"My weight is my love; by it am I borne wherever I am borne." -Augustine
I've been thinking about Good Time for 4 days now.
I don't even know that I can write out what I want to write out. I don't know how to do it. Kinda spoilerish paragraph below.
I was immediately drawn in by Safdie's performance as Nick. The opening of the film, through Nick's arrest and prison beatdown, held my attention like very little else has in the past year. Then, Nick is removed from the story and we follow Pattinson as Connie. As this middle portion meandered, I found myself increasingly irritated by its spiraling into action/crime mode, until the truly understated climax of that section, powerful because of its refusal to be a big moment, shifting attention from the capture to a contingent death, stressing the odd beat of fate. Then, the film shifts back to Nick, completing the frame, once again catching me off guard with my defenses lowered. I had heard the Iggy Pop already while going through the Pitchfork 100. Eh, whatever. But in the moment of the film, watching that oh-so-subtly powerful final scene, and then unexpectedly hearing that song as commentary over all that had gone before, I was wrecked and ruined in the best way, defenses down, crying over a movie. Catharsis, right?
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Saturday, March 17, 2018
Love My Way - Disordered
These are thy gifts; they are good, for thou in thy goodness has made them.
Nothing in them is from us, save for sin when, neglectful of order,
We fix our love on the creature, instead of on thee, the Creator.
(Augustine, City of God, XV.22)
“Let it be understood that I am a very prejudiced man. ‘Prejudiced’ means simply working from prejudgements, from previously acquired information.” -R.A. Lafferty
Disclaimer: I am prejudiced. I judge current information from previously established and accepted information. I have certain pre-judgments and pre-suppositions. This does not mean that my positions are irrational or uncharitable. Quite the opposite.
Likewise, you too are prejudiced and hold presuppositions, whether you have examined them or not.
I am ready to admit it. I don't know about you.
For the sake of this post, here is some of my own relevant previously acquired information:
Sex is a gift from God. We are male and female.
Sex is primarily procreative. It is fruitful. Its primary (though not exclusive) purpose is children.
Sexual activity outside of marriage is always a sin. There's even a fancy name for it: Fornication.
Marriage is by definition between a man and a woman. This has been understood pretty much universally for all of recorded history.
So, all homosexual sex is fornication. But, just to be clear, so is all heterosexual sex outside of marriage. Fornication. Sin. So is buggering a sheep or whatever your preference may be. I do believe that there are degrees of disorder, that buggering a sheep is worse than buggering a dude is worse than buggering a prostitute, etc, but all are fundamentally disordered expressions of sexuality.
Our current culture has rejected all of this. Sex is divorced from its purpose. It has nothing to do with new life. We do all that we can to suppress this truth, through propaganda, pills, rubber sheaths, and chemical acids. If new life does occur, we have ways of legally destroying that new life in an act of cruel violence. Scientifically, medically, the fetus is a human life. The difference between you and it is one of degrees, not one of kind. This is murder. We call it choice. Whatever it takes to have sex free from telos.
The popular opinion today is the opposite of what I've stated above. I believe that this popular opinion is fundamentally nihilistic and anti-nature, anti-life. It is irrational and inconsistent. It is quite simply ugly. It is folly.
Sex is a shackle of nature. You may have male bits or female bits, but that does not make you male or female and does not determine what your bits are for.
Sex is primarily self-expressive and designed for a moment of brute pleasure. It does not matter who or what you are penetrating as long as everyone feels good.
Non-consensual sex is the only sexual sin.
Marriage is by definition whatever the hell we say it is. It's a societal construct, a legal fiction, designed primarily to recognize feelings and not to protect a structural bond for the good of society.
We have an abundance of pornography. This is ostensibly what men want. Beyond naked women, most pornography today features men with hard erections, being men. Anal sex and oral sex are common. No possibility of new life. Men ejaculate everywhere but into a vagina. So it goes. The men who watch this do the same. They service themselves while watching other unfruitful conquests. Men watching other men while touching themselves is at the root of most pornography. Most pornography is the celebration of the penis. The only thing nearly as popular is watching women pleasure themselves with no man around at all. (Please correct me if my understanding of contemporary pornography is wrong; my understanding is based on Hollywood perversions and secondhand accounts. Maybe I'm wrong and all pornography is mild long shot missionary position.)
