(no subject)
I'd no idea it was the American independence holiday yesterday until late at night. I've been keeping to myself and not going out a whole lot, which should hardly surprise anyone. And I don't think I've turned on the telly in days. There was a time when I actually thought American programs were better than your typical BBC fare, but wasn't that long ago and far away. Now it's all people eating spiders and women getting their whole face redone just to see if some fool of a bloke will pick them over some other stupid cow. So when I started hearing large exploding sounds coming from down the street, I just about dived under my writing-desk, thinking, what the fuck, am I in the middle of a gang war? I'm lucky the kids weren't over; they would have just about pissed themselves laughing.
As I said, I had a quiet weekend. Spent one day watching a movie I hadn't seen in an age. Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo, or, for those of you not familiar with la lingua della Mamma Roma, "The Gospel According to St. Matthew." It was made in the Sixties by a bloke called Pier Paolo Pasolini, and if you haven't heard the name before, you'd do well to write it down if you care anything at all about cinema. It was filmed back in 1964, and it's about as simple looking a production as you'll ever see; no buckets of fake blood for this lot. Instead, Pasolini concentrates on faces. It's amazing what a real director can do with simple facial expressions; just frame them in the right sequence and the story tells itself. It's like a master croupier flinging the cards onto the table just so; it looks careless and haphazard, but the result is as practiced and calculated as an assassination. And he's not afraid to make it look like it was a miserable affair, being an apostle. The lot of them get hectored as badly as any Hollywood diva's personal assistant. You have to wonder which was the worse gig.
I think I would have done well back then, I do. It's hard for those of us who live in this nice clean time with well-swept floors to comprehend. Back then, everyone was up to their necks in shit and death. If it wasn't disease carrying you off, there wasn't enough food to eat, or some mad army of wanderers were stampeding into your village, burning your house, and making off with your livestock and most likely your wife as well. People were less attached to things then, because who knew when your number was going to come up. When things didn't work out, they didn't make such a fuss over it. Bloody hell, half the time there was some bloke coming through town saying the world was ending tomorrow, and who knew when the sodding Romans were going to come in and make the lot of us taste steel anyway?
I don't care what anyone says; every man, no matter who he is, wants to believe he's on a collision course with something bigger than himself. We're all suckers for that game; feed the soup to us in small enough spoonfuls and we'll eat anything you put in the bowl. Dress it up in any kind of clothes; God, country, freedom, money, women, ultimately the cause is just the MacGuffin. Bottom line is, we're all too eager to sign up for something that has us leave hearth and home, march in line, bear up under crushing heat and killing cold, and eventually get our arse shot away or hacked off. Because that's really the point, isn't it? We look at these ridiculous contraptions we call bodies every morning with fresh horror. Surely this package with little bits hanging off of it can't be all we are. There's got to be a way to outgrow it, supersede it. And if it means going off and dying, whether it be on a cross or a battlefield, it's still better than the alternative. That's why so many of the younger generation are down in the mouth today, I think. They've swapped that sense of largesse for a plasma screen and an Xbox. And at the end of the day, it's wanting.
Well, I suppose I'd better start wrapping up before Liu comes along and thumps me on the knuckles for being a gloomy Gus again. Work has died down for a bit; I've got about four things in the pipeline, and not a word on when or whether they'll see sunlight. Right now I'm waiting on a call to fly up to Norway and film a version of A Doll's House, where I'll be fortunate enough to work with the lovely
As I said, I had a quiet weekend. Spent one day watching a movie I hadn't seen in an age. Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo, or, for those of you not familiar with la lingua della Mamma Roma, "The Gospel According to St. Matthew." It was made in the Sixties by a bloke called Pier Paolo Pasolini, and if you haven't heard the name before, you'd do well to write it down if you care anything at all about cinema. It was filmed back in 1964, and it's about as simple looking a production as you'll ever see; no buckets of fake blood for this lot. Instead, Pasolini concentrates on faces. It's amazing what a real director can do with simple facial expressions; just frame them in the right sequence and the story tells itself. It's like a master croupier flinging the cards onto the table just so; it looks careless and haphazard, but the result is as practiced and calculated as an assassination. And he's not afraid to make it look like it was a miserable affair, being an apostle. The lot of them get hectored as badly as any Hollywood diva's personal assistant. You have to wonder which was the worse gig.
I think I would have done well back then, I do. It's hard for those of us who live in this nice clean time with well-swept floors to comprehend. Back then, everyone was up to their necks in shit and death. If it wasn't disease carrying you off, there wasn't enough food to eat, or some mad army of wanderers were stampeding into your village, burning your house, and making off with your livestock and most likely your wife as well. People were less attached to things then, because who knew when your number was going to come up. When things didn't work out, they didn't make such a fuss over it. Bloody hell, half the time there was some bloke coming through town saying the world was ending tomorrow, and who knew when the sodding Romans were going to come in and make the lot of us taste steel anyway?
I don't care what anyone says; every man, no matter who he is, wants to believe he's on a collision course with something bigger than himself. We're all suckers for that game; feed the soup to us in small enough spoonfuls and we'll eat anything you put in the bowl. Dress it up in any kind of clothes; God, country, freedom, money, women, ultimately the cause is just the MacGuffin. Bottom line is, we're all too eager to sign up for something that has us leave hearth and home, march in line, bear up under crushing heat and killing cold, and eventually get our arse shot away or hacked off. Because that's really the point, isn't it? We look at these ridiculous contraptions we call bodies every morning with fresh horror. Surely this package with little bits hanging off of it can't be all we are. There's got to be a way to outgrow it, supersede it. And if it means going off and dying, whether it be on a cross or a battlefield, it's still better than the alternative. That's why so many of the younger generation are down in the mouth today, I think. They've swapped that sense of largesse for a plasma screen and an Xbox. And at the end of the day, it's wanting.
Well, I suppose I'd better start wrapping up before Liu comes along and thumps me on the knuckles for being a gloomy Gus again. Work has died down for a bit; I've got about four things in the pipeline, and not a word on when or whether they'll see sunlight. Right now I'm waiting on a call to fly up to Norway and film a version of A Doll's House, where I'll be fortunate enough to work with the lovely