La Agrodolce Vita

FILM:

La Grande Bellezza - 2013
AKA The Great Beauty
Written by Paolo Sorrentino & Roberto Contarello
Directed by Paolo Sorrentino

It would be easy to dismiss this blogazine as primarily interested in lowbrow genre entertainments.  I feel that it would be inaccurate and unfair, but it would be easy, even excusable.  So, if for no other reason than rehabilitating that image, I'd like to add a little bit of highbrow fancy-pants foreign cinema to the mix.  But, that's not the only reason.  The fact is, I saw La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty) well over a month ago, and it has continued to resonate with me.

La Grande Bellezza is, in case you had not yet caught on, an Italian film, and it indulges with gusto in the kind of things that set European cinema apart from commercial American film, almost to the point of caricature.  That also just happens to be part of its greatness.  This film is absolutely head-over-heels in love with Rome, and part of that expression is to be the most Rome it can possibly be, and that includes cloaking itself Fellini-esque cinematic language.  This one goes to eleven.  Eleven Rome.

And that's apt, because its central character, Jep Gambardella is Eleven Rome.  He puts the romantic in roman antics.  He even savors his disdain for Rome, for it's the kind of disdain that only someone who loves it and knows it intimately can understand and appreciate.  When I say that Jep is central, I mean like the sun.  He is the gravity around which the entire film revolves.  A case could be made that Jep is the only one we can be certain truly exists, and all others are but part of the Rome he dreams.

The dream metaphor is no coincidence.  The entire film has a very dreamlike quality; not so much driven from scene to scene by the demands of plot as strolling through a series of gorgeous locations content that it doesn't need to get anywhere else but where it is in any given moment.  Each scene is worthwhile on its own merits, an experience to be drunk in, savored, and allowed to go to one's head.  This kind of languorous pacing will irritate and infuriate certain audiences, but let's not talk about them.  The wine is kicking in and I can't think of a single reason to invite them over when we're having such a nice time already...

The film opens with one vast Fellini-gasm as Jep and about a hundred living, dancing faces of Rome (there's even a little person, in an obvious nod to Fellini) bump, grind and extemporize their way through his 65th birthday.  Jep, you see, is the man.  He's the author of one smashingly successful novel who has spent that last 35 years getting by on that success, trading on reviews and talk panel appearances to fuel his life-of-the-party lifestyle.  He's a somewhat less tortured Roman Gatsby of sorts.  There is no one special in his life, and yet he loves all those in his orbit, probably because they each represent a sparkling facet of his true life partner; Rome.  It is, however, a detached kind of love, arguably narcissistic, because they merely reflect Rome's light, and he is the sun that shines upon it.  Rome might be his life partner, but it's not the passion.  Something is missing, and that may be why he hasn't written another book in 35 years.

Following the party, Jep gets to bed around sunrise, due for some serious sleep.  Because of this scene, I continued to believe that the rest of the movie would be a dream.  It never tipped its hat to this, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it wasn't.  He drifts between social engagements and placid moments of art appreciation.  People come into his life and leave; sometimes in ways that should be startling but aren't experienced as such by Jep.  It's a grand canvas smeared with emotional pigments, faded by the Roman sun.

I don't want to suggest that there is no narrative arc to La Grande Bellezza.  Jep's seemingly ephemeral wanderings of Rome each key into an ongoing personal development that doesn't really connect until deep into the third act, unlocking that which has remained bound deep inside him.  Even then, it still isn't handled in as definitive a manner as your average American film-goer has been trained to expect and thus demand.  This is a show, not tell kind of movie.  The feelings that we're given to deal with are not tidy, and are sometimes just plain confusing -- but isn't that a huge part of human emotion, after all?

Once seen, it almost goes without saying that it is visually gorgeous.  It's simply redundant, unless you're explaining it to one who hasn't seen it.  I hope the director got a kickback from the Roman tourism board, because every single frame is filled with something incredible to look at.  Jep's wandering a museum again?  Well why the hell wouldn't he?  He's surrounded with wonders and recognizes it; fills his life with it, and life becomes pretty wonderful even when sadness arises.

