SHOOT THE MOON - restaurant scene

George and Faith Dunlap fight and make up in this hilarious scene from Alan Parker's "Shoot the Moon." Starring Albert Finney and Diane Keaton. 1981.

Les Demoiselles de Rochefort - Chanson de Maxence / You Must Believe In Spring

Je l'ai cherchée partout j'ai fait le tour du monde
De Venise à Java de Manille à Hankor
De Jeanne à Victoria de Vénus en Joconde
Je ne l'ai pas trouvée et je la cherche encore

Je ne connais rien d'elle et pourtant je la vois
J'ai inventé son nom j'ai entendu sa voix
J'ai dessiné son corps et j'ai peint son visage
Son portrait et l'amour ne font plus qu'une image

Elle a cette beauté des filles romantiques
Et d'un Botticelli le regard innocent
Son profil est celui de ces vierges mythiques
Qui hantent les musées et les adolescents

Sa démarche ressemble aux souvenirs d'enfant
Qui trottent dans ma tête et dansent en rêvant
Sur son front, ses cheveux sont de l'or en bataille
Que le vent de la mer et le soleil chamaillent

Je pourrais vous parler de ses yeux, de ses mains
Je pourrais vous parler d'elle jusqu'à demain
Son amour, c'est ma vie mais à quoi bon rêver?
Je l'ai cherchée partout je ne l'ai pas trouvée

Il pourrait nous parler de ses yeux, de ses mains
Il pourrait nous parler d'elle jusqu'à demain
Son amour, c'est sa vie mais à quoi bon rêver?
Il l'a cherchée partout il ne l'a pas trouvée

Est-elle loin d'ici? est-elle près de moi?
Je n'en sais rien encore mais je sais qu'elle existe
Est-elle pécheresse ou bien fille de roi?
Que m'importe son sang puisque je suis artiste
Et que l'amour dicte sa loi
**************************************

Jacques Perrin (Maxence)
Versione restaurata curata da Agnes Varda.
Colonna Sonora di Michel Legrand

Music written by

Michel Legrand

Lyrics written by

Jacques Demy

 *****************************************



When lonely feelings chill
The meadows of your mind,
Just think if Winter comes,
Can Spring be far behind?

Beneath the deepest snows,
The secret of a rose
Is merely that it knows
You must believe in Spring!

Just as a tree is sure
Its leaves will reappear;
It knows its emptiness
Is just a time of year

The frozen mountain dreams
Of April's melting streams,
How crystal clear it seems,
You must believe in Spring!

You must believe in love
And trust it's on its way,
Just as a sleeping rose
Awaits the kiss of May

So in a world of snow,
Of things that come and go,
Where what you think you know,
You can't be certain of,
You must believe in Spring and love

INSTRUMENTAL INTERLUDE

You must believe in love
And trust it's on its way,
Just as a sleeping rose
Awaits the kiss of May

So in a world of snow,
Of things that come and go,
Where what you think you know,
You can't be certain of,
You must believe in Spring and love

You must believe in Spring and love
You must believe in Spring and love
**********************************

Song

You Must Believe in Spring

Lyrics written by

Marilyn Bergman, Alan Bergman

Original music written by

Michel Legrand

Original lyrics written by

Jacques Demy

The Young Girls of Rochefort - an unabashedly romantic paean to American energy and optimism that’s quintessentially French...and perhaps the most beautiful dovetailing of failed and achieved connections apart from Shakespeare. By Jonathan Rosenbaum

From JonathanRosenbaum.com

Not the Same Old Song and Dance

• From the Chicago Reader (November 27, 1998), and reprinted in my collection Essential Cinema. — J.R.

The Young Girls of Rochefort

 

Rating **** Masterpiece

Directed and written by Jacques Demy

With Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Dorléac, George Chakiris, Gene Kelly, Danielle Darrieux, Michel Piccoli, Grover Dale, Jacques Perrin, Geneviève Thénier, Henri Crémieux, and Jacques Riberolles.

As eccentric as this may sound, Jacques Demy’s 1967 Les demoiselles de Rochefort is my favorite musical. Yet despite my 30-year addiction to the two-record sound track, the first time I was able to see the movie subtitled was a couple of weeks ago — helpful considering my faltering French. It’s certainly the odd musical out in terms of both its singularity and its North American reputation — a large-scale tribute to Hollywood musicals shot exclusively in Rochefort in southwest France, and an unabashedly romantic paean to American energy and optimism that’s quintessentially French. It has a score by Michel Legrand that’s easily his best, offering an almost continuous succession of songs with lyrics by Demy, all written in alexandrines (as is a climactic dinner scene that’s spoken rather than sung); choreography that ranges from mediocre (Norman Maen’s frenchified imitations of Jerome Robbins) to sublime (Gene Kelly’s choreography of his own numbers); and perhaps the most beautiful dovetailing of failed and achieved connections apart from Shakespeare and Jacques Tati’s Playtime, shot during the same period.

When it comes to charting movie genres and traditions, most of this film’s virtues fall off the map. Joseph McBride invited me to contribute to his recently published Book of Movie Lists, and I opted for a list of the ten best jazz films — neither the best films about jazz nor the best examples of filmed jazz but something more rarefied: movies in which the aesthetics of jazz and the aesthetics of film find some happy, mutually supportive meeting ground. The Young Girls of Rochefort certainly qualifies: from Legrand’s improvised piano solos and big-band arrangements to stretches of scat singing and Demy’s allusions to Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Lionel Hampton, this movie swings. Even when the choreography is less than it might have been, Demy’s sweeping cranes and extended pans and intricate mise en scène cook as infectiously as a first-rate rhythm section.

It’s also a musical that periodically defamiliarizes — “makes strange” — the form of the musical. Defying the obsessive symmetry and frontality of Hollywood numbers, dancing extras here move at the periphery of the frame in certain shots. There are two cheerful songs about an ax murder, “The Woman Cut Into Pieces” and another just afterward about policing the crowd near the scene of the crime. And Demy’s clear tributes to Hollywood musicals — On the Town, An American in Paris, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes — wind up making the movie seem more French than American.

