Russian Ark (2002)

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Russian Ark, Alexander SokurovA combination of incredibly poor planning and the exigencies of our Netflix list in one week produced two arty but, let’s face it, slow-moving movies set in museums [Museum Hours reviewed 10-22]. Russian Ark (trailer), too, had rave reviews from critics and is perhaps best known for the incredible way it was shot. The whole thing—all 96 minutes of it—is one unbroken take. Really. Filming in The Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the royal-palace-cum-art-treasurehouse, director Alexander Sokurov and his cinematographer Tillman Buttner had use of this incomparable setting for a single day. You can say this for them, they made the most of it.

The film follows a mysterious and unnamed museum visitor, purportedly the Marquis de Custine, who wanders its hallways, back passages, and famous galleries, encountering notable Russians from the past—Catherine the Great, Peter the Great, the Romanovs (that’s the Romanov daughters, destined to be gunned down in the Communist Revolution in the picture). For the most part he is unseen, or at least ignored, as he turns and talks to the camera (you).

There’s no plot, just this drifting, mostly through the 19th century. But it’s an incredible tour and a costume-lover’s dream. At one point the Marquis heads into a ballroom where an orchestra plays for hundreds of dancers and onlookers. After this spectacular ball, the camera watches the guests leave, ultimately moves ahead of the crowd, and exits the museum. Fini. How I interpret all this is that the people in the scenes, like Noah’s giraffes and sheep and bluejays, may have led separate, unconnected lives (in this case, over time), but they are all inevitably connected in the arc [!] of Russian history.

Some reviewers asked whether the film would have received such a positive critical response if it had been made in the usual way, with cuts and edits, since images and scenes accumulate, disconnectedly, without any discernible central point. Roger Ebert’s response was “ʻRussian Ark,’ as it stands, is enough. . . . If cinema is sometimes dreamlike, then every edit is an awakening. ʻRussian Ark’ spins a daydream made of centuries.” (Rotten Tomatoes critics’ rating: 89%; audience score: 81%).

10-28-14 ****Bastard Out of Carolina

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Bastard Out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison, Southern gothicBy Dorothy Allison – The West Windsor Library’s annual book sale is where I stock up on books I should have read a long time ago. Set in Greenville, South Carolina, this debut novel, published in 1992, was probably somewhat more shocking as a tale of parental oversight and abuse at the time, and so beautifully written it’s no surprise it was a National Book Award finalist. It remains a powerful and empathetic portrayal of class and gender differences in the 1950’s.

Prior to this book, Allison had published two volumes of poetry sharing the same main title, The Women Who Hate Me, and it’s interesting how she’s able to tamp that back and stay in the voice of the pre-teen first-person narrator, Ruth Anne Boatwright, whom everyone calls Bone, even as she reveals great depth and precision of language. Bone both lovingly and mercilessly describes the hard-drinking, violence-prone Boatwright men and the frustrated and hard-working Boatwright women. They may be poor—“trash” people call them and they call themselves—but they are tender toward Bone and her only thin protection against her mother’s new husband.

You may be familiar with the 1996 movie version of the novel, but I haven’t seen it. Anjelica Huston directed, and it starred Jennifer Jason Leigh, Ron Eldard, Christina Ricci, and Dermot Mulroney. Jena Malone played Bone. A 100% critics rating from Rotten Tomatoes!

Writing Tips from The Count

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Dracula's castle, Romania

Castle where Vlad the Impaler (“Count Dracula”) was imprisoned (photo: the author)

Inspired by Halloween’s rapid approach, the editors at Writers Digest have used the opening of Bram Stoker’s Dracula as a way to demonstrate 10 key writing techniques, as revealed in the book’s annotated version, with annotations by American horror author Mort Castle.

Among Castle’s observations are how tiny clues provide insight into the character of the book’s narrator, Jonathan Harker, including his domesticated notes to himself about getting recipes for his fiancee back in Victorian England. He praises how masterfully Stoker moves Harker through time and space to get the story moving, rather than lingering on blow-by-blow details of his journey to Hungary and on to Transylvania: “The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East; the most western of splendid bridges over the Danube, which is here of noble width and depth, took us among the traditions of Turkish rule.” Leaving the familiar, in other words, and crossing into the realms of the barely known.

A little further on, Stoker describes the people of the Transylvania region, “I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool.” Again, as Castle notes, he is setting the reader up for happenings that are beyond everyday knowledge. This must have been quite thrilling for people living in 1897 London.

