Friday afternoon I undertook my epic walk, with lots of sunshine and temps in the mid 60s F. It was a beautiful day. But we awoke to Sunday morning to the fact that it really was late autumn! Needless to say we stayed indoors, except to feed the birds and squirrels.
And now, back to movie news. Deb chose The Uninvited, a ghost story from 1944 starring Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp, and the radiant young Gail Russell. One of two films we watched last week about a composer, this one decides to buy a house on the coast, along with his sister. The house proves to be quite haunted, and is likely the first Hollywood film to treat ghosts in a serious vein. Having said that, there are some lighter moments, too. Watching the young Miss Russell, and then learning about her tragically short and troubled life, in the movie extra shown with the film on Criterion, was a sad thing to hear about. Though not really a very talented actress, she had soft, beautiful eyes that drew viewers to her face each time she appeared on screen. The film is quite good, though the ending is the usual hokey Hollywood one. Based on a novel by Dorothy Macardle, called "Uneasy Freehold." Worth watching out for.
Spellbound was another pick by Deb, this one from 2002, following 8 young contestants in the annual American spelling bee. 249 kids eventually win their way to the finals in Washington, D.C., and compete for the grand prize. The film zooms in on 8 of the contestants, which include some of the nicest kids one could ever hope to meet, along with a few strange ones. The words these kids are asked to spell range from the impossible to ones I actually knew. The film could also be called "How to Prepare For A Spelling Contest."
I chose a silent film from 1919 by Maurice Tourneur, recently restored. Called The Broken Butterfly, it was unseen for 100 years. It is barely an hour long, and details the tragic relationship between an American composer visiting Canada to work, and the young orphan peasant girl he falls in love with. Definitely worth seeing. I have seen very few films from such an early time, and this one seems ahead of its time.
As the feature was so short in duration, I also chose a 20' film from Cairo called The Eloquent Peasant. The film is a dramatization of an actual papyrus scroll recorded in ancient Egypt, in which a peasant gifted with golden gab seeks justice for a wrong that has been committed against him. From 1970, it was also recently restored. It is a truly wonderful thing to be hooked into a film channel that shows newly restored films from around the world, many of them thanks to Martin Scorsese.
Lastly came 1933's Duck Soup, starring the Marx Brothers. Groucho saves Freedonia from an invading army in one of the group's classic films. There are more one-liners per minute here than in any good stand up comedy routine. The film also contains one of the funniest comedy sketches ever filmed, as Groucho and Chico pair off as if in front of a mirror, with Chico trying to convince Groucho that he (Chico) is the reflection. A very funny film, and this was perhaps our 10th viewing, though it has been awhile.
And now we will turn our serious side over to the DIA, for another work of art from my favourite and best known art collection. The museum doesn't just hold painting, sculpture, and graphic arts, but also art from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Italy, Africa, early Americas, decorative art, and Oriental art, thus echoing in many ways the great Kunsthistoriches in Vienna. For now I am mostly focussed on landscape art, but that will likely change someday, maybe.
Yves Tanguy's Shadow Country is one of a small but very select surrealist paintings from the collection. This painting was constantly in mind as I was reading "The Drought" by J. G. Ballard a while back, and it is a work that stays with you after seeing it a few times. Less a physical landscape and more a picture of the unconscious mind, for me it remains a key image from this fascinating artist movement. Tanguy was a favourite artist of Ballard, too, which is not surprising. Together they make quite a team.
Sweet dreams!
Mapman Mike
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