Most musicals shift back and forth between story (spoken dialogue) and song-and-dance numbers — sometimes creating queasy transitions just before or after these shifts, when we’re uncertain where we are stylistically. But The Young Girls of Rochefort often daringly places story and musical numbers on the screen simultaneously, mixing them in various ways and in different proportions. One of the stars may be walking down the street, for example, but the pedestrians around her are suddenly dancing, and she slips momentarily in and out of their choreography. This curious mix produces powerful, deeply felt emotions — an exuberance combined with a sublime sense of absurdity, shot through with an almost constant sense of loss, yearning, and even tragedy. Yet the coexistence of this strangeness and this intensity will inevitably make some American viewers laugh in disbelief and regard the whole spectacle as an esoteric piece of camp. (The same problem exists to a lesser extent in two of my favorite American freak musicals, Love Me Tonight and Hallelujah, I’m a Bum, both of which display a related metaphysical impulse to perceive the musical form as a continuous state of delirious being rather than a traditional story with musical eruptions.)

Some American viewers may find it difficult to feel their way into such an aesthetic overload. In France the film was revived regularly even before its 1996 restoration by Demy’s widow, Agnès Varda (who has a walk-on as a nun). And in her wonderful documentary about the film — The Young Girls Turn 25, which I saw at the Chicago International Film Festival in 1993 — we encounter a French teenager with a backpack who proudly and calmly informs us that she carries the CD of Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion and the video of Les demoiselles de Rochefort everywhere she goes, unwilling to spend even a night without them. Such a degree of passion about art is bound to seem demented in a “utilitarian” (i.e., money-minded) society such as ours, but it’s entirely compatible with the degree of passion expressed in the film itself. And surely the reluctance of some American filmgoers to go with that kind of flow partly accounts for Miramax’s refusal to allot any advertising budget to the movie’s Chicago engagement.

Received opinion on musicals is that the genre’s greatest achievements — such as the entertaining Astaire-Rogers steamrollers and Singin’ in the Rain — are triumphs of engineering, coordination, and expertise; it’s almost as if we judge this art the way we judge our smart bombs and sporting events. This quantitative aesthetic doesn’t allow for the possibility that a musician with limited technique like Thelonious Monk might be a greater pianist than a virtuoso like Oscar Peterson. And unless you conclude that the only reason for “technique” is to express what you want to say, the technical shortcomings of The Young Girls of Rochefort are bound to be disappointing. The verdict of critic Gary Carey in the late 70s is characteristic: “Unfortunately Demy, who had been so good at choreographing the movements of ordinary people through his camera, does not know how to photograph the choreography of dancers. (He doesn’t have much of an eye as to what is good choreography and what isn’t, either.) The film falls to pieces whenever anyone begins to dance, and since someone is always dancing, it ends as a pile of very pretty rubble.” Pauline Kael wrote in separate articles that “a movie like The Young Girls of Rochefort demonstrates how even a gifted Frenchman who adores American musicals misunderstands their conventions” and “it was obvious from Rochefort that [Demy] had — momentarily, I hope — run dry.”

Made on the heels of Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which enjoyed worldwide success, this extravaganza — which had a much bigger budget than Cherbourg — might well be considered an attempt to do the impossible if one views it as an imitation of the Hollywood musical rather than an inspired appropriation of some of its elements. It would, of course, be unreasonable to expect a facsimile of the Hollywood musical from a filmmaker with no stage or film-musical experience (apart from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) and without the resources of a Hollywood studio or an indigenous tradition. But there’s no reason to believe that Demy — a filmmaker with a fully developed style and vision of his own when he made Les demoiselles de Rochefort — intended to reproduce something we already have. An English-language version shot simultaneously — which I’ve never seen, and which has been so scarce since the 60s it may no longer exist — was a commercial prerequisite for the film getting made, but it was the subtitled version that opened in New York in April 1968. It was so poorly received commercially that Demy’s career never fully recovered, and we’ve had to wait 30 years to see the movie again.

The film unfolds over a single weekend. On Friday morning a team of boat, bicycle, and motorcycle salespeople in trucks and on motorcycles and horses, including Etienne (George Chakiris) and Bill (Grover Dale), arrive in Rochefort by ferry. As they set up their stands and stages in the huge city square for the fair on Sunday afternoon, the camera pans, cranes up, then pans again to the studio where Delphine (Catherine Deneuve) and her twin sister Solange (Françoise Dorléac) are giving a combined music and dance class to kids. We discover that Delphine is a ballet teacher and dancer, Solange a composer and singer, and that both dream of meeting their romantic ideals and moving to Paris. (Deneuve and the late Dorléac — who died in a car accident the same year Les demoiselles was released — were real-life sisters but not twins: Dorléac was one year older than Deneuve. This is their only movie together, though both appeared separately in films by François Truffaut and Roman Polanski.)

It turns out that Delphine’s ideal man, whom she’s never met, is an artist and sailor currently stationed in Rochefort, Maxence (Jacques Perrin): the ideal woman he’s painted, whom he’s been searching for across the globe, is a dead ringer for Delphine. His canvas hangs in a local gallery run by Delphine’s unsuccessful suitor, Guillaume (Jacques Riberolles). The sisters have a ten-year-old half brother named Boubou; their mother, Yvonne (Danielle Darrieux), runs the cafe-restaurant in the city square, which Maxence, Etienne, and Bill all frequent. Unbeknownst to the family, Boubou’s father has recently moved back to Rochefort to run a music store; Yvonne had backed out of marrying Simon Dame (Michel Piccoli) years earlier, when she became pregnant with Boubou, because she couldn’t face the prospect of being called Madame Dame. Though Simon knew she’d had twins by a former lover, he’d never seen them, so when Solange comes to his shop and they become acquainted, he has no idea that she’s one of Yvonne’s daughters.