There was a real Dracula, of course, a 15th c. leader of Wallachia, south of Transylvania. Here’s a well-regarded history of his cruel and violent rule—fighting those Turks, as well as his rivals—written by two Boston College history professors. Don’t read it unless you have a strong stomach. I couldn’t finish it. If Londoners nearly 120 years ago knew even dimly of this real prince, their bones were shivering from the start of Stoker’s tale!

Bad Ideas Don’t Become Good Books

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kindle, book, ereader

(photo: www.wired.com)

Helping writers become published seems like as big a big business as writing itself. And writing, we know, is huge. People will help writers write, help them self-publish, and help with the endless baffling tasks—finding an agent, managing a self-publishing path, and promoting their product. As a book nears completion, a writer’s anxiety grows, and the whole process of sending that precious baby out into the marketing void fills authors with not unreasonable qualms.

That some of these purveyors are unscrupulous goes with the territory. (See links below.) That some of them serve ideas that are cold potatoes, ditto. But every once in a while, amid the cacophony of advice available to writers, comes a message that may not be exactly new but really resonates.

Jane Friedman is a consistently reliable, forward-thinking writing-and-publishing commentator and pulls in mostly helpful guest posters on her blog. Recently she invited Laurie Scheer, “a seasoned development exec and writing mentor,” to talk about a topic most authors (me included!) would rather not examine: What if the fundamental idea for your book is, well, mediocre?

Scheer started off with three questions, then presented what I found the most helpful part of her post: an example.

The Three Questions

question, graffiti

(photo: farm4.static.flickr.com)

Every writer, she says, needs to have persuasive answers to these three questions on the tip of the tongue—for dealing with potential editors, agents, publishers, and the (eventual) marketing team and even the public. Why make this? Why make it now? and Who cares?

The answer to “why make this,” needs to describe what about a novel (or screenplay, for that matter) makes it unique, compelling, and authentic. For people who write in genre fiction—mystery, romance, science fiction, horror, and their permutations—this can be especially hard. A police procedural with a flawed detective? Divorced and drinks too much, perhaps? In truth, most plots have been done and done again—because they work—but something about them needs to be unique, compelling, and authentic. This is a flaw with many memoirs. Nothing new or insightful. That’s a hard message for writers delving into their own personal—and very likely painful—history.

Why make this now? Recognizing trends in the marketplace and when they’ve peaked suggests something about timing. In crime novels, the trend has been for ever-more inventive and grisly threats. This has upping the violence ante to the point of unbelievability, in my opinion. In one I read last year, a victim would awake standing up, with the lower half of his body encased in a block of ice. Nowhere did the text mention the amount of time it would take to freeze that much water, the noise of the generators producing sufficient cooling, how the equipment to do it was transported from one locale to another, in other words, a big “huh?”

And, the third question, who really cares? Who will pay good money to read this book? Herein is the flaw in the new Kindle Scout program—“reader-powered publishing for new, never-before-published books.” Potential readers help decide which books the program publishes and receive the book free if it’s selected. In other words, some of the people most interested in the book don’t have to pay to get it. (Thanks to Build Book Buzz’s marketing maven Sandra Beckwith for pointing this out.)

Here’s the Pitch

biological clock

(photo: fc05.deviantart.net)

Scheer gives this example of the kind of ideas writers often pitch in answer to the above questions:

A story about a 43-year-old unmarried woman who has had a successful career in advertising or law or pharmaceuticals or whatever, and decides at the last minute that her biological clock’s ticking and she wants to have a child.

Scheer says, “I will wait for the writer to tell me the rest of the story. And there is no rest of the story, because in their mind, that is the story.” A story that has been done many, many times. Some new element needs to be interjected to create new and unique conflicts (why now?). That new element might be one that would capture attention of some larger audience (who cares?). Perhaps the baby’s father should be a divorced police detective who drinks too much. Just kidding. Half.

So I’m going back to reexamine my pitch letters and make sure I’m not cutting short my three-sentence description of what my books are about before I get to “why now” and “who cares”!

Writer Resources

  • Preditors and Editors – this widely recommended website rates agents, editors, publishers, and many other businesses for writers. Though encyclopedic, it could use a makeover. Especially helpful would be dates added to its one-line reviews.
  • Writer Beware! – highly recommend website and blog maintained by Victoria Strauss for the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, but applicable to all writers. Especially helpful information on contracts, I’ve noticed. (Her take on Kindle Scout is here.)
  • Laurie Scheer’s new book—The Writer’s Advantage: A Toolkit (Amazon says Tookit) for Mastering your Genre. I ordered this book, and will review it here.