Into this context, we hear a statement like, "Call me by your name and I will call you by my name."
If that's not as fuck-all masturbatory as possible, I don't know what is. Call me by your name. I will call you by my name. I am fucking myself. You are fucking yourself. Mutual masturbation. This is love? No.
[as an aside: I'm using strong language for emphasis, because we already live in an "R/X-rated" world of discourse, as evidenced by this film. I'll be very happy to return to more civilized language when we return to more civilized films]
The title of the film alone condemns itself. And yet no one sees this. What the hell is wrong with us?
Hell.
During the first sexual encounter between Elio and Oliver, the camera pans from their bed to out the window to a fruit tree. This is a damnable lie, equating their experience with any sort of fruit. Homosexual sex by definition is fruitless. That said, I do think that the symbolism is elsewhere, that of the apricot. A short season. Something that is delicious while it lasts, but cannot last. (but this too is problematic; the film celebrates this short-term embrace as something good. even the discarded girl comes back at the end to say that all is right with her. all affairs are good in this film. all sex is good. eat as many apricots as you can. The season is short. No one is hurt by this. It is nothing but a positive experience.)
Which does bring me to appreciating the film. As much as I disagree strongly with its final message, I do think that it is a skillful work. It communicates the joys and pains of fleeting romances. These are real. If I think that the film focuses on the joys over the pains, it doesn't change the fact that the film contains both. The film does capture a moment in time. I even think that it's fairly fair in its portrayal. Others see the Elio-Oliver romance as something mutual and consensual. I tend to see it as an act of predatory grooming and naive embrace from a boy who has no friends and no life. Oliver's actions are self-seeking. Elio's infatuation is a pathetic puppy dog desire. I actually think that my interpretation of the Elio obsession as dangerously negative is better supported from the text of the film, but I think that the film itself wants to suggest that the romance is a positive for all involved.
The fruit trees are a constant. So is the "shape of water" and it is interesting to watch how water features in this film. There is strong symbolism at work that is reinforced visually and verbally. There are some interesting things happening in the visual construction of the film.
I disagree strongly with Brandon that there is any Rohmer connection. That's wrong. I do think that there is a shallow, surface similarity. I get why he said it. There is philosophical talk. And the rural setting of Italy is sometimes similar visually to the rural setting of France. But CMBYN doesn't ultimately care about its talk. The philosophical beats in the film are part of the music, punctuating the drama. The camera in CMBYN is much more active and fluid, always in motion, than Rohmer's. In Rohmer, the talk is given time to develop. Talk is important. In CMBYM, the talk is not ultimately important. It is a signifier to situate the characters, a kind of shorthand. It almost always advances or comments upon the plot. It has a dynamic quaility, a forward momentum that Rohmer is uninterested in. CMBYN is ultimately didactic (even if subtly so) in a way that Rohmer never is. Also, I'd be willing to bet that CMBYN has three times as many cuts as any single Rohmer film.
Following that, the musicality of CMBYN is one of its strengths and weaknesses. The score (and diegetic sound) is always in service of the plot. It is not a traditional Hollywood manipulative score, but I have not encountered such a non-traditional traditionally manipulative score like this since Under the Skin. It is not what you expect, masking the fact that it is always giving strong emotional cues.
Eh, I do think that this is a dangerous film. It's probably not anywhere near as dangerous as that execrable piece of filth, The Shape of Water. CMBYN can at least be respected because it explores a very particular and real experience. The Shape of Water is worse because it aspires to be a fairy tale that works in universals, boldly attempting to shape the hearts of its viewers through story and metaphor.
What is wrong about CMBYN is not that it explores desire. Desire should be explored. Even disordered desire should be explored. There is a real sense in which all men desire other men. Sexually. Because we are sexed. We don't do anything apart from our sex. If we recognize something attractive in other men, we recognize it sexually. It is how this is done and expressed that is at issue.
All good things can be disordered.
Love can be disordered.
Sex can be disordered.
Any system that says that there is no possibility of disorder and all is permitted is insane. We are currently navigating the insane.