It’s love at first sight when Solange encounters an old friend of Simon Dame — famous American composer and concert pianist Andy Miller (Gene Kelly) — while she’s collecting Boubou from school. She has no idea this man is Miller, whom she wanted to meet so he could hear her piano concerto. They don’t exchange names or addresses, but he has a page from her score, which she inadvertently leaves behind. Meanwhile, when two of the young women in the show planned for the Sunday fair run off with a couple of sailors, Etienne and Bill convince Delphine and Solange to stage a number in their stead, promising them a free ride to Paris afterward….

Apart from the ax murder and periodic dark reminders of the nearby soldiers in training, both of which further develop the theme of thwarted desire, these are the basic elements of the plot, and Yvonne’s cafe on the square is the hub of all the complex comings and goings. (Like many of the buildings in Playtime, this freestanding structure has huge glass windows, allowing us to see much of the surrounding traffic.) But to summarize these intricate moves, characters who are ideally suited keep missing each other as they go about their daily routines; in most cases they don’t even realize that they’re occupying the same city. And even though The Young Girls of Rochefort is on all counts Demy’s most optimistic film — the one in which every character eventually finds the person she or he is looking for — the missed connections preceding this resolution are relentless, and one may still wind up with a feeling of hopeless despair despite the overdetermined happy ending. Indeed, the split second by which Maxence misses Delphine at the cafe before he’s shipped away might well be the most tragic single moment in all Demy’s work, perhaps even surpassing the grisly suicide at the end of Un chambre en ville. By contrast, when the “ideal couple” do eventually meet (an event represented only obliquely) in the film’s final shot, it’s a simple concession to musical- comedy convention, registering only as a sort of offhand diminuendo and postscript; what reverberates more decisively is the sense of dreams just missing realization.

In fact the movie overall leaves one in a unique manic-depressive state, a kind of poetic fugue in which boundless despair and exuberant optimism coexist. This is Demy’s vision of life — Lola and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg are suffused with much the same ambiguous mixture — but thanks to Legrand’s buoyant score and the size of the canvas, The Young Girls of Rochefort conveys it with unparalleled vibrancy and luminosity.

If songs and dances represent fantasy, and everyday activities reality, it can’t be said that Demy ever privileges one over the other; he’s more concerned with how fantasy and reality interact, or fail to interact. One might say that the missed connections in the film represent reality — the characters are too engrossed by everyday life to see that their ultimate dreams are only a block or so away — and that the eventual successful connections represent fantasy, the dreamlike closure of musical comedy. But in fact Demy is a much subtler dialectician, converting the Cartesian principle of French life and culture — “I think, therefore I am” — into “I dream, and dreaming is a part of life, therefore I live.” Furthermore, by staging all his musical numbers in real locations rather than on sets, Demy deliberately mixes his modes, with the result that the missed connections are as much a function of his mise en scène as the chance encounters. A poetic realist as well as a dreamer, Demy confused some audiences and critics throughout his career, much as his mentor Tati did, by keeping a firmer grip on the realities he was filming than many were prepared to see at the time. For viewers trained to regard fantasy as an alternative to reality rather than part of the reality of consciousness, Demy’s mixture is bound to seem jarring — though it may also jar one into perceiving a richer reality than most entertainments acknowledge.

The film’s chance encounters and missed connections are expressed not only spatially but musically, in the score and in Demy’s delicately crafted lyrics. Maxence’s song about his search is reprised as Delphine’s song about her own longings; Simon’s account of his lost love becomes, with appropriate alterations in the lyrics, Yvonne’s own regrets about having abandoned him; Solange’s piano concerto takes on lyrics after Andy intercepts the score. Many other reprises are less obvious than these. The song that goes with policing the crowd, for instance, reprises and adds lyrics to a secondary theme from the opening dance number in the city square. Both sequences emphasize community over individual destiny: here, as elsewhere in the film, Legrand and Demy enrich the meaning of other scenes by playing with the emotional and thematic effects of rhyme.

Masterpieces normally connote perfection, but it might be argued that some of the imperfections in The Young Girls of Rochefort enhance the overall experience by bringing it closer to life, making the actors seem more vulnerable. (Other imperfections, like the product plugs during the climactic fair — another parallel with Playtime, given some of its neon signs — are simple reminders of the difficulties of making big-budget French movies.) Darrieux, for instance, is the only cast member who does her own singing, though the dubbing of the others is usually carried out well, with the actors’ singing voices carefully matched to their speaking voices (including Kelly’s spoken French). More artificial are Delphine’s and Solange’s performances on trumpet and flute.

Yet given some of Demy’s original plans for the movie, it’s a miracle it turned out as well as it did. Before he selected Rochefort as his location, he considered making “Les demoiselles d’Avignon,” “Les demoiselles d’Hyeres,” “Les demoiselles de Toulouse,” and “Les demoiselles de La Rochelle,” among others. Rochefort won out because of the size of its central square, though production designer Bernard Evein found it necessary to repaint 40,000 square meters of the city’s facades. (Still, director André Téchiné has cited the movie as one of the best ever made about this part of France.) Even more improbable, Demy originally thought of casting Brigitte Bardot and Geraldine Chaplin as the twin sisters.

Demy also planned to make more extensive references to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg by casting Nino Castelnuovo, the hero of that film, as Bill. When Castelnuovo proved unavailable, Demy had to change the script. But it’s worth pointing out that the offscreen victim of the ax murder is Lola, the title heroine of Demy’s first feature, and there are many other allusions to earlier Demy films throughout: According to critic Jean-Pierre Berthomé, the three successive endings of The Young Girls of Rochefort replicate the final shots of Bay of Angels, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and Lola. And both Lola and The Young Girls of Rochefort associate Americans with white convertibles.

