Dedicated to classics and hits.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

8 1/2 (1963) d. Federico Fellini

Anouk Aimee as Louisa, the Fellini character's wife/tormentor.

Book Review
8 1/2 (1963)
d. Federico Fellini
Criterion Collection #140

 One of the peculiarities of watching the Criterion Collection is that you are more likely to see the minor and/or early works of  particular canonical director.    Minor and early works are more often available and less often have a prior DVD edition, allowing Criterion to essentially introduce the film to their audience.   Minor and early works are also more likely to show up on the Criterion Collection Hulu Plus channel, which is why the sudden appearance of 8 1/2 in mid May of this year was such a surprise.

  Getting a handle on Fellini without 8 1/2 under your belt is nearly impossible.  It's also one of the quintessential "movies about making movies" that seem to substantially define the mindset behind the "art film" as a genre.   In it, Marcello Mastroanni plays Guido Anselmi AKA Federico Fellini. The plot concerns Anselmi/Mastroanni/Fellini's trials and tribulations immediately prior to the principle photography portion of a movie he is supposedly making.  The movie remains un named and undescribed, but it appears to be a grand, complicated affair.

  Anselmi's musings are nearly universal and concern the struggle about whether the creation of art is worth the effort.  The role of naysayer is tellingly played by Anouk Aimee as Luisa Anselmi, the wife of the director.  She inserts herself into a cozy weekend getaway for the director and his mistress, and it isn't long before she is talking about the lies he creates with his films, and how his art is ultimately self-serving, masturbatory and useless.  Ultimately, Anselmi abandons the film, though a cryptic/surreal ending hints that maybe his decision is subject to a later reversal.

  Through and through a masterpiece, 8 1/2 is a must if you have Hulu Plus- it was just uploaded, so don't delay in watching it lest they take it down before you get a chance to watch.
 

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Metamorphoses (8 AD) by Ovid

Bernini's The Rape of Prosperina (commonly called "The Rape of Persephone" illustrates a scene from Greek and Roman mythology that Ovid narrates in his Metamorphoses.

Book Review
Metamorphoses (8 AD)
 by Ovid
(LIBRIVOX FREE AUDIO VERSION- STREAM OR DOWNLOAD FREE AUDIO BOOK)

  The pre-18th century section of the 1001 Books list seems more arbitrary then the rest of the time periods, perhaps because so few books were selected.  The Odyssey and the Iliad are absent, as is the Aeneid.   There are no Greek plays included, and Plato's The Republic doesn't make the cut.  Perhaps it is because the Editors assume that anyone interested in a list of "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" will have already read The Odyssey and that The Republic isn't "literary" enough to merit inclusion. 

  Metamorphoses is a late Roman period compilation of Greek and Roman mythos, with a nod to historical and current events.  It contains everything from creation myths, to tales of war and adventure between humans and centaurs, to familiar "Greek" myths like those of Hercules and Perseus, to retellings of The Odyssey, The Iliad AND The Aeneid.   There is a loose chronological path from pre-human times of the Gods, through mythological times featuring interactions between gods and men, to historic times and current events.   There is no framing narrative by the author, the stories are just lumped together in a series of "Books."
Titian's Death of Actaeon is a familiar tale from Metamorphoses, where Actaeon is turned into a stag because he saw the Goddess Diana naked.

  It's worth reproducing the Wikipedia description of each book, I found myself looking at it consistently so I could figure out what was going on in each story. (1)  As I was reading this book, I gradually became aware that Metamorphoses is one of those key documents that inform the imagination of hundreds of years worth of artistic inspiration.

  Metamorphoses was never "lost" and so it was there at the beginning of the Renaissance when people were looking for a new ascetic.  Metamorphoses would have been fashionable, as it were, and it would have been a foundational text for any printing press in terms of a book that the public would want to purchase.   Although written as a lengthy poem, the text is readable as prose.  In this regard the Librivox version was sub-optimal and was just read as prose, not poetry.  I'm sure I liked the prose version more than I would have liked a version which attempted to preserve the pentameter of the Latin. 

  You can use Metamorphoses as a kind of handbook for artistic inspiration and tony sounding cultural references- in this regard the special Wikipedia page just for the characters in Metamorphoses would be useful.  In fact, I think Metamorphoses is more of a one-stop shop for a book on Greek and Roman mythology, and in that way it's maybe more crucial than The Odyssey or The Iliad.


(1)
  • Book IThe Creation, the Ages of Mankind, the flood, Deucalion and Pyrrha, Apollo and Daphne, Io, Phaëton.
    • Book XIV – Scylla and Glaucus (cont.), the pilgrimage of Aeneas (cont.), the island of Circe, Picus and Canens, the triumph and apotheosis of Aeneas, Pomona and Vertumnus, legends of early Rome, the apotheosis of Romulus.

    Friday, May 08, 2015

    Aesop's Fables (?) by Aesop

    Book Review
    Aesop's Fables (?)
    by Aesop
    Free Librivox Audio Book

      The 1001 Books project has a little pre 18th century section, which I've skipped up till now because there are like 10 titles and they are super random.  The pre 18th century portion includes this title and Don Quixote and a couple random Greek and Roman titles.  Aesop's fables are about 320 separate folk tables, all of which have a moral.  The phrase, "Don't count your chickens before they hatch." Is one line that we remember to this day, but almost all of the tales are recognizable to anyone who has grown up in the US, UK or Europe.

      Many, though not all of the Fables involve animals talking to one another.  It's "fun" to listen to the tales and speculate about links to a deeper Indo European folklore.  The most likely suspects are the tales involving animals common to Indo European family folklore: donkeys, rabbits, horses and lions.  Some of the fables are obviously non Indo European in origin and come from the wider tales of the Near East from the pre Greek area- tales about Monkeys- a decidedly non Indo European animal- stand out in particular.

     The reader also gets a good feeling for the world of these fables: farmers, smiths, herders, small villages and rural settings.  There are some forests, some Greek/Roman deities and the idea of married couples living together and raising children.   Although Aesop's Fables are often grouped in Greek/Roman literature, there is nothing particularly Greek about them, in the free version I read, the Gods were Roman and the tales seemed more Roman than Greek (the translation most people read was actually written during the Roman period by a Greek speaking author.

      It is hard to imagine a scenario where a reader would sit down and read "the book" of Aesop's fables, more likely is reading the tales aloud to a young trial, but who knows these days.  The Audiobook version ran about four hours for 300 fables.

    Monday, January 12, 2015

    Samurai Rebellion (1967) d. Masaki Kobayashi

    Masaki Kobayashi, director of J-Horror film Kwaidan and also Samurai Rebellioin, was an important Japanese film director in the 1960s.



































    Movie Review
    Samurai Rebellion (1967)
    d. Masaki Kobayashi
    Criterion Collection #310

      Masaki Kobayashi is better known for his early J-horror classic Kwaidan (also in the Criterion Collection), but Samurai Rebellion is impressive in its own way, with the inestimable Toshiro Mifune playing the lead role as Isaburo Sasashara, an initially faithful vassal in the late 18th century who is forced into rebellion when his liege lord first forces his son to marry a discarded mistress, then seeks her return after an untimely death makes her bastard son the next heir to the local feudal title.  Like many Samurai pictures, Samurai Rebellion keeps the potential for sword play close by but reserves actual action sequences until the final act.

     Instead, Samurai Rebellion is a rare-for-the-milieu classic "man against the system" tale.  Kobayashi focuses his eye on the injustic of the feudal system, and his feudal Japan is a critical perspective that delves deeper into the actual feudal relations between lord and liege in a way typically absent from Japanese Samurai pictures. 

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