I view CMBYN as an example of disordered desire, disordered love, disordered sexuality. It seems to present itself as an instance of fully recognized good, something too often suppressed which is nonetheless beautiful. It blames a stifling culture and lack of acceptance. In the end, I actually think that the film portrays the emptiness and fruitlessness of pederasty and homosexuality. But I understand that others will think that the frustrations of the ending are simply the forced consensus of a culture which still cannot tolerate such high expressions of "love" as two guys bonking.
Speaking of two guys bonking, we can be assured that no anal sex happened, since there are always shots of the two of them getting on bikes the next day after their encounters. Things feel good.
This is classic pederasty, the ancient Greek and Roman kind. An older man grooming a younger man. The preferred form of sex was intercrural. The film does from the very beginning connect itself to classical civilization. Pederasty was a very real part of this culture. If you were a young boy of privilege, you hoped for an older man to demonstrate his manhood between your thighs. High culture.
This "review" has already spiraled out of control. I felt the need for a "Christian Sexual Ethics 101" above because my response to the film does not make sense without it. I know that you all disagree with my position. So it goes. Am I intolerant? Yes. Do I have some sort of phobia? I don't think so. Am I hateful? Absolutely not.
I believe that the Christian account of human sexuality is the best explanation of human sexuality and provides a framework for human sexuality to flourish in rightly ordered relationships. Without it, relationships fall into wreck and ruin. Disorder reigns. If you believe that there are no such things as rightly ordered relationships, then of course you will disagree with me. But I hope that you'll be charitable toward me and at least entertain the possibility that I am correct. And that if I am correct, then our culture is facing a sexual crisis and CMBYN is simply one small symptomatic expression of a widespread dis-ease.
"How then, according to reason, ought man to live? We all certainly desire to live happily; and there is no human being but assents to this statement almost before it is made. But the title happy cannot, in my opinion, belong either to him who has not what he loves, whatever it may be, or to him who has what he loves if it is hurtful or to him who does not love what he has, although it is good in perfection. For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture, and one who has got what is not desirable is cheated, and one who does not seek for what is worth seeking for is diseased. Now in all these cases the mind cannot but be unhappy, and happiness and unhappiness cannot reside at the same time in one man; so in none of these cases can the man be happy." -Augustine
------
I watched CMBYN in two parts. About 40 minutes early in the morning, then finishing the rest in the evening. During the first 40 minutes, I took notes on my laptop while watching. I'm including them here below because otherwise I guess I'd just delete them. I did not take any notes on the rest of the film. And the funny thing is that I didn't even look at these notes when I wrote the above. But just paying closer attention and noting things did affect what I wrote.
-----
Opening credits. Photos of statuary link the film to classical art. Stocatto piano piece, punctuated with passion. Modern elements slowly overlayed over classical elements.
Summer 1983.
Girl on bed. bare chested boy
somewhere in northern italy
already too much intercutting to be anything like Rohmer, brando.
Armie Hammer arrives. Seen from above. Disorienting. camera moving, moving.
Hammer in bed within 5 minutes of opening.
listening to music on headphones while storm rages outside. indicating outside forces breaking his calm. bell rings. called to dinner. wakes up Hammer. Hammer stays in bed. In Elio's "old room." which he has now completely taken over.
Hammer descends into light, refreshed, dressed in white. out back w/ professor. son. mother. wants to open a "local bank account"
local trees. local fruit.
Attention to star of David necklace.
transition. on bicycles. two riding into town.
what does one do around here? boredom.
Jewish? both Jewish. odd jew out.
read books. transcribe music. swim at the river. sounds fun.
alright buddy. thanks for the help. power dynamics. first touch. grooming going on.
back at house. piano raucous. stimulating work discussions. Elio observant.
Arabic to Italian. Latin from Greek. Etymology. Playful intellect. Plenty of cross cutting. reaction shots. testing. responses.
two walking into town again. into bar. younger observing older. older permitting younger. younger joining closer.
girls. observing volley ball. sun. minimal clothing. sexuality. judgment. Elio given water. Oliver swoops in and grabs it instead. More grooming. Touch. Touch. Touch. Making things acceptable by bringing a girl in. Easing the transition.
bathroom. shaving. Elio feeling like a man who needs to shave.
dinner party. sparkling wine. Elio stepping up, mocking Oliver before he arrives. grow to like him or grow to hate him. always oriented toward him.