Given the extraordinary lift Gene Kelly gives the movie, it’s hardly surprising that Demy wanted him from the outset, though he had to wait two years before Kelly was free of other commitments. Indeed, Kelly brings to the movie the kind of boundless elation musicals exist to produce, as do Chakiris and Dale, the other two American dancers featured, though to a lesser extent. Indeed, it’s the combination of this spirit with the soul of the French cast that gives The Young Girls of Rochefort its distinctive flavor. Like the pairing of Jean Seberg with Jean-Paul Belmondo in Godard’s Breathless, or the mating of a David Goodis plot with Charles Aznavour’s mug in Truffaut’s Shoot the Piano Player, this combination provides the kind of combustion that powered the French New Wave and the general reinvention of movie energy in the 1960s. Godard and Truffaut may have watered the roots, but it was Demy who produced this relatively late blooming flower, combining the virtues of the Hollywood musical with French poetic realism to produce these fresh, colorful petals.

Published on 27 Nov 1998 in Featured Texts, Featured Texts, by jrosenbaum

Vikings attack Malibu

Untitled from Q Chat on Vimeo.

Koyaanisqatsi - a movie by Godfrey Reggio with music by Philip Glass

MGMDigitalMedia on 10 Dec 2008:

An art-house circuit sensation, this feature-length documentary is visually arresting and possesses a clear, pro-environmental stance. Koyaanisqatsi is composed of nature imagery, manipulated in slow motion, double exposure or time lapse, juxtaposed with footage of humans' devastating environmental impact on the planet. The message of director Godfrey Reggio is clear: humans are destroying the planet, and all of human progress is pointlessly foolish.

What are people running away from? Scenes from "Revolutionary Road"

What are some of the best movie sword fights ever?

Bradbury Building and surrounding area, Downtown Los Angeles

Bradbury Building and surrounding area, Downtown Los Angeles, a set on Flickr.

From Wikipedia:

The Bradbury Building is an architectural landmark in Los Angeles, California. The building was built in 1893 and is located at 304 South Broadway (at 3rd Street) in downtown.

Architecture

The building itself features an Italian Renaissance Revival -style exterior facade of brown brick, sandstone and panels of terra cotta details, in the "commercial Romanesque Revival" that was the current idiom in East Coast American cities. But the magnificence of the building is the interior: reached through the entrance, with its low ceiling and minimal light, it opens into a bright naturally lit great center court.

Robert Forster, star of the TV series Banyon that used the building for his office, described it as "one of the great interiors of L.A. Outside it doesn't look like much, but when you walk inside, suddenly you're back a hundred and twenty years."[5]

The five-story central court features glazed brick, ornamental cast iron, tiling, rich marble, and polished wood, capped by a skylight that allows the court to be flooded with natural rather than artificial light, creating ever-changing shadows and accents during the day.

The elevators, which go up to the fifth floor, are cage elevators that are surrounded by wrought-iron grillwork rather than masonry.

The entire main building features geometric patterned staircases at all ends. Ornately designed wrought-iron railings are used abundantly throughout the building to create the illusion of hanging vegetation.

The wrought-iron was created in France and displayed at the Chicago World's Fair before being installed in the building. Freestanding mail-chutes also feature ironwork.

The walls are made of pale glazed brick. The marble used in the staircase was imported from Belgium, and the floors are Mexican tiles.

How to configure your home theater system

Configuring Your Home Theater System

by Wayde Robson — last modified July 23, 2007

Contributors: Gene DellaSala
 

Setting up your AV system

We have other articles which will help you actually connect your home theater system. This article assumes that you are indeed getting sound and video through the components and that you are ready to move on the the next phase of configuring and tweaking the many settings and physical options associated with all of that AV gear.

Once you've got your Home Theater audio system wired and producing sound there are a few simple steps you should take to ensure your system is configured correctly. Home Theater calibration professionals can attest to the fact that a majority of Home Theater systems suffer unnecessary bottlenecks in performance that can be easily overcome with a few minor adjustments. Here is what to look for on your Home Theater system.

Part 1

Part 2

How to eat ramen noodles properly

From the movie Tampopo

How to make a rice omelet

From the movie Tampopo

How to dance the Tango

Roger Ebert:  "Most dances are for people who are falling in love. The tango is a dance for those who have survived it, and are still a little angry about having their hearts so mishandled. The Tango Lesson is a movie for people who understand that difference."

Sally Potter and Pablo Veron dancing to Ástor Piazzolla's "Libertango."



The Tango Lesson: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1997 Film)

Barbara Stanwyck explains to Gary Cooper what "Yum Yum" means

How to do the Conga, by Barbara Stanwyck

How to cope with the overwhelming bleakness of the universe.

Woody Allen on why he keeps making movies, the agony and terror of human existence, and why a sense of humor is important.


Excerpted from Robert E. Lauder's interview.

RL:  Why do you continue to make films?

WA: Well, you know, you want some kind of relief from the agony and terror of human existence. Human existence is a brutal experience to me…it’s a brutal, meaningless experience—an agonizing, meaningless experience with some oases, delight, some charm and peace, but these are just small oases. Overall, it is a brutal, brutal, terrible experience, and so it’s what can you do to alleviate the agony of the human condition, the human predicament? That is what interests me the most. I continue to make the films because the problem obsesses me all the time and it’s consistently on my mind and I’m consistently trying to alleviate the problem, and I think by making films as frequently as I do I get a chance to vent the problems. There is some relief. I have said this before in a facetious way, but it is not so facetious: I am a whiner. I do get a certain amount of solace from whining.


RL: In Everyone Says I Love You, the character you play gets divorced, and as he and his former wife review their relationship near the end of the film, she says, “You could always make me laugh,” and your character asks very sincerely, “Why is that important?” Do you think what you do is important?

WA: No, not so much. Whenever they ask women what they find appealing in men, a sense of humor is always one of the things they mention. Some women feel power is important, some women feel that looks are important, tenderness, intelligence…but sense of humor seems to permeate all of them. So I’m saying to that character played by Goldie Hawn, “Why is that so important?” But it is important apparently because women have said to us that that is very, very important to them. I also feel that humor, just like Fred Astaire dance numbers or these lightweight musicals, gives you a little oasis. You are in this horrible world and for an hour and a half you duck into a dark room and it’s air-conditioned and the sun is not blinding you and you leave the terror of the universe behind and you are completely transported into an escapist situation. The women are beautiful, the men are witty and heroic, nobody has terrible problems and this is a delightful escapist thing, and you leave the theatre refreshed. It’s like drinking a cool lemonade and then after a while you get worn down again and you need it again. It seems to me that making escapist films might be a better service to people than making intellectual ones and making films that deal with issues. It might be better to just make escapist comedies that don’t touch on any issues. The people just get a cool lemonade, and then they go out refreshed, they enjoy themselves, they forget how awful things are and it helps them—it strengthens them to get through the day. So I feel humor is important for those two reasons: that it is a little bit of refreshment like music, and that women have told me over the years that it is very, very important to them.

