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In today's room with today's view
I cannot describe the plot of Le Samouraï (1967) without making it sound like a film noir, because it has all the classic elements, including trenchcoats, fedoras, and a mysterious nightclub musician who may be an innocent and may be a femme fatale, but the atmosphere is nothing like; it's a film noir exploded, the fragments drifting, full of motionless long shots, documentary glances down on streets, police stations at rolled-over hours of the morning and flat Eastmancolor afternoon light. (And the Paris Métro, which according to Alison hasn't changed in forty years. She recognized all the stations and the trains.) Alain Delon is very beautiful, playing a character to whom his beauty is meaningless. He’s efficient, minimalist, the snap-line of his hat brim as necessarily exact to him as the small rituals of stealing a car or pulling on his gloves before a hit. He is not in the same time as anyone else in the film. He isn't a relic: "Costello, Jef, 30." He's an anachronism. Possibly he knows it. Probably he doesn't care. The film deserves its reputation.
And today was awful from even before I woke up, but in the evening I met![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
derspatchel for dinner at The Burren and we saw Theatre@First's Pride & Prejudice at the Somerville Theatre and it was delightful. We sat in the second row and I recognized more of the actors by face than by name; Mr. Bennet, Mr. Collins, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh were particularly striking to me, although Mary was very correctly reading a different book every time she passed through a scene. Whoever was responsible for the sound design used "Down by the Salley Gardens" and "O No John" at the right moments. I ran into joshwriting afterward. We stood on a street corner and failed to be catcalled by students. For once in my life, I literally ran for a bus and made it. It was all a great improvement.
I have to get up in a stupidly short amount of time.ashlyme, this Ghost Box stuff is pretty awesome.
And today was awful from even before I woke up, but in the evening I met
derspatchel for dinner at The Burren and we saw Theatre@First's Pride & Prejudice at the Somerville Theatre and it was delightful. We sat in the second row and I recognized more of the actors by face than by name; Mr. Bennet, Mr. Collins, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh were particularly striking to me, although Mary was very correctly reading a different book every time she passed through a scene. Whoever was responsible for the sound design used "Down by the Salley Gardens" and "O No John" at the right moments. I ran into joshwriting afterward. We stood on a street corner and failed to be catcalled by students. For once in my life, I literally ran for a bus and made it. It was all a great improvement.I have to get up in a stupidly short amount of time.
ashlyme, this Ghost Box stuff is pretty awesome.
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Perfect--did you catch the titles? Were any funny (by which I mean, humorously appropriate)
And the Paris Métro, which according to Alison hasn't changed in forty years.
Maybe it has an anti-chronometrical self-corrector and repairs away innovations when they appear.
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No; I never could catch any of them. I hope so.
Maybe it has an anti-chronometrical self-corrector and repairs away innovations when they appear.
I can believe that of subways.
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--especially Parisian ones.
I'm sorry for the awful, but glad for the great improvement.
I hope the weather's treating you okay. I saw something on Yahoo news about a return of snow to Boston. It's only rain here. I'm headed to the Cloisters with my mother.
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Enjoy the Cloisters. So far, I just woke up to rain.
I did! They have a visiting exhibit of the Lewis Chessmen, which are amazing. I've seen pictures all my life, of course, but they've an amazing presence in the ivory, as it were.
There's a lot of other brilliant stuff as well. I love the place; I already did, of course, but today reminded me just how much I do. Will have to go back again, before too much longer.
So far, I just woke up to rain.
I hope it's not been unpleasant rain, at least. I hope it's been a good day for you.
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:(
I hope THIS today is better.
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So far: yes.
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I'm glad your day improved, and chuffed that you like the Ghost Box records!
(Sending you stuff shortly; thanks again.)
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Today is continuing to improve! I like the progression!
(Sending you stuff shortly; thanks again.)
(You're welcome. Thanks for wanting to send it to me.)
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Very much. Thank you.
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Dude! Thank you.
The Raymond Scott is also terrific; I'll make you CDs.
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Manhattan Research Inc. is previously unreleased material, so I thought I'd make sure. I should be glad of more of his work, though.
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I found myself unaccountably concerned about Alain Delon's small bird and thought his apartment looked wonderfully Vermeer-ish.
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They feel much more like each other than either feels like the third film I've seen by Melville, Army of Shadows (L' Armée des ombres, 1969). They're very personal, very abstracted and very concentrate takes on familiar genres: noir, heist.
I found myself unaccountably concerned about Alain Delon's small bird and thought his apartment looked wonderfully Vermeer-ish.
I really need to write about This Gun for Hire (1942).