It was only after watching the movie that I found out it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.  It's pretty easy to see why.  It would never be included in a race of Hollywood/New York/London movies, but it wholly embodies its Italian foreign-ness.  The way that it embraced the Italian lifestyle, or a certain depiction of it, anyway, really stuck with me.  It was not at all unusual for the old and young to be enjoying life and partying together.  Generational separations meant far less than Italian togetherness.  Everyone was out enjoying their lives rather than huddled around their televisions in their homes secured against their sca-a-ary fellow countrymen.  That was certainly my experience 30 years ago when I was a student in France as well, and I appreciated the reminder.

La Grande Bellezza is what it says -- it's a painting, a sculpture, a chapel, a dance, a concerto, a work of heartfelt art.  It is a Great Beauty.

The Church of Kermit

FILM:
The Muppet Movie - 1979
Written by Jack Burns & Jerry Juhl
Music by Paul Williams
Directed by James Frawley
Produced by Jim Henson


I am deeply in love with The Muppet Movie; possibly even more now that I'm an adult than I did as a child.

The whole thing is a great big love letter to Imagination -- to the Muse, the Creative Spirit, to the flame in one's soul, Divine Inspiration, Dreams -- or as it's most commonly referenced in the film's metaphor of choice, the Rainbow.

The story is nothing new.  In fact it's something of an homage to musical comedies of the early silver screen.  The writers targeted the physical action to the kids, but the verbal dialogue is filled with gags for adults -- you know, like good family entertainment used to do.  Kermit starts out in his swamp, a mere dreamer, and over the course of his journey to Hollywood, accumulates a collection of similarly misfit dreamers, thus becoming a believer.

 A puppet in a swamp... think about it.

Just listen to those lyrics.  How passionately they love their muse.  I expect that Jason Segel, who wrote 2011's The Muppets sat crying tears of joy to this song (and its finale reprise) as a child, as did I and many other creative children who learned to value that voice from within.  While the film makes kind of a referential joke about the Muppets being accepted into Hollywood simply for making it there, it emphasizes the journey.  Kermit, Fozzie, Rowlf, Gonzo, etc. all feel within them that they have something to offer, and that there must be someone out there who wants and needs to hear that.  Not only do they overcome adversity (in Kermit's case, life-threatening opposition from an all-too-aptly metaphoric businessman who demands that he sell-out frogkind for an easy buck), but they find each other.  Their group provides not only support, but fellow travelers who pursue the call of the muse and recognize it in each other.  They don't merely seek support for their own specific dreams, but find the vision together of a better world created by dreamers.  Imagination is not just a thing; it's a way.

I believe it's no coincidence that it's in a church.

Again, listen to these lyrics.  To create, we must first imagine.  To imagine, we must allow ourselves, we must practice the craft of imagination.  "Use it if you need it, Don't forget to feed it, Can you picture that?"  Our imaginations are great tools, but also living things that need to be nurtured.  The lesson is hidden beneath the guise of a cartoonish version of psychedelia, but it conveys a fundamental and sadly, somewhat societally subversive message.  Isn't the biggest hurdle to making a new world in our collective ability to see it?

I actually own an original copy of this poster.

There's definitely a generational perspective at work in The Muppet Movie.  Post-hippie era performers raised on a mid-century film & television culture influenced by early film and vaudeville created this entertainment.  There's a respect for the past and a hope for the future.  In other words, it could be seen as anathematic to the jaded internet generation that seemingly does neither.  In respect to its forebears, The Muppet Movie is loaded with cameo appearances from both its mentors and its peer class.  Rather than listing them, here's one of the movie posters by poster god Drew Struzan...


The Muppet Movie was dedicated to the memory of Edgar Bergen, whose appearance was filmed shortly before his passing.