RL: At one point in Hannah and Her Sisters, your character, Mickey, is very disillusioned. He is thinking about becoming a Catholic and he sees Duck Soup. He seems to think, “Maybe in a world where there are the Marx Brothers and humor, maybe there is a God. Who knows.” And maybe Mickey can live with that. Am I interpreting this correctly?

WA: No. I think it should be interpreted to mean that there are these oases, and life is horrible, but it is not relentlessly black from wire to wire. You can sit down and hear a Mozart symphony, or you can watch the Marx Brothers, and this will give you a pleasant escape for a while. And that is about the best that you can do…. I feel that one can come up with all these rationalizations and seemingly astute observations, but I think I said it well at the end of Deconstructing Harry: we all know the same truth; our lives consist of how we choose to distort it, and that’s it. Everybody knows how awful the world is and what a terrible situation it is and each person distorts it in a certain way that enables him to get through. Some people distort it with religious things. Some people distort it with sports, with money, with love, with art, and they all have their own nonsense about what makes it meaningful, and all but nothing makes it meaningful. These things definitely serve a certain function, but in the end they all fail to give life meaning and everyone goes to his grave in a meaningless way.

What is the significance of James Bond's famous phrase "shaken, not stirred"?

• From issue 2759 of New Scientist magazine, page 65 and issue 2813 page 62 and issue 2763  page 69.

What is the significance of James Bond's famous phrase "shaken, not stirred"? Is there really a difference in the taste of a shaken vodka martini, as opposed to a stirred one? And if there is, why? 

 Mark Langford, Stockport, Cheshire, UK

• Supposedly, when a martini is shaken, not stirred, it "bruises" the spirit. To seasoned martini drinkers this changes the taste.

Padraic O'Neile, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia

• Because a martini is to be drunk within seconds of preparation rather than minutes, there is a difference. The tiny bubbles caused by shaking mean a well-shaken martini is cloudy. Shaking will also have an effect on the drink's texture - making it less oily than the stirred version - and hence on the taste. The long-standing assumption that the spirit is bruised by the process is nonsense; vodka does not have a vascular system.

Peter Brooks, Bristol, UK

• Bond may have appreciated the softening and ripening effect of partial oxidation of the aldehydes in vermouth - akin to letting red wine breathe before you drink it. In a refined and homogeneous substrate such as vodka martini, a good shake can speed the process.

Alan Calverd, Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, UK

We have since learned, however, that other chemical reactions may be taking place - Ed

• Biochemists at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, have suggested the change in flavour brought about by shaking is due not to the oxidation of aldehydes, but to the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide. Stirred martinis have double the amount of hydrogen peroxide of shaken ones.

Peter McNally, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

• The reason shaken martinis are cloudy is not so much down to bubbles, but because the crushed ice in the shaker deposits tiny ice crystals into the poured drink. The drink slowly clears as the crystals melt.

Frank Melly, New York City, US

This called for more research. Was it bubbles or ice causing the cloudiness in a shaken martini?

First, we needed a good recipe. This came from mixologist Eric Keitt who works the bar at Oceanaire in Washington DC:  "You will need a double vodka and two or three drops of dry vermouth. Pour into a cocktail shaker with crushed ice and shake until the hand holding the shaker is very cold, then strain into a martini glass. Add an olive or a twist of lime zest." Eric tells us that vermouth releases the aromatics in the vodka, making for a more enjoyable drink.

We made three vodka martinis using Eric's recipe. The first was shaken with crushed ice. It was very cloudy and took a long time to clear, but as far as we could tell the cloudiness was due to tiny bubbles from the shaking plus the condensation on the chilled glass. Any ice crystals present must have been microscopic and were not apparent to the eye.

The second was a room-temperature martini, shaken without ice. There were bubbles in the poured drink but they quickly dissipated, much faster than in the iced martini.

The third martini was made in an attempt to replicate conditions in the iced martini but without adding ice. The martini and its shaker were wrapped in a drinks chiller until they were at the same temperature as the first martini, then shaken. When poured, this stayed cloudy for much longer than the room-temperature drink, but not as long as the iced martini.

We reached the view that ice does have some effect on the clouding process, as do cold conditions, but none of this is conclusive. Can any readers take a look through a microscope at a vodka martini shaken with ice, to rule out or confirm the presence of ice crystals? - Ed

• The reason Bond orders his martinis shaken is that the ice helps to dissipate any residual oil left over from potatoes - the base ingredient for many vodkas at the time Ian Fleming's novels were written. With the rise of higher-quality grain vodkas, shaking is unnecessary, and for many fans of the vodka martini, shaking the drink with ice dilutes it too much. Stirring with ice chills it without reducing its strength.

Anna Collins, Washington DC, US

• Anna Collins of Washington DC told us that the reason James Bond ordered his martinis shaken was that at the time the Bond novels were written, vodka was widely made from potatoes rather than grain, as is common today. Potato vodka is noticeably oily and shaking it with ice dissipates the oil. This was confirmed in a blind tasting by reader Peter Simmons, of London.

However, another reader in the UK, William France of Birmingham, wrote in to point out that in the book and movie Casino Royale Bond orders his martini to the recipe later known as a vesper, which contains more gin than vodka, yet he still requests that it is shaken. So why? - Ed

• Bond's martini in Casino Royale is made to the following recipe with thanks to the 1953 novel by Ian Fleming:

"A dry martini," [Bond] said. "One. In a deep champagne goblet."

