim Jenison

Watching the meticulous recreation of Vermeer’s painting, “The Music Lesson,” by inventor Tim Jenison practically gave me hand-cramps. And the result? I urge you to watch this documentary (trailer) produced  by Penn Gillette, Tim’s friend, and see for yourself. The saga started when Tim read how optics technology—lenses and the camera obscura—may have been used in producing some of the great works of 17th century art.

As an inventor, not an artist, Tim attempts to replicate such a method and comes up with, or rediscovers, inventions of his own. In the film, he interviews British artist David Hockney and architect Philip Steadman who believe optics help explain Vermeer’s genius, but warn Jenison the art historians and critics don’t want to hear it. Tim even persuades Buckingham Palace officials to let him see the original painting.

Fascinating character, process, and insights. You’ll go away appreciating the “fathomable genius” of Vermeer more than ever, guaranteed. Great links here.

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A Personal Writing Style

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Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Jeeves and Wooster, P.G. Wodehouse

Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie as Jeeves and Wooster. (Artwork: hockypocky.deviantart.com)

Michael Lydon, in an entertaining essay for Visual Thesaurus, takes on the elusive question of how a personal writing style develops. Writing styles were something I used to take as they came, part of the background. Some were more old-fashioned, but beyond that, I didn’t think about them. Not until I read the entire two-inch thick volume of John Cheever’s short stories did I think about how a style might be something a writer could strive for. When I turned the last page, I was so marinated in Cheever’s deceptively simple way of putting words together, his choice of subjects, and the kinds of characters who peopled his stories, I felt as if I could sit down and dash one off myself. Of course I couldn’t. That writing style was Cheever’s alone.

Lydon’s essay takes the experience of Pelham Grenville Wodehouse as his model, and how Wodehouse created “a comic world centered on the quintessential featherbrain Bertie Wooster, his unflappable manservant Jeeves,” and the memorable friends and relatives in the Wooster orbit. Over six decades, Wodehouse  produced dozens of best-selling novels and stories about Jeeves and Wooster. And they’ve been adapted for television, movies, and the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, By Jeeves (title song).

Authors can certainly claim literary success when one of their characters enters the language as the only descriptor needed for a particular type of person, a Fagin or a Portnoy. “Jeeves” remains the archetype of the unflappable, ready-for-any-unlikely-eventuality manservant. And Jeeves and Wooster are an instantly recognizable duo, brought to life in Wodehouse’s lively stories.

How is such a distinctive voice and style developed? Distinctive, but not too constraining? Comfortably familiar, but not tiresome? Lydon suggests the answer can be found in  Enter Jeeves, a 15-story collection published in 1997 (Dover) that “opens a crystal clear window on Wodehouse’s work method which may be fairly summed up in four words: unremitting trial and error.” The stories trace a stumbling path in the development of Bertie’s eventual world view and the complex relationship the two men settle into. With each story, Wodehouse’s prose became “sharper, more succinct, and—there’s no other word for it—more Wodehouse-ian.”

The key to making one’s own prose as inimitable as that of Wodehouse or Cheever or any other admired writer is to imitate—not the style—but the work method. Lydon advises writers to “keep honing, polishing, revising, rejecting, and rewriting” until they begin to approach what they want to say, then do it some more. Lather, rinse, repeat.

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In Secret

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3-6-14 In Secret

Oscar Issac, Elizabeth Olsen, Tom Felton, Jessica Lang, In Secret, movie, Emile Zola, Therese Raquin

If you don’t remember the 1940’s film noir classics Double Indemnity (Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (Lana Turner, John Garfield), you might enjoy the new suspense movie In Secret (trailer) more than I did.  All three films share a basic plot line, with the latter based on the Émile Zola novel of obsessive love, Thérèse Raquin.

The new movie stars Elizabeth Olsen, Oscar Isaac, Tom Felton, and Jessica Lange in an affecting performance as a domineering mother-in-law who becomes sympathetic after a stroke leaves her unable to speak a terrible secret. In Secret is a period piece, set in 1860’s France (not only does mum-in-law smell a rat, we get to see them, too!), but the familiar plot made it less fun than it might have been. Rotten Tomatoes rating: 47.

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Figaro

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Figaro, McCarter Theatre, Stephen Wadsworth, Barber of SevillePrinceton’s McCarter Theatre is putting on two Beaumarchais farces—The Barber of Seville (1773) and The Marriage of Figaro (1778)—in  repertory this spring. The plays, better known in their operatic versions, are new translations by Stephen Wadsworth (opera director at Julliard). In the 1990s at McCarter, Wadsworth successfully remounted three neglected plays by 18th c. French playwright Marivaux and has a distinguished directorial career in theater and opera throughout the world.

I had the chance to see the charming actors playing Figaro and his bride-to-be Suzanne in an early rehearsal of the first scene of Figaro. They portray these two characters in both plays, a feat impossible in opera, because those works by Rossini and Mozart (musical interlude) are set in different registers and require different voices. Following the scene was a brief talk by Wadsworth.