A Dining Room with a (What a!) View

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restaurant, Puglia, Italy, Grotta Palazzese

Ristorante Grotta Palazzese in Puglia, Italy (photo: hereandthere.eu)

At the end of a long week, I’m ready for nothing more challenging than some pretty pictures. And here’s a collection of photos of 35 restaurants with truly spectacular views! I thought some of the dining room vistas in the recent movie The Trip to Italy were beautiful, and here are more, culled from around the world. My favorites: #4 and #33. (The photo above is also from #4, Ristorante Grotta Palazzese in Puglia, Italy).

I hope the diners who patronize #23 never see the restaurant from the angle at which the photo was taken. Looks way too precarious in an earthquake-prone country! That would seriously interfere with my digestion.

#5, is pretty spectacular, too. Pictured below, it’s Ithaa Undersea Restaurant in Rangali Island, Maldives. “I’ll have the steak, please.” And the ladies’ room is NOT out back.

restaurant, fish, Maldives, Ithaa Undersea Restaurant

Ithaa Undersea Restaurant, Rangali Island, Maldives (photo: conradhotels3.hilton.com)

 

10-24-14 ***Still Life with Bread Crumbs

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Anna Quindlen, Still Life with Bread CrumbsBy Anna Quindlen (2014). Unanimity in my first book club meeting about this book—thin, unrevealing, wish fulfillment for 60-year-olds. This was my first Quindlen, so I was glad to hear from others who’ve read many more of her books that this one is an aberration. It’s the story of a dyed-in-the-wool Manhattan photographer, age 60, who moves to an upstate New York cabin to save money while she sublets her apartment.

The man who comes to evict the raccoons in her attic happens to be very handy around the house, in more ways than one, and her biggest quandary is whether to succumb to someone 15 years her junior. There are a few more plot elements, most of which lack believability, as does the portrayal of small-town life. But it’s well-written and an easy read for a day when you’re not up to much of a challenge.

I don’t scoff at reading for entertainment, but the “everything tied up neatly at the end with a bow on it” resolution strained my patience. The book group debated whether this was pure chick lit—I say “yes.”

Mysteriously, it was well reviewed. NPR said Quindlen “still has her finger firmly planted on the pulse of her generation.” Not so the 20 members of her generation in my book club. They were particularly riled by Joanna Rakoff’s New York Times review, which called the book “a feminist novel for a post-feminist age.” What could that possibly mean? Especially applied to a character notable for not taking charge of her life in any plausible way.

This is a book you can skim. It’s kind of like eating a Dunkin Donuts cruller. You know there’s no sustenance there, but if you’re in the right mood, it might taste pretty good.

Little Rock: An American Play

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Little_Rock_Desegregation

(photo: en.wikipedia)

Passage Theatre Company’s current production—Little Rock: An American Play (video)—presents a compelling dramatization of how nine black students integrated Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957. Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus allowed an angry, jeering mob of more than a thousand white protestors to intimidate the students, who, not unreasonably, feared for their lives. School desegregation was the law of the land, however, since the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown vs. Board of Education, and President Eisenhower sent in troops and federalized the Arkansas National Guard to protect the students. A Civil Rights landmark, this episode was the first major test of the strength of federal support for desegregation.

This production uses nine cast members—six black and three white—to portray dozens of roles: the nine students, their parents, teachers, other students, the protesters, local and national political leaders, and young television reporter Mike Wallace. Comments of a number of people external to the events—including Louis Armstrong, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Robinson, Lena Horne, Rosa Parks—are presented in vignette.

The show begins with a song, as the cast marches in, and music varies the already lively pace throughout. The single set, classroom desks facing the audience, gives the cast members a place to be while waiting their scenes in the spotlight at the front of the stage. More important, it is a constant reminder that all this turmoil was about only one thing: kids wanting an education—a good education. (That this dream still inspires and is not yet fully realized is evident not only throughout the United States, but in the 2014 award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai.)

The multi-talented cast brings playwright Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj’s conception to life. Little Rock is a reminder of what Passage Theater’s artistic director June Ballinger calls a “shameful time in American history” and of the healing that remains to done. Held over at Trenton’s Mill Hill Playhouse until November 2.

Museum Hours

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Pieter Bruegel, Museum Hours, Jem Cohen

“The Peasant Wedding” by Pieter Bruegel (photo: wikimedia.com)

Quick Netflix queue check: Is Museum Hours on your list? (trailer) If you put it there because you’re looking for an alternative to the deafening noise and frantic pace of action movies, you have succeeded. This 2012 drama was directed by Jem Cohen, the award-winning creator of numerous films about punk rock musicians, including Patti Smith. I haven’t seen those documentaries, but I’m guessing the quiet and snail’s pace of Museum Hours is a significant departure that takes the meaning of “art house film” literally.