"Oui, monsieur."

"Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's [gin], one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?"

"Certainly, monsieur." The barman seemed pleased with the idea.

We can also presume the vodka used was a potato vodka because Bond goes on to tell the barman: "Excellent... but if you can get a vodka made with grain instead of potatoes, you will find it still better."

So we know there is a measure of potato vodka in the vesper. To check whether this still makes a difference to the martini, I and four friends repeated Peter Simmons's blind tasting of the martinis, making one batch with potato vodka and another with grain. We had to amend the recipe slightly because the Kina Lillet in the vesper (which replaces the dry vermouth used in standard martinis) is no longer produced, the nearest modern-day product being Lillet Blanc. Lillet Blanc is less bitter than Kina Lillet (Kina referring to the bitter quinine that was in the original) so we had to add two drops of bitters to the drink so it matched the original vesper taste.

Without a doubt, the potato vodka vesper was oilier than the grain vodka version (despite containing only a single measure of gin, as opposed to three). And subsequently when shaken with ice, the oil in the potato-vodka vesper was much less pronounced. All tasters were unanimous in detecting this.

Thus, despite the modern convention of stirring martinis, it seems that Bond, a man of obvious sophistication, knew what he was talking about when always asking for his martinis to be shaken, recipe notwithstanding.

Janice Devaney, London, UK

• Anna Collins is correct, according to our blind trial. We bought two bottles of vodka, one grain, the other potato-based. First we tasted the vodkas. In the blind trial all six people in our sample said the potato vodka was oily, and the grain vodka wasn't. Then we made two vodka martinis using the potato vodka. One was stirred with ice, the other shaken with ice. The difference was quite distinct and in a blind tasting every one of the six drinkers characterised the shaken martini as being much less oily. But the martini had to be consumed quickly. If left to settle for 5 minutes or so, the shaken martini became oily again.

Peter Simmons, London, UK

Our final advice is to go easy on the vodka martinis, whether shaken or stirred - Ed

Why do civilized people behave in primitive ways?

Excerpted from the short story Memento Mori by Jonathan Nolan.  This story was the basis for the movie Memento, directed by Jonathan's brother Christopher.


Here’s the truth: People, even regular people, are never just any one person with one set of attributes. It’s not that simple. We’re all at the mercy of the limbic system, clouds of electricity drifting through the brain. Every man is broken into twenty-four-hour fractions, and then again within those twenty-four hours. It’s a daily pantomime, one man yielding control to the next: a backstage crowded with old hacks clamoring for their turn in the spotlight. Every week, every day. The angry man hands the baton over to the sulking man, and in turn to the sex addict, the introvert, the conversationalist. Every man is a mob, a chain gang of idiots.

This is the tragedy of life. Because for a few minutes of every day, every man becomes a genius. Moments of clarity, insight, whatever you want to call them. The clouds part, the planets get in a neat little line, and everything becomes obvious. I should quit smoking, maybe, or here’s how I could make a fast million, or such and such is the key to eternal happiness. That’s the miserable truth. For a few moments, the secrets of the universe are opened to us. Life is a cheap parlor trick.

But then the genius, the savant, has to hand over the controls to the next guy down the pike, most likely the guy who just wants to eat potato chips, and insight and brilliance and salvation are all entrusted to a moron or a hedonist or a narcoleptic.

When the child was a child, It was the time for these questions: Why am I me, and why not you?

Song of Childhood
By Peter Handke

When the child was a child
It walked with its arms swinging,
wanted the brook to be a river,
the river to be a torrent,
and this puddle to be the sea.

When the child was a child,
it didn’t know that it was a child,
everything was soulful,
and all souls were one.

When the child was a child,
it had no opinion about anything,
had no habits,
it often sat cross-legged,
took off running,
had a cowlick in its hair,
and made no faces when photographed.

When the child was a child,
It was the time for these questions:
Why am I me, and why not you?
Why am I here, and why not there?
When did time begin, and where does space end?
Is life under the sun not just a dream?
Is what I see and hear and smell
not just an illusion of a world before the world?
Given the facts of evil and people.
does evil really exist?
How can it be that I, who I am,
didn’t exist before I came to be,
and that, someday, I, who I am,
will no longer be who I am?

When the child was a child,
It choked on spinach, on peas, on rice pudding,
and on steamed cauliflower,
and eats all of those now, and not just because it has to.

When the child was a child,
it awoke once in a strange bed,
and now does so again and again.
Many people, then, seemed beautiful,
and now only a few do, by sheer luck.

It had visualized a clear image of Paradise,
and now can at most guess,
could not conceive of nothingness,
and shudders today at the thought.

When the child was a child,
It played with enthusiasm,
and, now, has just as much excitement as then,
but only when it concerns its work.

When the child was a child,
It was enough for it to eat an apple, … bread,
And so it is even now.

When the child was a child,
Berries filled its hand as only berries do,
and do even now,
Fresh walnuts made its tongue raw,
and do even now,
it had, on every mountaintop,
the longing for a higher mountain yet,
and in every city,
the longing for an even greater city,
and that is still so,
It reached for cherries in topmost branches of trees
with an elation it still has today,
has a shyness in front of strangers,
and has that even now.
It awaited the first snow,
And waits that way even now.

When the child was a child,
It threw a stick like a lance against a tree,
And it quivers there still today.


Lied Vom Kindsein
– Peter Handke


Als das Kind Kind war,
ging es mit hängenden Armen,
wollte der Bach sei ein Fluß,
der Fluß sei ein Strom,
und diese Pfütze das Meer.

Als das Kind Kind war,
wußte es nicht, daß es Kind war,
alles war ihm beseelt,
und alle Seelen waren eins.

Als das Kind Kind war,
hatte es von nichts eine Meinung,
hatte keine Gewohnheit,
saß oft im Schneidersitz,
lief aus dem Stand,
hatte einen Wirbel im Haar
und machte kein Gesicht beim fotografieren.