inside. tv. nightcaps. sleepy. boredom. hints that Elio is drunk. also that he may be hanging around waiting for Oliver. plays piano. showtunish. goes to bed. undresses. restless.
new morning. fruit trees. oliver returns. out all night. elio awakens. touches himself. oliver walks in. what are you doing? reading. how come you're not with everyone else? allergies. me too. maybe we have the same one. why don't you and I go swimming. naked butts. swim suits.
swimming together. what are you doing? oliver's continued question to elio. prodding. prodding. leaves when elio won't play his what are you thinking game.
elio playing guitar. olver: sounds nice. more games. inside to piano. elio plays. music is important. lizt playing bach. play inside the thing played outside. elio in control but taking cues from oliver. brezzoni playing lizt playing back. playful. gives way to playing original. young bach.
in bed. scribbling notes. leaving notes. communicating
old man bringing fish. the shape of water.
shot of swimming hole. two back at hole. lounging around. philosophy talk. Heidegger. probably important. goes by quickly. "kindest thing anybody has said to me." more grooming.
party. mixed sex. relationship talk. oliver conquering female while elio observes.
80s touches. love my way.
elio joins the dance. picks a girl and swims with her. girl recognizes that she is second or third choice. swimming previously associated with oliver exclusively.
morning post-game talk. something dug up out of the water.
girl comes by for oliver. not elio. triangle. he's good-looking, no? oliver shows elio how it's done. boys talk girls. almost wearing the same shirt. stripes up. stripes across. oliver invited up to front seat. triangle with dad as well as girl.
at digging site. piano. mystery. at beach. finds arm. part of statue. ship. statue. gift from lover. bring up statue OUT OF WATER. penis on statue.
dad would like to go for a swim. the three go out in the water together.
get home. elio runs out. gets on bicycle. dad gets oliver to go out for drink.
waking up again. elio. hesitant piano notes. piano theme develops slowly.
elio finds cosmic fragments. letter inside - "meaning of river flowing" in oliver's voice. again, water. Heraclitus' famous problem.
Nothing in them is from us, save for sin when, neglectful of order,
We fix our love on the creature, instead of on thee, the Creator.
(Augustine, City of God, XV.22)
“Let it be understood that I am a very prejudiced man. ‘Prejudiced’ means simply working from prejudgements, from previously acquired information.” -R.A. Lafferty
Disclaimer: I am prejudiced. I judge current information from previously established and accepted information. I have certain pre-judgments and pre-suppositions. This does not mean that my positions are irrational or uncharitable. Quite the opposite.
Likewise, you too are prejudiced and hold presuppositions, whether you have examined them or not.
I am ready to admit it. I don't know about you.
For the sake of this post, here is some of my own relevant previously acquired information:
Sex is a gift from God. We are male and female.
Sex is primarily procreative. It is fruitful. Its primary (though not exclusive) purpose is children.
Sexual activity outside of marriage is always a sin. There's even a fancy name for it: Fornication.
Marriage is by definition between a man and a woman. This has been understood pretty much universally for all of recorded history.
So, all homosexual sex is fornication. But, just to be clear, so is all heterosexual sex outside of marriage. Fornication. Sin. So is buggering a sheep or whatever your preference may be. I do believe that there are degrees of disorder, that buggering a sheep is worse than buggering a dude is worse than buggering a prostitute, etc, but all are fundamentally disordered expressions of sexuality.
Our current culture has rejected all of this. Sex is divorced from its purpose. It has nothing to do with new life. We do all that we can to suppress this truth, through propaganda, pills, rubber sheaths, and chemical acids. If new life does occur, we have ways of legally destroying that new life in an act of cruel violence. Scientifically, medically, the fetus is a human life. The difference between you and it is one of degrees, not one of kind. This is murder. We call it choice. Whatever it takes to have sex free from telos.
The popular opinion today is the opposite of what I've stated above. I believe that this popular opinion is fundamentally nihilistic and anti-nature, anti-life. It is irrational and inconsistent. It is quite simply ugly. It is folly.
Sex is a shackle of nature. You may have male bits or female bits, but that does not make you male or female and does not determine what your bits are for.
Sex is primarily self-expressive and designed for a moment of brute pleasure. It does not matter who or what you are penetrating as long as everyone feels good.
Non-consensual sex is the only sexual sin.
