Sometimes a Good Notion

Marry The Night

            GAGA
When I look back on my life, it’s
not that I don’t want to see things
exactly as they happened, it’s just
that I prefer to remember them in
an artistic way. And - truthfully -
the lie of it all is much more
honest because I invented it.
Clinical psychology tells us,
arguably, that trauma is the
ultimate killer. Memories are not
recycled like atoms and particles
in quantum psychics - they can be
lost forever. It’s sort of like my
past is an unfinished painting, and
as the artist of that painting I
must fill in all the ugly holes and
make it beautiful again. It’s not
that I’ve been dishonest, it’s just
that I loathe reality. For
example, those nurses - they’re
wearing next season Calvin Klein,
and so am I. And the shoes - custom
Giuseppe Zanotti. I tipped their
gauze caps to the side like
Parisian berets - because I think
it’s romantic, and I also believe
that mint will be very big in
fashion next Spring. Check out this
nurse on the right, she’s got a
great ass. Bam.
The truth is, back then at the
clinic, they only wore those funny
hats to keep the blood out of their
hair. And that girl on the left -
she ordered gummy bears and a knife
a couple of hours ago. They only
gave her the gummy bears.
I wish they’d only given me the
gummy bears.

           NURSE
Good morning morphine
princess. How are you feeling?
Everything went really well. Look
at you, I remember when I delivered
you, you looked just like your
mother.
            GAGA
Except my mother is a saint.

            NURSE
Tachycardia. Heart rate is 120.

            GAGA
I’m gonna make it.

            NURSE
No intimacy for two weeks. Blood
pressure 90 over 40. A little low;
but then again you’ve always been
on the low side.

            GAGA
I’m going to be a star. You know
why? Because - I have nothing left
to lose.

            NURSE
Do you need anything else?

            GAGA
Just un petite peu de la musique.

Later.

            GAGA
You may say I lost everything, but
I still had my Be-Dazzler and I had
a lot of patches, shiny ones from
M&J Trimming, so I wreaked havoc on
some old denim. And I did what any
girl would do -- I did it all over
again

D&D : Disney & Dali

Walt Disney (and animation in general) tends to get passed over in most History of Film classes. When I was assigned to teach the subject I made a Norquist style pledge not to do this in my class. My discussion of Disney started small, a mere showing of Steamboat Willie during a lecture of sound seemed appropriate. But as I learn more about the artist his prominence in my class has grown and he’s now comfortably discussed as a part of a series of lectures that cover German Expressionism, Neo-Realism, Sound, and  Surrealism.

Disney was a versatile artist who borrowed and played in a way that few artists did at the time.

What I admire most about him was that he found ways to incorporate strange and wonderful influences into his work and still managed to tell stories that had wide appeal.  From the image and brand that he built around his name it would not seem that he had an extravagant bone in his body, but when I play sequences like Snow White’s run through the forrest, the Queen’s transformation in the same movie, or Dumbo’s pink elephant dream I can’t help but to be amazed at how he used the work of filmmakers like Murnau, Lang, Lewis, Brunuel, and Dali to structure his sequences.

His early films have darkness and violence hidden beneath the glossy surface.  Snow White’s Run through the forrest is closer to an early horror film than a children’s fantasy.  By using techniques not associated with children’s entertainment, Disney was able to create dynamic contrast that made the stories interesting and sometimes frightening.

Throughout the first twenty years of his career, when he arguably did his best work (Fantasia, Snow White, Pinochio, Dumbo), he would sprinkle his films with mainly european concepts of storytelling such as dream logic,  theatricality, high contrast, and stylization to symbolize a character’s emotional state. Disney’s acceptance of modern artistic concepts would put him on a collision course with Salvador Dali who he would meet and form an unlikely partnership with in the 1940’s.

One could not think of two artists so diametrically different from each other. Disney with his squeaky clean American image, and Dali with his confrontational eccentricity. Yet these men also shared the common goal of creating beauty in a world that kept tearing itself apart. The two unlikely partners decided to collaborate on a short animated musical piece which told the story of Chronos, the god of time, and his tragic love for a mortal dancer. The piece would be called Destino.