Als das Kind Kind war,
war es die Zeit der folgenden Fragen:
Warum bin ich ich und warum nicht du?
Warum bin ich hier und warum nicht dort?
Wann begann die Zeit und wo endet der Raum?
Ist das Leben unter der Sonne nicht bloß ein Traum?
Ist was ich sehe und höre und rieche
nicht bloß der Schein einer Welt vor der Welt?
Gibt es tatsächlich das Böse und Leute,
die wirklich die Bösen sind?
Wie kann es sein, daß ich, der ich bin,
bevor ich wurde, nicht war,
und daß einmal ich, der ich bin,
nicht mehr der ich bin, sein werde?

Als das Kind Kind war,
würgte es am Spinat, an den Erbsen, am Milchreis,
und am gedünsteten Blumenkohl.
und ißt jetzt das alles und nicht nur zur Not.

Als das Kind Kind war,
erwachte es einmal in einem fremden Bett
und jetzt immer wieder,
erschienen ihm viele Menschen schön
und jetzt nur noch im Glücksfall,
stellte es sich klar ein Paradies vor
und kann es jetzt höchstens ahnen,
konnte es sich Nichts nicht denken
und schaudert heute davor.

Als das Kind Kind war,
spielte es mit Begeisterung
und jetzt, so ganz bei der Sache wie damals, nur noch,
wenn diese Sache seine Arbeit ist.

Als das Kind Kind war,
genügten ihm als Nahrung Apfel, Brot,
und so ist es immer noch.

Als das Kind Kind war,
fielen ihm die Beeren wie nur Beeren in die Hand
und jetzt immer noch,
machten ihm die frischen Walnüsse eine rauhe Zunge
und jetzt immer noch,
hatte es auf jedem Berg
die Sehnsucht nach dem immer höheren Berg,
und in jeder Stadt
die Sehnsucht nach der noch größeren Stadt,
und das ist immer noch so,
griff im Wipfel eines Baums nach dem Kirschen in einemHochgefühl
wie auch heute noch,
eine Scheu vor jedem Fremden
und hat sie immer noch,
wartete es auf den ersten Schnee,
und wartet so immer noch.

Als das Kind Kind war,
warf es einen Stock als Lanze gegen den Baum,
und sie zittert da heute noch.

Life, the Universe, Everything, in a cup of coffee

Comments from Mubi.com

2 Or 3 Things I know About Her

gino

over 1 year ago

I was just looking for some further insight on this Film other than the Plot Summary and Ratings. I’m assuming the preview clip for the Film doesn’t do it justice, and I was hoping maybe someone out their, preferably that likes the movie, could tell me a little more about it. And maybe- based on my “Favorites”, would I like it?

Kurt Walker

-moderator-

over 1 year ago

Its Godards abridging his cinema into more extremist politics, with that said. Here his politics are almost objectively agreeable, he also experiments with cinematic devices he’d heavily rely upon later in his career: Characters being reduced to figures, eradication of narratives, blur between fiction and non-fiction.
Basically, do not expect something like Breathless or Vivre Sa Vie.
What Godard films have you seen? I suggest watching his filmography in order as they become available to you, for Godards 60 films have a very clear progression in experimentation, and his career is kind of an anthology of sorts.

Frank P. Tomasul​o, Ph.D.

over 1 year ago

This is a REPEAT of a post I made on a Godard forum:
I recently cracked open the new 2 OR 3 THINGS DVD and viewed it. I had VERY complex and contradictory reactions.
For one, I hadn’t seen it since its initial release (when I watched it “2 or 3” times). At that time, I was VERY impressed with its content and innovative (Brechtian) style. Godard not only revolutionized cinema in that era but also how we THINK about cinema.
Today, though, those lessons have been learned, and that’s probably why the film seemed less “relevant” for today, when innovations are being made in non-Western national cinemas. Back in the day, all the references to the Vietnam War were seen as radical encouragement to those of us who participated in the antiwar movement. Likewise, all the anti-capitalist messages about mega-housing developments, consumerism, and how we all prostitute ourselves in contemporary society. To me, it’s a shame that Godard was such a damned good teacher about all those points (and film STYLE) that I now feel that I don’t have much more to learn from 2 OR 3 THINGS, except to re-appreciate its historical significance.
He was a film artist expressing himself and looking for an audience that would appreciate his vision of life and cinema. That audience happened to be the cineastes and intelligentsia, who “got” his many allusions and references to literature, philosophy, Marxism, and other films. I hope that first-time viewers of Godard’s films will appreciate his contributions for what they are, and for what they can teach us about how to watch a film.

gino

over 1 year ago

Those posts are actually really fucking helpful. I need someone to sort of tell me what its about though…
I haven’t seen any Godard Films (I know, I should kill myself), so I wouldn’t know what to expect.

Craig Harshaw

over 1 year ago

G-Nubs- It is actually hard to describe what the film is about. It’s really about the themes listed above and how they relate to life in contemporary Paris. It is really a kind of fictional essay about these themes of consumerism, modernism, the relationship of capitalism to prostitution, the role of the family (parent and child) relations in contemporary society etc. It is an exceptional film; but i don’t know if it should be your first Godard film. I might suggest you start with Breathless.

David Ehrenst​ein

over 1 year ago

Godard made films not “for the ages” but to testify to the very moment in which he was living. Consquently “2 or 3 Things” refers to the Vietnam war, and manyother things that “date” it. The construction it shows being engineered has been completed. It continues to fascinate as a film in which things (the famous cup of cofffee) have as much cinematic proiminence as people.
Jean-Calude Guiguet’s masterpiece “Les Passagers” takes up from where Godard left off several decades later.

Doinel

over 1 year ago

A women whose day to day interactions are solely economic transactions. Even sex has become an economic contract.
A pivot where Godard turned politically very radical.

David Ehrenst​ein

over 1 year ago

To me that pivot came with “La Chinoise.”

Bobby Wise

over 1 year ago

“la chinoise” and “2 or 3” were released the same year. but obviously, also, we have to talk about “made in the usa” being shot simultaneously with “2 or 3”. and finally, “weekend” was released that same year too.
so yes, godards pivot into radical politicalism or political radicalism was 1967. a watershed year for him. not that politics were never an important part of his films before, or radicalism in film form for that matter.