So, okay, yeah, family entertainment about "being true to yourself" and "counting on your friends" are not exactly rare, but ones that do it without being cloyingly saccharine and ringing of hollow compromise are not.  The Muppet Movie MEANS that.  That is its story, not just its catalyst for selling a new toy franchise.  The creative spirit is in the message as much as it is in the DNA.  The creators did things that hadn't been done before, showed us sights we'd never seen before.  When you realize that the movie was essential a contemporary of Star Wars, it's small surprise that these two creative forces would find areas of overlap and cooperation, most especially in Yoda, a key spiritual guru to generations since.

Now, as much as I've raved, there is one major negative to the movie, and indeed to the Muppets in general...

Miss Piggy is a straight-up bitch.

Yeah I said it.  She's a violent rage-beast with a screaming case of narcissistic personality disorder.  No, not mere narcissism of the "oh, you're so vain, isn't that cute?" variety, but a full-blown pathological case.  Throughout the movie, she ditches her "friends" to take a solo shot at fame and glory, only to come back when she needs their help again to achieve her self-centered goals.  She demonstrates no particular talent other than (alleged) beauty, seeking fame simply for fame's sake but offering nothing.  She threatens and assaults anyone who crosses her -- regardless of whether the crossing is real or perceived.  She is a terrible porcine being.  But she's blonde, so I can see her being a successful host on the Fox News channel.

Drew Struzan rules your lesser poster art!

I've always hated Miss Piggy, and it's been a lifelong bafflement to me that some women identify with her so strongly.  Not lately, perhaps, but she was once a popular identifier amongst the Long Island Iced Tea receptionist set.  I guess her modern equivalent would be Snooki.  In the 2011 comeback film, Piggy is handled as slightly less pathological, and slightly more competent -- a much needed change.  Nevertheless, I would strongly counsel Kermit against marrying this lifelong abuser. 

The Muppets, much as I love them, badly need better female characters.

Moving right along, I personally believe that The Muppet Movie (Miss Piggy notwithstanding) is an essential element to responsible parenting.  It encourages creativity, promotes diversity (hm, perhaps outside of gender), illustrates the power of true friendship and demonstrates the benefits of a commitment to perfecting one's craft.  So many family entertainments affect a happiness that comes from ignorant denial of life's hardships.  The Muppet Movie acknowledges that there will be adversity and people who don't understand your muse, and believes in the power of following it anyway until it leads us home, and home is other people sharing the same dream.

Der flim iss okey dokey!

Ain't No Party Like a Lemmon Party

FILM:

The Apartment - 1960

Written by Billy Wilder & I.A.L. Diamond

Directed by Billy Wilder

If you're anything like me (and God help you if you are), then you grew up familiar with Jack Lemmon as a primarily dramatic actor who slummed it in the "Grumpy Old" movies, and only occasionally remembered that he was Felix Ungar before Tony Randall. If you've made some effort, you'll also know Some Like It Hot. So it's been with no small amount of wonder and delight that I've been "discovering" more of his comedy work from the 60s recently. How To Murder Your Wife and Irma La Douce were among my favorite films viewed last year, and sometime down the road I'll tell you more of the why to that, but Lemmon was a key ingredient in both those pies. In the early-to-mid 60s, he could have walked away with the title "The Next Jerry Lewis." As Lewis' work was becoming more bitter and unkind (see: Hook, Line & Sinker -- or rather don't), Lemmon embodied a similar nebbishy, loosey-goosey enthusiasm and sweetness that Lewis had choked with sour grapes and pickled in scotch. Lemmon seems to have made a conscious effort to keep betting big on himself and his chops, to great success. The Apartment gives him plenty of opportunities to play with a range of emotions, writ both large and small.