Marriage is by definition whatever the hell we say it is. It's a societal construct, a legal fiction, designed primarily to recognize feelings and not to protect a structural bond for the good of society.
We have an abundance of pornography. This is ostensibly what men want. Beyond naked women, most pornography today features men with hard erections, being men. Anal sex and oral sex are common. No possibility of new life. Men ejaculate everywhere but into a vagina. So it goes. The men who watch this do the same. They service themselves while watching other unfruitful conquests. Men watching other men while touching themselves is at the root of most pornography. Most pornography is the celebration of the penis. The only thing nearly as popular is watching women pleasure themselves with no man around at all. (Please correct me if my understanding of contemporary pornography is wrong; my understanding is based on Hollywood perversions and secondhand accounts. Maybe I'm wrong and all pornography is mild long shot missionary position.)
Into this context, we hear a statement like, "Call me by your name and I will call you by my name."
If that's not as fuck-all masturbatory as possible, I don't know what is. Call me by your name. I will call you by my name. I am fucking myself. You are fucking yourself. Mutual masturbation. This is love? No.
[as an aside: I'm using strong language for emphasis, because we already live in an "R/X-rated" world of discourse, as evidenced by this film. I'll be very happy to return to more civilized language when we return to more civilized films]
The title of the film alone condemns itself. And yet no one sees this. What the hell is wrong with us?
Hell.
During the first sexual encounter between Elio and Oliver, the camera pans from their bed to out the window to a fruit tree. This is a damnable lie, equating their experience with any sort of fruit. Homosexual sex by definition is fruitless. That said, I do think that the symbolism is elsewhere, that of the apricot. A short season. Something that is delicious while it lasts, but cannot last. (but this too is problematic; the film celebrates this short-term embrace as something good. even the discarded girl comes back at the end to say that all is right with her. all affairs are good in this film. all sex is good. eat as many apricots as you can. The season is short. No one is hurt by this. It is nothing but a positive experience.)
Which does bring me to appreciating the film. As much as I disagree strongly with its final message, I do think that it is a skillful work. It communicates the joys and pains of fleeting romances. These are real. If I think that the film focuses on the joys over the pains, it doesn't change the fact that the film contains both. The film does capture a moment in time. I even think that it's fairly fair in its portrayal. Others see the Elio-Oliver romance as something mutual and consensual. I tend to see it as an act of predatory grooming and naive embrace from a boy who has no friends and no life. Oliver's actions are self-seeking. Elio's infatuation is a pathetic puppy dog desire. I actually think that my interpretation of the Elio obsession as dangerously negative is better supported from the text of the film, but I think that the film itself wants to suggest that the romance is a positive for all involved.
The fruit trees are a constant. So is the "shape of water" and it is interesting to watch how water features in this film. There is strong symbolism at work that is reinforced visually and verbally. There are some interesting things happening in the visual construction of the film.
I disagree strongly with Brandon that there is any Rohmer connection. That's wrong. I do think that there is a shallow, surface similarity. I get why he said it. There is philosophical talk. And the rural setting of Italy is sometimes similar visually to the rural setting of France. But CMBYN doesn't ultimately care about its talk. The philosophical beats in the film are part of the music, punctuating the drama. The camera in CMBYN is much more active and fluid, always in motion, than Rohmer's. In Rohmer, the talk is given time to develop. Talk is important. In CMBYM, the talk is not ultimately important. It is a signifier to situate the characters, a kind of shorthand. It almost always advances or comments upon the plot. It has a dynamic quaility, a forward momentum that Rohmer is uninterested in. CMBYN is ultimately didactic (even if subtly so) in a way that Rohmer never is. Also, I'd be willing to bet that CMBYN has three times as many cuts as any single Rohmer film.
Following that, the musicality of CMBYN is one of its strengths and weaknesses. The score (and diegetic sound) is always in service of the plot. It is not a traditional Hollywood manipulative score, but I have not encountered such a non-traditional traditionally manipulative score like this since Under the Skin. It is not what you expect, masking the fact that it is always giving strong emotional cues.
Eh, I do think that this is a dangerous film. It's probably not anywhere near as dangerous as that execrable piece of filth, The Shape of Water. CMBYN can at least be respected because it explores a very particular and real experience. The Shape of Water is worse because it aspires to be a fairy tale that works in universals, boldly attempting to shape the hearts of its viewers through story and metaphor.