Pavel

over 1 year ago

Gino Start with “Breathless” that’s what I did been a fan ever since.

john kemp

over 1 year ago

From the perspective of 2009, the moment of radical politics which this film enshrines has retreated into a form of historical camp. I think that much of what Godard did here suffers from having itself been commodified and now looks merely like self-indulgent artifice. Which is maybe what people didn’t want to recognise at the time. The hectoring Maoist tone, the faux-Socratic questioning are just callow and ugly. Only the female figures seem to have a connection to a reality beyond the frame and thereby achieve depth. I found this remark in Irigaray which seems pertinent: " the discourse of truth, the discourse of “de-monstration” cannot incorporate the sexual relation within the economy of its logic." (Cosi Fan Tutti)

David Ehrenst​ein

over 1 year ago

I don’t know what you’re talking about. I find nothing “hectoring” or “Maoist” about Godard’s off-screen narration — delivered in a half-whistered style.

David Ehrenst​ein

over 1 year ago

I don’t know what you’re talking about. I find nothing “hectoring” or “Maoist” about Godard’s off-screen narration — delivered in a half-whistered style.

Law

over 1 year ago

I completely disagree, John. The issues raised by Godard are still extremely prevalent in today’s society and his film is one hell of an essay, so personal that I cannot help but love the man along with the film.

Shepher​d

about 1 year ago

Does anyone know if it’s possible to find screenplays of Godard’s films anywhere? I saw this film recently and would love to read the screenplay …

Bobby Wise

about 1 year ago

I don’t think he wrote screenplays. He directed off of rough notes for the most part.

Dzimas

about 1 year ago

My initial reaction was that it was very well framed criticism of modern architecture and society in which much of humanity is lost. The women are presented in the most banal settings and situations, yet he so lovingly composes each frame that they read like portraits, giving them a humanity that would otherwise be lost. Makes me think of Vermeer in this regard.

How did we end up with the lives we have, and how do we accept them, if we choose to do so?

Love, life, and loneliness

Edward Yang's final film 'Yi Yi' is a delicate, assured exploration of a year in the life of one Taiwanese family.

March 20, 2011|By Dennis Lim, Special to the Los Angeles Times

A three-hour drama that spans a year in the life of a middle-class Taipei family, Edward Yang's "Yi Yi" (2000) opens with a wedding and closes with a funeral. It's a film that includes a birth and a death and encompasses just about everything in between, from the awkward pangs of first love to the persistent stirrings of middle-aged regret.

Yang's most widely acclaimed film (it won him the best director prize at Cannes), "Yi Yi" turned out also to be his swan song: He died in 2007 at age 59. It still hurts to know that there will never be another Edward Yang film, and it's almost as infuriating that this remains the only one of his seven features available on DVD in the States — the Criterion Collection has just issued a Blu-ray high-definition edition.

Along with Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Yang was a central figure in the New Taiwanese Cinema that emerged in the 1980s, and to those familiar with his earlier films, many of which approached the contradictions of Taiwanese life and history with a mordant humor and anger, the serenity of "Yi Yi" might have suggested the softening of age. But the film has held up extremely well.

A work of remarkable delicacy and assurance, so detailed and fully inhabited that it seems to renew itself and its connection to the viewer with each encounter, it stands today as a reminder not only of Yang's mastery but also of just how few filmmakers possess the wisdom and generosity that humanist cinema of this sort truly requires.

The Jians, the family in "Yi Yi," live in a Taipei high-rise. When the grandmother suffers a stroke, the doctor urges her family members to talk to the comatose woman, a daily ritual that takes on an air of confession and prayer. Compelled to recite the details of her life, her daughter, Min-Min (Elaine Jin), is seized by an existential panic over her monotonous existence ("I live a blank," she wails) and escapes to a spiritual retreat.
At the wedding banquet that opens the film, Min-Min's husband, N.J. (Wu Nien-jen), runs into the lover he left decades ago, and finds himself face-to-face with the missed opportunity that has haunted his entire adult life. Distant and prone to tuning out the world, N.J. is nonetheless an enormously sympathetic presence. Increasingly disillusioned with his job at a computer company, he finds unexpected solace in a potential business partner from Japan, Ota (the great Issey Ogata).

The handful of scenes between these two men are richer than most movies in their entirety — it's one of the film's more resonant ironies that its most direct, profound interactions are between two strangers who communicate only in halting English.

No less than their parents, the Jian children exist in their own private worlds. Teenage Ting-Ting (Kelly Lee), who fears her thoughtlessness may be responsible for her grandmother's stroke, strikes up a friendship with a new neighbor and that girl's troubled boyfriend. Eight-year-old Yang-Yang (Jonathan Chang), subjected to bullying at school, retreats into his own imagination — and becomes fascinated with photography as a means of better seeing and understanding the world.

Like many filmmakers since Michelangelo Antonioni, Yang favors the default cinematic language of alienation, observing his characters from a distance and framing them in windows and as reflections. But there is never doubting the tenderness and empathy behind the camera. Even as he emphasizes the fundamental loneliness of his characters, Yang doesn't seal them off. Instead he shows that they exist within a generational cycle, a social system, a physical world.

There are traces of autobiography for those inclined to look for them. Like N.J., Yang studied engineering and worked in computer design. But it's little Yang-Yang, cute though never cloying, who emerges as a director surrogate of sorts: a budding artist but more than that, a curious soul, just coming to realize the mysteries of human subjectivity.

There are no easy resolutions in "Yi Yi," which is what makes it at once deeply sad and exhilarating. Among its most clear-eyed insights, the movie shows that the yearning for second chances that defines many a midlife crisis often amounts to a sentimental fantasy. The rare film that can truly be called universal, "Yi Yi" ponders questions that pertain to us all: How did we end up with the lives we have, and how do we accept them, if we choose to do so? More than a movie that stays with you, it's one to live with.

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