Lemmon plays C.C.Baxter, a corporate cog with dreams of ambition. There are two significant locales in the film, and the one that's not the titular apartment is Consolidated Life of New York; an insurance corporation as soulless and impersonal as its acres of cold, sterile office spaces. Baxter is a minnow trying to swim with the sharks, but it's not his head for numbers that has made him popular with various department heads, but his callow willingness to let them use his apartment for liaisons their mistresses. Their casual disregard for him often keeps him waiting in the cold just to go home to his own place, which they have ransacked of booze and cheese crackers. Meanwhile, his landlady and her husband believe him to be an impossible lothario, owing to the ruckuses made by his self-serving bosses.

As shiny, austere and angular as the office is, his apartment is textural, cluttered and curvilinear -- a womb against an uncaring world which he allows to be violated by the same men who make the outside world so uncaring in the first place. Ralph Waldo Emerson said "I find that Americans have no passions, they have appetites." These are those Americans.

Baxter is interested in Miss Kubelik, an elevator operator at Consolidated Life of New York (an interesting name, given the closed atmosphere in which all aspects of one's life are pursued, and upon which all aspects appear dependent). Shirley MacLaine endows her with that jaded hope that no one else could do quite the same. She knows better, but she keeps following her heart into danger. The danger in this case is Mr. Sheldrake, one of the top corporate brass with whom she's had and off-and-on affair. It being "on" again, Sheldrake (played by Fred MacMurray with Romneyesque white-washed sleaze) takes an interest in Baxter, or more specifically, his apartment. The quid pro quo is that Baxter gets his own office while Sheldrake gets a key to the apartment. Baxter, unaware of the identity of the young lady in question, is filled with the confidence of a rising corporate raider, while his flirtations with Miss Kubelik seem to stall-out on the runway, owing to her renewed relations with their mutual employer.

After Sheldrake's secretary (and formerly featured flavor-of-the-year) Miss Olsen boozily sheds some light on his modus operandi during the company Christmas party, Miss Kubelik heads to the apartment to swallow a handful of sleeping pills. Meanwhile, Baxter, finally giving up on Kubelik, is about to "get lucky" with the floozy-ish wife of a jockey currently detained by Castro in Cuba. She fits the mold of all the corporately approved mistresses -- blonde, blowsy, and unburdened with an overabundance of brains. They all seemed to speak in that "yeah-yeah, sure-sure" Harley Quinn-y Brooklyn movie accent.

That's where things start happening very quickly. The get to his apartment. He discovers Miss Kubelik unconscious in his bed. He has to get rid of his date, roust the landlady's husband, Dr. Dreyfus to pump Miss Kubelik's stomach (later echoed in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous), keep Miss Kubelik awake long enough to be sure she won't die and chase off an amorous executive who did well at the Christmas party. All of these things are themselves made up of smaller comedy bits. It's kind of an atom smasher for "bits," all swirling together -- all the while never denying that it's still an attempted suicide scene. Though the scene is roughly in the middle of the film, it could easily be considered the climax in the story arc, with all previous scenes leading up to it and all following scenes being an untangling and categorization of the messes they've all made.

I'd like to avoid giving away endings as much as possible, so I'm going to leave off there, plot-wise. The Apartment is an unexpectedly adult comedy. I was going to say "for its time," but thinking about it, it's more mature than comedies in our time -- not just in its dealings with suicide, infidelity, and class warfare (well, we don't call it that when it's just the rich waging it), but in the emotional complexity of two people finding the nerve to really love honestly. There is a lot more going on here than the words they say. So much of the complexity is never spoken of, but shared via a continuum of emotional subtexts. Lemmon is harried and hopeful. He's aware of his struggle to become UNaware of the ways that he debases himself to climb, and finds the top to be the lowest place of all. MacLaine's eyes twinkle from within her dense canopy of eyelashes, that pursed smirk that says "Show me something, bud -- no, really, SHOW me something, please."