What is wrong about CMBYN is not that it explores desire. Desire should be explored. Even disordered desire should be explored. There is a real sense in which all men desire other men. Sexually. Because we are sexed. We don't do anything apart from our sex. If we recognize something attractive in other men, we recognize it sexually. It is how this is done and expressed that is at issue.
All good things can be disordered.
Love can be disordered.
Sex can be disordered.
Any system that says that there is no possibility of disorder and all is permitted is insane. We are currently navigating the insane.
I view CMBYN as an example of disordered desire, disordered love, disordered sexuality. It seems to present itself as an instance of fully recognized good, something too often suppressed which is nonetheless beautiful. It blames a stifling culture and lack of acceptance. In the end, I actually think that the film portrays the emptiness and fruitlessness of pederasty and homosexuality. But I understand that others will think that the frustrations of the ending are simply the forced consensus of a culture which still cannot tolerate such high expressions of "love" as two guys bonking.
Speaking of two guys bonking, we can be assured that no anal sex happened, since there are always shots of the two of them getting on bikes the next day after their encounters. Things feel good.
This is classic pederasty, the ancient Greek and Roman kind. An older man grooming a younger man. The preferred form of sex was intercrural. The film does from the very beginning connect itself to classical civilization. Pederasty was a very real part of this culture. If you were a young boy of privilege, you hoped for an older man to demonstrate his manhood between your thighs. High culture.
This "review" has already spiraled out of control. I felt the need for a "Christian Sexual Ethics 101" above because my response to the film does not make sense without it. I know that you all disagree with my position. So it goes. Am I intolerant? Yes. Do I have some sort of phobia? I don't think so. Am I hateful? Absolutely not.
I believe that the Christian account of human sexuality is the best explanation of human sexuality and provides a framework for human sexuality to flourish in rightly ordered relationships. Without it, relationships fall into wreck and ruin. Disorder reigns. If you believe that there are no such things as rightly ordered relationships, then of course you will disagree with me. But I hope that you'll be charitable toward me and at least entertain the possibility that I am correct. And that if I am correct, then our culture is facing a sexual crisis and CMBYN is simply one small symptomatic expression of a widespread dis-ease.
"How then, according to reason, ought man to live? We all certainly desire to live happily; and there is no human being but assents to this statement almost before it is made. But the title happy cannot, in my opinion, belong either to him who has not what he loves, whatever it may be, or to him who has what he loves if it is hurtful or to him who does not love what he has, although it is good in perfection. For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture, and one who has got what is not desirable is cheated, and one who does not seek for what is worth seeking for is diseased. Now in all these cases the mind cannot but be unhappy, and happiness and unhappiness cannot reside at the same time in one man; so in none of these cases can the man be happy." -Augustine
------
I watched CMBYN in two parts. About 40 minutes early in the morning, then finishing the rest in the evening. During the first 40 minutes, I took notes on my laptop while watching. I'm including them here below because otherwise I guess I'd just delete them. I did not take any notes on the rest of the film. And the funny thing is that I didn't even look at these notes when I wrote the above. But just paying closer attention and noting things did affect what I wrote.
-----
Opening credits. Photos of statuary link the film to classical art. Stocatto piano piece, punctuated with passion. Modern elements slowly overlayed over classical elements.
Summer 1983.
Girl on bed. bare chested boy
somewhere in northern italy
already too much intercutting to be anything like Rohmer, brando.
Armie Hammer arrives. Seen from above. Disorienting. camera moving, moving.
Hammer in bed within 5 minutes of opening.
listening to music on headphones while storm rages outside. indicating outside forces breaking his calm. bell rings. called to dinner. wakes up Hammer. Hammer stays in bed. In Elio's "old room." which he has now completely taken over.
Hammer descends into light, refreshed, dressed in white. out back w/ professor. son. mother. wants to open a "local bank account"
local trees. local fruit.
Attention to star of David necklace.
transition. on bicycles. two riding into town.
what does one do around here? boredom.
Jewish? both Jewish. odd jew out.
read books. transcribe music. swim at the river. sounds fun.
alright buddy. thanks for the help. power dynamics. first touch. grooming going on.
back at house. piano raucous. stimulating work discussions. Elio observant.