“Comedy is the costume that politics wears,” Wadsworth said and emphasized the timing of the two works, written shortly before the French Revolution. In Figaro, the chief dilemma is that Count Almaviva, who is the employer of Figaro and Suzanne, desires to reassert an old right of primae noctis and be the one to deflower Suzanne on her wedding night. The play’s depiction of aristocratic arrogance was a significant cultural influence on the French populace, and Georges Danton himself said the play “killed off the nobility.”

To make his social satires acceptable to the powers-that-be, Beaumarchais set them in Spain, but his packed audiences got the message, anyway. “L’Escalier du Capitole” of the 1770s. Can’t wait to see them on stage! April 1 – May 4, 2014.

Nebraska

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Bad work karma has kept me away from this website, and I miss reaching out to my invisible friends.Just had to write to tell you, urge you, implore you to see Alexander Payne’s movie Nebraska (trailer here), with Bruce Dern and Will Forte. Dern is the aging dad who thinks he’s won a million dollars in a bogus sweepstakes and won’t be talked out of it.

The script spot-on captures the relations between parents and children and old married couples. Heartwarming, without being sappy. Moments of hilarity when we recognize ourselves. Reviewers who say Payne doesn’t like Nebraskans (he is one, after all) miss the whole point. People like the characters in the movie can be found everywhere, which is what gives the film its appeal.

Excellent performances from the large cast of the old man’s relatives and long-ago friends whose “congratulations!” come with a predatory gleam in the eye. (Rated 91 on the Tomatometer.)

Christopher Wallenberg interviewed Dern for the Boston Globe, and the actor—a top contender for an Academy Award Best Actor nomination and Best Actor winner at Cannes—says what he tried to do was find “real moments.” And find them he did. You can never be sure how much his character really hears or knows. More than he lets on, you may suspect. His son has the insight to look past the apocryphal sweepstakes win to see that what his father really wants is “something to live for.”

Forte plays a supporting role in both the film and the story, attuned to the possibilities of an impossible quest. Familiar to Saturday Night Live audiences, Forte nails this difficult role, making not only his character feel real, but also, by the self-effacing negative space he creates, enabling his cranky dad to become a fully realized, sympathetic person, too.  

Interesting that the film is shot in black and white, in Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nebraska. The scenes of that lovely country—plus one long shot of Mt. Rushmore—“OK, we’ve seen it, let’s go,” says the cantankerous old coot—lose nothing in the cinematographer’s soft greys and charcoals. I once worked with a brilliant photographer who only shot in black and white. When I asked why, she said, “My black and white looks like color.” So does Nebraska’s! See these inspired photos.

A Writer’s Ear

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Just finished Reading Elizabeth George’s A Traitor to Memory, one of her Inspector Lynley mysteries. (722 pages, by the way, which makes it practically a saga by today’s standards.) What struck me most in the writing was the dialog, which moved front-and-center upon introduction of a secondary character, a young California woman. Until she spoke, I had fallen unawares into George’s U.K. speech rhythms and word choices—except for the odd “boot,” “nappy,” and the like. The contrast started me noticing how “British” everyone else’s speech was.

It isn’t just how Libby Neale speaks, it’s what she chooses to speak about that makes her so distinctively American. If something is on her mind, she says it. By contrast, the British characters are painfully reserved, which serves them well, because many of them are lying, anyway. Here are Libby and the main character, violin virtuoso Gideon Davies:

“What’s up then? You don’t look so great. Aren’t you cold? What’re you doing out here without a sweater?

Looking for answers, I thought.

She said, “Hey! Anyone home? I’m, like, talking to you here.”

I said, “I needed a walk.”

She said, “You saw the shrink today, didn’t you?”

And here’s how the Gideon’s violin teacher asks about the psychiatric visit, starting with a comment from Gideon:

“You were told to get me out of the house today.”

He didn’t deny it. “[Your father] thinks you’re dwelling too much on the past and avoiding the present.”

“What do you think?”

“I trust Dr. Rose. At least I trust Dr. Rose the father. As to Dr. Rose the daughter, I assume she’s discussing the case with him . . . He’s had decades of experience with the sort of thing you’re going through, and that’s going to count for something with her.”

“What sort of thing do you think I’m going through?”

“I know what she’s called it. The amnesia bit.”

“Dad told you?”

“He would do, wouldn’t he? I’m as much involved with your career as anyone.”

At the pace these two waltz around the subject, no wonder it took 722 pages to complete the story!

After the breath of fresh Pacific Coast air that Libby brought to the conversation, I began noticing what a great job George does with dialog for all her characters, and not just the familiar contrast between Inspector Lynley (8th Earl of Asherton) and his working-class partner, Constable Barbara Havers. This story contains an East German refugee who has perfected her English accent, but not quite mastered word order, lower-class accents of two young toughs from the council flats, and a younger woman who speaks differently and more directly than her older lover of the same social class. None of them devolves into caricature.

Going further, the characters’ actions often reflect the same turn of mind that their words do. Libby goes off half-cocked, intuition leads her astray, and her last impulsive act detonates the book’s conclusion. Careful language is appropriate to the characters taking time to get their stories straight. The precise German is putting her romantic ducks in a row.

The slang in this book, published in 2001, will become dated as the years pass, but remains fresh twelve years on. Meanwhile, it feels like we’re reading about real-live, unique individuals, with their own unique energy behind them, energy that leads to the actions only they would take. For a writer, inspirational, really.