In which I waffle about words, pointlessly and without brain.
Reason number 10927 why I love the Lord of the Rings movies.
At the end of The Two Towers. Frodo asks what they've got to live for, and Sam does not say 'hope'.
I mean, of course, he does. He totally does say hope, but he doesn't say it, the word does not pass his lips at any point. I don't know quite why this makes me so happy. Maybe because I have such an overwhelming sense that he is going to say it that I'm always pleasantly surprised by what he does say - but the writers are still clearly following the same thought process as me which is a comforting thing. It's just that there is something about the word 'hope' that is dangerously optimistic and I like dangerously optimistic films but...
Which makes me wonder about things like that. Words like hope, and freedom, and (more rarely) truth and justice, which get bandied about in popular fiction - especially audiovisual fiction of the Hollywood variety - and it doesn't make them any less admirable as concepts and aspirations but unless they're couched in a whole lot of well-written original plot (see The Wonderful O by James Thurber for a non-ironic use of 'freedom' that makes me happy) they tend to come over as Hollywood speechifying even when they turn up in real life. Which is a problem because sometimes they turn up in real life because politicians have seen too many movies. And sometimes they don't mean what they think they mean which only makes the words seem less worth saying. And yet, is there any other way of getting your point across when you're trying to talk about hope and freedom and, y'know, love and stuff? Am I just too lazy to find new and satisfactory ways of expressing the more optimistic side of things, or has our my own personal cultural context soured some of these words for me permanently?
... eh, I dunno. Mostly I suppose it sort of makes me happy because I am always afraid that in the same circumstances I would have put 'hope' even though I've had this thought. That would make me, in my own opinion, a fairly crap writer...
It is one of the things that appeals to me about the 300 trailer... they clearly are fighting for their freedom because those other dudes clearly want to run them through with big pointy sticks, but like, they don't say that, they mostly say 'You want to run me through with your big pointy stick? Fuck that!' (or in comic-book-Spartanese 'RAAAAAAAAARRRRRR! AAAARRRHHHHH! GRAAAHGH!' *splat*). They probably do say it in the film but then you never know, I think Frank Miller isn't really one for heartwarming unless it involves flesh and a cigarette lighter.
Anyway. Orchestra was fine and I am sleepy which probably contributes to the waffle. Piotr wrote the last bar of the cello part in his piece split in two and spread across two lines. Why? *boggles* Also there's a rest in the Mozart which I have missed every single time we've played it, which I don't understand at all. It is Mozart, it's in 3/4 time, it's a bar that begins with a whole crotchet rest instead of a quaver as in the preceeding two bars. All I have to do is not play anything for two beats. It is not exactly Steve Reich...
At the end of The Two Towers. Frodo asks what they've got to live for, and Sam does not say 'hope'.
I mean, of course, he does. He totally does say hope, but he doesn't say it, the word does not pass his lips at any point. I don't know quite why this makes me so happy. Maybe because I have such an overwhelming sense that he is going to say it that I'm always pleasantly surprised by what he does say - but the writers are still clearly following the same thought process as me which is a comforting thing. It's just that there is something about the word 'hope' that is dangerously optimistic and I like dangerously optimistic films but...
Which makes me wonder about things like that. Words like hope, and freedom, and (more rarely) truth and justice, which get bandied about in popular fiction - especially audiovisual fiction of the Hollywood variety - and it doesn't make them any less admirable as concepts and aspirations but unless they're couched in a whole lot of well-written original plot (see The Wonderful O by James Thurber for a non-ironic use of 'freedom' that makes me happy) they tend to come over as Hollywood speechifying even when they turn up in real life. Which is a problem because sometimes they turn up in real life because politicians have seen too many movies. And sometimes they don't mean what they think they mean which only makes the words seem less worth saying. And yet, is there any other way of getting your point across when you're trying to talk about hope and freedom and, y'know, love and stuff? Am I just too lazy to find new and satisfactory ways of expressing the more optimistic side of things, or has our my own personal cultural context soured some of these words for me permanently?
... eh, I dunno. Mostly I suppose it sort of makes me happy because I am always afraid that in the same circumstances I would have put 'hope' even though I've had this thought. That would make me, in my own opinion, a fairly crap writer...
It is one of the things that appeals to me about the 300 trailer... they clearly are fighting for their freedom because those other dudes clearly want to run them through with big pointy sticks, but like, they don't say that, they mostly say 'You want to run me through with your big pointy stick? Fuck that!' (or in comic-book-Spartanese 'RAAAAAAAAARRRRRR! AAAARRRHHHHH! GRAAAHGH!' *splat*). They probably do say it in the film but then you never know, I think Frank Miller isn't really one for heartwarming unless it involves flesh and a cigarette lighter.
Anyway. Orchestra was fine and I am sleepy which probably contributes to the waffle. Piotr wrote the last bar of the cello part in his piece split in two and spread across two lines. Why? *boggles* Also there's a rest in the Mozart which I have missed every single time we've played it, which I don't understand at all. It is Mozart, it's in 3/4 time, it's a bar that begins with a whole crotchet rest instead of a quaver as in the preceeding two bars. All I have to do is not play anything for two beats. It is not exactly Steve Reich...