Arabic to Italian. Latin from Greek. Etymology. Playful intellect. Plenty of cross cutting. reaction shots. testing. responses.
two walking into town again. into bar. younger observing older. older permitting younger. younger joining closer.
girls. observing volley ball. sun. minimal clothing. sexuality. judgment. Elio given water. Oliver swoops in and grabs it instead. More grooming. Touch. Touch. Touch. Making things acceptable by bringing a girl in. Easing the transition.
bathroom. shaving. Elio feeling like a man who needs to shave.
dinner party. sparkling wine. Elio stepping up, mocking Oliver before he arrives. grow to like him or grow to hate him. always oriented toward him.
inside. tv. nightcaps. sleepy. boredom. hints that Elio is drunk. also that he may be hanging around waiting for Oliver. plays piano. showtunish. goes to bed. undresses. restless.
new morning. fruit trees. oliver returns. out all night. elio awakens. touches himself. oliver walks in. what are you doing? reading. how come you're not with everyone else? allergies. me too. maybe we have the same one. why don't you and I go swimming. naked butts. swim suits.
swimming together. what are you doing? oliver's continued question to elio. prodding. prodding. leaves when elio won't play his what are you thinking game.
elio playing guitar. olver: sounds nice. more games. inside to piano. elio plays. music is important. lizt playing bach. play inside the thing played outside. elio in control but taking cues from oliver. brezzoni playing lizt playing back. playful. gives way to playing original. young bach.
in bed. scribbling notes. leaving notes. communicating
old man bringing fish. the shape of water.
shot of swimming hole. two back at hole. lounging around. philosophy talk. Heidegger. probably important. goes by quickly. "kindest thing anybody has said to me." more grooming.
party. mixed sex. relationship talk. oliver conquering female while elio observes.
80s touches. love my way.
elio joins the dance. picks a girl and swims with her. girl recognizes that she is second or third choice. swimming previously associated with oliver exclusively.
morning post-game talk. something dug up out of the water.
girl comes by for oliver. not elio. triangle. he's good-looking, no? oliver shows elio how it's done. boys talk girls. almost wearing the same shirt. stripes up. stripes across. oliver invited up to front seat. triangle with dad as well as girl.
at digging site. piano. mystery. at beach. finds arm. part of statue. ship. statue. gift from lover. bring up statue OUT OF WATER. penis on statue.
dad would like to go for a swim. the three go out in the water together.
get home. elio runs out. gets on bicycle. dad gets oliver to go out for drink.
waking up again. elio. hesitant piano notes. piano theme develops slowly.
elio finds cosmic fragments. letter inside - "meaning of river flowing" in oliver's voice. again, water. Heraclitus' famous problem.
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
Call Me by Your Cop Car
I still haven't seen either March pick. Thanks a lot, Mike O’D.
Since my last post, I’ve watched:
Ocean’s 11 and Logan Lucky. It turns out that I kinda hate Soderbergh’s takes on the heist film. Both movies play more like over-the-top Mission:Impossible fantasy than any sort of plausible heist. These are no Rififi or Asphalt Jungle. I was thinking about it, that maybe there have not been any great heist films recently. Then I remembered the Breaking Bad episode “Dead Freight” and a few other solid episodes. Still ridiculous and implausible if you think about it too much, but Breaking Bad always worked at a slower pace and made the criminal escapades believable, anchored in a heightened realism.
I gave up on Ocean’s 12 after 20 minutes.
Brawl in Cell Block 99 somehow still succeeds as thrillingly violent pulp entertainment in spite of featuring the most blatant Mary Sue protagonist I’ve seen in a while. Which I guess just might be part of the genre trappings.
Dirty is a grimy low-budget crooked cop movie from 2005 that no one needs to ever watch. It’s stupid, but almost willfully so, to the point which makes you almost kind of like it for being so stupid.
