Elia Kazan

 Kazan directed some 20 movies, many of them some of the biggest Hollywood features ever made.  In Pinky, which we watched recently, he was the first to tackle racism against Blacks in a film.  Before that had come Gentleman's Agreement, which we just saw.  It took on anti-Semitism, in an amazing picture starring Gregory Peck as a successful writer who pretends he is Jewish, to find out what it was like to face prejudice every day.  The acting is always good in a Kazan film, and the dialogue usually flows very naturally.  The director began as a method actor, and he seems to know how to get the most from his talented stars.  Of course the Criterion print is pristine.  Celeste Holm and Dean Stockwell also turn in great performances.

Now showing on Criterion. 

 Panic In The Streets, by Kazan and starring Richard Widmark, is the tale of murder and bubonic plague, an interesting combination for a noir adventure film.  Jack Palance is a feared hoodlum, and when two of his underlings catch the plague, the authorities try to round up the group before it spreads across New York and beyond. It's difficult to imagine Richard Widmark as a public servant doctor, but he is actually okay in the role.  I've read a few similar plots of plague spreading in NYC in my more recent SF readings, one of the better ones being Harry Harrison's futuristic The Jupiter Plague.

Now showing on Criterion. 

Coming up later tonight is Kazan's 1976 feature The Last Tycoon.

I went with Deb to Kingsville yesterday with Deb, though I did not visit Lois.  There is a small outbreak of Covid in one of the pod sections at the LTC facility, the first one ever to hit there.  I dropped off Deb and went down to the waterfront to read.  A snowstorm was approaching, our first little wake-up call of the season.  The storm began on our drive home, around 1 pm, and by 3 pm it was coming down hard.  We ended up with 3" of heavy, wet snow,and though about half of it melted during the day today, a bit more arrives tomorrow.  Anyway, the snowplows and salt trucks had a good practice run, and by the dozens of car accidents that occurred yesterday, it sounds like many drivers got to practice, too.  It would seem that more driving practice might be needed.

Lake Erie gets a short burst of sun.  Photo taken on Deb's phone from Lakeside Park, about an hour before the snow began.

Our creek separates our two back yards.  Note the few remaining yellow leaves, and the snowbank reflection in the water.

This is the location of all our spring, summer, and fall coffee roastings.  In the winter we use the fireplace indoors.  The orange extension cord leads to a heated water basin for the birds and squirrels over the winter. 

Lastly, from the DIA I came across this beautiful and sensitive image by Angelica Kauffman.  It is a striking piece of art, done with a sensitivity that few, if any, male artists could likely achieve. And yet the detail at least reminds me of some of Picasso's pink period works.  The pose is natural, and the lack of lewdness and coy nudity is both refreshing and ideal.  It also reminds me of a few works in Detroit by the American painter Thomas Dewing.  And of course the print harkens back to the ideals set out by ancient Greek sculptors.

 

 Sitting Half Naked Maiden, 1780.  Angelica Kauffman, Swiss (1741-1807.  Etching and aquatint printed on brown ink on laid paper, 9 3/4" x 10 5/8".  Collection Detroit Institute of Arts.

 

Detail of above. 

 

Deb goes for her 3rd Moderna vaccine shot on Tuesday morning.  No word on when I may be eligible, but Canada has 6 million doses of unused vaccine that will expire at the end of the year.  Seriously? 

My next blog will likely be the November reading summary, unless something momentous happens before then.  Hopefully not.

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

A Lunar Eclipse, and A Sunny Day

Things happened in that order.  First came the eclipse, which was cloudy.  Then came the sunny day, right afterwards. Typical.  Deb got up at 5 am Thursday, but it was cloudy.  I woke up at 5:50, and it had cleared.  The moon was already gibbous, being 3/4 of the way back to normal.  So I glimpsed the every end of it from the upstairs bedroom picture window.  I went back to bed and fell back asleep.

Wednesday night we celebrated the Full Moon with a fireplace fire, a moon cake, and an opera we heard throughout the day.  This time it was Mathis der Maler, by Hindemith, telling some of the story of Mathias Grunewald, the painter from the early 1500s.  Fantastic opera about a painter we still know little about, who only has about ten paintings extant.  But what paintings!  So it was a fun day, and I skipped out on piano practice.