The collaboration would span a few years but would ultimately fall appart due to contractual and financial differences. However, the break up left in its wake over 200 original sketches, 13 paintings, and storyboards all by Dali which would remain in the Disney vaults for over 40 years.  A holy grail if there ever was one.

I would not be until 1999 that Roy Disney would begin to finish the film. With the help of the Disney Studios in Paris and Director Dominique Monfrey, Roy Disney set to the task of completing this short piece of animation history.

The story of these two men would continue to fascinate writers and bloggers for years and details about this partnership have continued to trickle out. Letters between these two artists have been released to the public revealing a far deeper friendship than previously thought and deepening the mystery of this collaboration. For me, the most interesting tid bit of information is one particular detail of their contractual obligation to each other.  Disney and Dali agreed that Disney could hold the paintings but would not own them until the film was completed.  It is as if they knew that their styles and the practicalities of filmmaking would eventually stop them short of completion, but they made it impossible  for future generations of money men at Disney to leave the work unfinished.

Catch of the Day: Fresh Air Francis Ford Coppola

I was fortunate enough to catch this bit last night on my drive home from the Airport.   Coppola had his latest film premiere @ Toronto and did a question and answer session. It’s mostly memories and tales from old productions but it makes for good listening.

http://www.npr.org/v2/?i=140870590&m=142506207&t=audio

They also make reference to a moment at the end of Apocalypse Now and the development of one of the finest film monologues ever written.

                                        KURTZ
                         I've seem horrors.  Horrors that
                         you've seen.  But you have no right
                         to call me a murderer.  You have a
                         right to kill me.  You have a right
                         to do that.  But you have no right
                         to judge me.

                         It's impossible for words to
                         describe what is necessary to those
                         who do not know what horror means.
                         Horror.  Horror has a face.  And
                         you must make a friend of horror.
                         Horror and moral terror are your
                         friends.  If they are not, then
                         they are enemies to be feared.
                         They are truly enemies.

                         I remember when I was with Special
                         Forces.  Seems a thousand centuries
                         ago.  We went into a camp to
                         inoculate some children.  We'd
                         left the camp after we had
                         inoculated the children for polio.
                         And this old man came running after
                         us, and he was crying.  He couldn't
                         say.  We went back there, and they
                         had come and hacked off every
                         inoculated arm.  There they were,
                         in a pile.  A pile of little arms.
                         And, I remember, I cried, I wept
                         like some grandmother.  I wanted
                         to tear my teeth out.  I didn't
                         know what I wanted to do.  And I
                         want to remember it.  I never want
                         to forget it.  I never want to
                         forget it.  And then I realized,
                         like I was shot, like I was shot
                         with a diamond bullet through my
                         forehead.  And I thought, My God,
                         the genius of that!  The genius.
                         The will to do that.  Perfect,
                         genuine, complete, crystalline,
                         pure.  And then I realized, they
                         were stronger than we.  Because
                         they could stand it.  These were
                         not monsters.  These were men,
                         strained cadres.  These men who
                         fought with their hearts, who have
                         families, who have children, who
                         are filled with love...that they
                         had the strength, the strength to
                         do that.  If I had ten divisions
                         of those men, then our troubles
                         here would be over very quickly.
                         You have to have men who are moral,
                         and at the same time, who are able
                         to utilize their primordial
                         instincts to kill without feeling,
                         without passion.  Without judgment.
                         Without Judgment.  Because it's
                         judgment  that defeats us.

                         I worry that my son might not
                         understand what I've tried to be.
                         And if I were to be killed, Willard,
                         I would want someone to go to my
                         home and tell my son everything...

                         Everything I did.  Everything you
                         saw.  Because there's nothing I
                         detest more than the stench of
                         lies.  And if you understand me,
                         Willard, you will do this for me.