I want to re-watch Chris Rock’s new special, Tamborine. It is evidence of a performer working at the top of his game. He makes it look effortless. I’ve always liked Rock and really began to respect him after Good Hair. Tamborine is mature Rock. He’s still crass and vulgar, but beneath the surface is sadness and regret, a grasping at repentance and penance that is quite striking. In a surprising way, Tamborine might be the most conservative movie of the year, a call to treasure and conserve the things in our lives that really matter, clinging to those you love instead of chasing worthless distractions.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is an action remake of The Breakfast Club. I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting that. I don't know what else to write about it besides that sometimes a man just needs to sit in the dark eating popcorn and candy. This movie provided me an opportunity to do that and for that I am grateful.
TV Club?
Not much. I did watch another episode of Future Man, then completely gave up on it. The joke wears thin.
I watched a few episodes of Rick & Morty. Then gave up on it.
Both shows were recommended by a couple of old friends.
I do get the appeal of the shows. They’re adult, naughty twists on geek stuff we loved as children. I get it. But it just makes me sad. Geek culture becomes something so masturbatory that it ceases to appeal to me.
More than that, I hate that these shows are now what 11-year-olds are experiencing as their introduction to science fictional ideas. There are appealing gonzo ideas, but they’re smothered in casual cursing and sex jokes. I’d give a meh sigh except that it actually makes me angry that I know kids are watching these, because I would have been watching them. (I feel the same way about Black Mirror; I feel sorry for children raised on the dark cynicism of Charlie Brooker instead of the gentle humanism of Rod Serling.)
So much for my Hulu trial.
On Netflix Watch Instantly, I watched the new episode of the Dave Letterman show. George Clooney. It was fine. Better, I watched a YouTube clip of Letterman inducting Pearl Jam into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Finally, the usual odd miscellany of YouTube videos. The best of which was probably an hour long informal discussion about “the psychology of why we play.” I disagreed with plenty of it, but it was refreshing to hear an intelligent and fun conversation about games.
Thursday, March 1, 2018
2017 Year in Review
My 2017 list:
1) Phantom Thread
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
10)
Honorable Mentions: Hostiles, It Comes at Night, The Beguiled, Get Out
Phantom Thread is the only film I care about out of the 33 films I've seen from the year.
The four honorable mentions get mentioned here because they're the non-Phantom Thread films that have stuck with me, that I keep thinking about. I want to re-watch these. There was something about each one of them that kept me from loving them, but they stood out just the same. They stuck.
Other than those, I thought the year was forgettable. I've forgotten most of what I've seen. I don't care to revisit any of it.
[Weird exception. I feel lukewarm toward The Last Jedi, defending it sometimes, panning it others. I don't have any serious urge to re-watch it, but I know I will, sooner or later. Sooner or later the new Star Wars fever will pass and I'll be able to not feel like a little boy. But it's still got me in its grip for now. When is Solo?]
That's not entirely true that nothing was memorable. There are images and sequences from some other films, even films that I actively disliked, that have also stuck. But I don't think I even care enough to make a list. Bleg. Meh.
The good news is that 2017 could still be a great year. There are at least a dozen films I missed that I "must see" before writing the year off. And there are probably dozens more that I don't know of, that I may never know of. What I do know is that I'm not impressed with the critical consensus or the popular consensus this year.
Still cranky. Peace.
1) Phantom Thread
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
10)
Honorable Mentions: Hostiles, It Comes at Night, The Beguiled, Get Out
Phantom Thread is the only film I care about out of the 33 films I've seen from the year.
The four honorable mentions get mentioned here because they're the non-Phantom Thread films that have stuck with me, that I keep thinking about. I want to re-watch these. There was something about each one of them that kept me from loving them, but they stood out just the same. They stuck.
Other than those, I thought the year was forgettable. I've forgotten most of what I've seen. I don't care to revisit any of it.
[Weird exception. I feel lukewarm toward The Last Jedi, defending it sometimes, panning it others. I don't have any serious urge to re-watch it, but I know I will, sooner or later. Sooner or later the new Star Wars fever will pass and I'll be able to not feel like a little boy. But it's still got me in its grip for now. When is Solo?]
That's not entirely true that nothing was memorable. There are images and sequences from some other films, even films that I actively disliked, that have also stuck. But I don't think I even care enough to make a list. Bleg. Meh.
The good news is that 2017 could still be a great year. There are at least a dozen films I missed that I "must see" before writing the year off. And there are probably dozens more that I don't know of, that I may never know of. What I do know is that I'm not impressed with the critical consensus or the popular consensus this year.
Still cranky. Peace.
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