Friday was a lovely day, and I went outside and took some photos, all within our yard.  I took three with instant cameras, and five with my small digital one.  Here are two of the digital ones:

Looking into our back yard from the south side rock garden area.  It looks like a country lane.

Tree trunk reflections in our creek. 

In movie news, there are two of my choices to report, and one of Deb's.  My main choice was Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria Braun, from 1978.  Set in a German city just after WWII, Maria's husband has not returned from the war.  She searches and waits for him, then finally gives up.  She takes a job at a bar as a girl who dances with customers, and meets a man whom she learns to like, and has an affair with him.  Her husband walks into the bedroom at a crucial moment.  Maria clobbers her new friend, killing him.  Her husband takes the rap for it, and she visits him in jail.  It is one of the director's more lucid and enjoyable films from a mainstream audience perspective.  He makes a cameo appearance, too, as a black market seller.  It is a pretty decent film.  Fassbinder shot the film during the day, and worked on the screenplay to Berlin Alexanderplatz, consuming large quantities of cocaine.  The film turned into a big success, critical and commercial.

Hanna Schygulla in a Marlene Dietrich moment. 

My going away choice was Funeral Parade of Roses, a Japanese film from 1969.  Within Criterion, it is grouped with other films under the heading "Japan Goes Wild."  This is a strange but watchable gay boy version of Oedipus Rex, as the camera follows the exploits of pretty boy Eddie (played by "Peter").  We get right inside the gay scene in Tokyo in the 1960s, with incredible photography and visuals.  The story is pretty basic but fun all the same, with Eddie proving to be a very charming young first time actor.  There is some graphic violence involving knives, but for the most part the film consists of some wonderful eye candy, very funny lines, and some strane avante garde cinema effects.  During the story, the director will suddenly stop and interview the actors and others about life as a gay boy.  Definitely one of the weirder 60s movies I have ever watched.  Worth catching if you are able.

Leaving Criterion this month. 

 

Deb's main choice for the weekend was Pinky, a 1949 film directed by Elia Kazan and starring Jeanne Crain as a black woman who appears to be white.  She has returned to her poverty-stricken grandmother after graduating nursing, and becomes involved with a very ill white woman who owns the mansion at the end of the laneway.  This is a film that exposes some hard truths about being black, whether it shows up in your skin tones or not.  The acting is amazingly good, including that of Ethel Barrymore as the old woman, and Ethel Waters as the grandmother who did washing to put her granddaughter through nursing school.  Interracial romance is also tackled here, as well as property being left in a will for blacks to inherit.  The film was a big hit in the good old southern US of A, surprising as that may sound.  No doubt it was supported by blacks, despite casting a white woman in the main role.

Now showing on Criterion.

 And now a quick look at modern transport, from a print by William Hogarth.  We seem to be back where we started, with overcrowded airports, people much too large for the seats assigned, and armed guards needed at the beginning, the end, and on board during the trip.  Not to mention the difference between first class and the rest of us.  One can only thank Hogarth for reminding us today that progress has been slight, indeed.  And we seem to be slipping back even further, into medieval times, with the lack of trust shown scientists who are trying to put an end to the pandemic.  Good luck from me, and from Hogarth, no doubt.

The Stage Coach, 1747, by William Hogarth, English (1697-1764). Engraving in ink on wove paper, 10" x 14".  Collection Detroit Institute of Arts.  

 

In conclusion (on the subject of travel and pandemic), we will be able to visit the US for short trips and return to Canada without having to get tested.  Fully vaccinated Canadians can cross beginning either Nov. 30th or Dec. 1st.  However, Michigan now leads the US in numbers of new cases, more than 7,000 a day now.  By comparison, Ontario had 700 cases per day as last week's average.  And with American Thanksgiving coming up, the greatest annual get-together over there, it means that Covid will likely get even worse by late November/early December.  So my travel plans are still on hold, until Michigan gets its numbers down, and until I get a booster shot.  Deb can't cross, either, because she won't be allowed into the facility where her mother is living for 14 days after being out of the country.  I'm guessing January before my first visit.

 

Mapman Mike