Not overloaded with plot, the film includes lots of footage of paintings and sculpture and people looking at paintings and sculpture, a 15?-minute art appreciation monologue on the work of Pieter Bruegel, the point of which was that, in the panoply of people he scatters across his canvases, he doesn’t direct the eye to any single place. You can pick your own center. Each person portrayed is potentially equally important, regardless of the putative “subject” of the work.

That seems to be the Cohen’s point, too. That the two characters—a woman visiting Vienna to attend her comatose cousin—and a museum guard she meets by happenstance, are two random people and subjects as worthy of exploration as anyone else. That’s my guess, anyway.

Only three real speaking parts, all performed superbly: the guard, the out-of-towner, the museum lecturer. Not the comatose cousin. Much of the movie was filmed in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum. New York Times reviewer A.O. Scott gave it 5 stars and called it “quietly amazing, sneakily sublime.” Rotten Tomatoes called it “a mesmerizing tale.” Mesmerized, I fell asleep (briefly). Critics rating 94% — Audience: 59%. Like visiting an art museum without leaving home.

****Sandrine’s Case

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Sandrine's Case, Thomas H. CookBy Thomas H. Cook & narrated by Brian Holsopple. This psychological suspense novel provides a day-by-day recounting of the capital trial of Professor Samuel Madison, accused of the murder of his wife Sandrine. A first-person narration, Madison tells the reader up-front that he did kill her, which gives the author a tall mountain to scale in order to make this protagonist likeable, so he doesn’t try. The prosecutor, the police, his defense lawyer, possibly even Sandrine herself, and certainly the reader decide Sam is “one cold fish.”

Sam and Sandrine are erudite college professors at a second-rate college in a small Georgia town. He claims her death from too much alcohol and too many pills was suicide; the police and prosecutor think otherwise. He calls a note found by her deathbed a “suicide note,” but hasn’t read it. It turns out to be about her academic work, about Cleopatra, and when the police detective refers to “the Egyptian Queen,” Sam—instead of behaving like a recently bereaved husband, confronted with his dead wife’s last words—says, “Cleopatra was not Egyptian.” She was Greek, evidently. This and similar pedantics show how intellectually superior he feels to the authorities and the jury, an intellectual condescension that puts him, as he slowly realizes, in considerable risk of his life.

At first, the day in court punctuated by Sam’s lengthy flashbacks to his and Sandrine’s life together seemed awkwardly handled, though I got used to it. For the middle third of the book, I thought “too much Gone Girl,” but other readers will have to decide that for themselves. In a way, this book might not have worked if Gone Girl hadn’t preceded it. I can’t be sure, because I can’t unread those pages.

The plot is nevertheless intriguing and ends up in an interesting place. The characters—especially Madison’s attorney and several minor characters—are people the reader can imagine breathing real Georgia air. Not so much Sandrine and the daughter Alexandria, but that’s the thing with a first-person narration—is may just be that Madison’s view of them is not quite in focus, either. Holsopple does an excellent narration of most of the characters, especially the relentless prosecutor, but the venomous way his Alexandria spits out the word “Dad” in nearly every line of her dialog became like the jabbing bite of Cleopatra’s asp.

With Age Comes Apparel

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Advanced Style

The Stars of “Advanced Style”

Take New York Times street fashion photographer Bill Cunningham, add some Joan Rivers, Oprah, and Dr. Oz, and you’ve got the formula for the documentary Advanced Style (trailer here).

Photographer Ari Seth Cohen profiles seven fashionable ladies “of a certain age” (60s through 90s) whose sense of color, textures, and bold accessories (clunky cuff bracelets, enormous earrings, and oversize rings and eyewear) he discovered on the streets of Manhattan. Amazing photos of one of them—Tziporah Salamon—are included in this 40+ Style interview.

The women all have a back story, and not everything in their lives is ideal, but they are at ease with who they are. As one woman remarks, “I do a portrait with clothing. I build; I construct.”

Through Cohen’s blog and book, also titled Advanced Style, the women have been noticed by the advertising world in campaigns for Lanvin, and, oddly enough, KMart.

While engaging and entertaining, the documentary devolves into one-line tropes about aging, such as, “Everything I have two of, one hurts.” But overall, it’s worth trying on.

Guest Blogger Jodi Goalstone writes the highly entertaining blog: Going Yard, Offbeat Baseball Musings, currently showcasing the great writing coming out of the unexpected victories by Kansas City and San Francisco.