Everybody's Got a Hungary Heart

FILM:
The Shop Around the Corner - 1940
Written by Samson Raphaelson (see link for other credits)
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch


The Shop Around The Corner is best known nowadays as the movie that "You've Got Mail" was based on.

HEY WAIT, COME BACK! It's really okay!

While "Mail" has become a modern milestone for exceptional achievements in the saccharine arts, its predecessor delivers the genuine sweetness of vine-ripened fruit. The cast is rich and delicious with endearing performances from a cast that knows when to hurry up, when to slow down, and how to share the feeling of love among the family of employees at Matuschek & Co.

Jimmy Stewart is the head clerk at Matuschek & Co., a variety store in Budapest. He's Jimmy Stewart -- what more do you want? Mr. Matuschek, the store owner, is played by Frank Morgan (who you'll know as the Wizard of Oz) in the really show-stealing performance of the movie. Morgan must be at times arrogant, bumbling, suspicious, delighted, self-conscious, affectionate, furious, brokenhearted, magnanimous and suicidal, and he accomplishes all with such tenderness that you can even feel for him when he's airing the grievances of the capitalist.

There's no big-store-little-store plot thread here. Stewart's unlikely/obvious love interest is Margaret Sullavan, a street-smart gal in search of a job and a better class'a fella. The store owner hires her when she manages to flummox the infuriatingly in-charge Stewart. She's suitably sassy, daffy, snotty and adorable. Naturally she and Stewart get along like peas and catheters.

Other charmers in the cast are the sweetly downtrodden Pitrovich played by Felix Bressart, William Tracy as the delivery boy Pepi who becomes an overnight captain of industry when finally offered the chance to take his first step up the corporate ladder, and even Joseph Schildkraut was engaging as the obsequious proto-douche Vadas.

The character relations within the store define the narrative arc here. While the romance weaves in and out with increasing frequency, it's really the activities in the store, particularly the dynamic between Stewart and Morgan that give the story its momentum and heart.

"Best" of "2011"

The "best" of everything I read, saw, heard or played in 2011, regardless of its year of origin...

Books:

Wonder Struck by Brian Selznick (2011)
Fat Vampire by Adam Rex (2010)
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 2: Kingdom on the Waves by M.T. Anderson (2008)


Comics:

Habibi by Craig Thompson (2011)


Film:

Hugo, directed by Martin Scorcese (2011)


Films on Video:

Near Enough:
Cedar Rapids, directed by Miguel Arteta (2011)
Love and Other Drugs, directed by Edward Zwick (2010)
The King's Speech, directed by Tom Hopper (2010)
Tucker & Dale Versus Evil, directed by Eli Craig (2010)

Dipping Back a Bit:
Sullivan's Travels, directed by Preston Sturges (1941)
Singin' in the Rain, directed by Stanley Donen (1952)
Remember the Night, directed by Mitchell Leisen (1940)
Topper, directed by Norman Z. McLeod (1939)
Irma la Douce, directed by Billy Wilder (1963)
My Man Godfrey, directed by Gregory la Cava (1936)
Ninotchka, direct by Ernst Lubitsch (1939)
The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, directed by Irving Reis (1947)
The Lady Eve, directed by Preston Sturges (1941)
The Great Dictator, Directed by Charles Chaplin (1940)
Trouble in Paradise; directed by Ernst Lubitsch (1932)
How To Murder Your Wife, directed by Richard Quine (1965)


Television:

The only thing I HAVE to watch in a week is Community, but I have to give credit to Parks & Recreation for a REALLY good season so far.


Music:

Too little new stuff I've wanted to hear and too much good old stuff to choose either way. Dennis Coffey had a good one and I really enjoyed the Wake Up! RADIO remix of John Legend & The Roots' album from the previous year. The Roots' own Undun is pretty fantastic, and I really enjoyed following Madlib's Medicine Show releases.


Games:

LA Noire
Fallout: New Vegas
Call of Duty: Black Ops

the entire Nintendo DSi XL experience


Movement:

Occupy