The hopeless dream of being but never seeing
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spatch thoughtfully made me a batch of rice krispie treats last night so that I would have something to eat this morning before beginning my transit across the city to my doctor's appointment. The last time I got up this early for something, I think it was an Amtrak train. I really prefer getting up for trains.I had something of the experience of this tweet last night while reading Jonathan Lethem's "Empty Theaters" (2020) because the second he wondered whether there was some cultural antecedent for his description of going to see a movie by oneself as "going to a brain laundromat. I'm there to have my brain rinsed in the stream of images," I could yell mentally all I wanted that the answer was yes and Wittgenstein, Lethem writing his essay three years ago wasn't going to hear me. But it is Wittgenstein, according to Norman Malcolm in Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir (1958), who used to bolt directly out of his own lectures to the local cinema where he would install himself in the very first row of the theater and absorb himself in whatever was happening on the screen which filled his field of vision to the exclusion of any comment on the experience, except for the relevant time he whispered to Malcolm, "This is like a shower bath!" He loved the films of Carmen Miranda as much as he loved pulp detective fiction and kitschy Christmas cards. Technicolor musicals seem to have been one of the very few things that, however temporarily, got his brain out of its own way. I continue to hope that sometime he encountered Busby Berkeley's The Gang's All Here (1943), a bath bomb of a movie if ever I saw one.
Noir City Boston is returning next week to the Brattle. Under normal circumstances, I would have already marked my calendar for the double feature of Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) and Larceny (1948). Under the current ones, I think I'm just going to be resentful.
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I really like the idea of movies as a way to rinse our brain "in the stream of images", it's very relatable--bath bombs/shower baths are a good comparison for something that gives our brain some escape. It makes me think of Manuel Puig and movie theatres being the only place where he felt that he could breathe.
(I'm sorry you can't go to that double feature, it sounds great--I haven't seen "Larceny", but "Sorry Wrong Number" is amazing! Yay for another Wendell Corey movie, although I must admit that I remember this one mostly for Barbara Stanwyck--she is *incredible*, and does so much with such a small, confined space, if that makes sense?)
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Thank you for this entirely sensible stance!
*hugs*
bath bombs/shower baths are a good comparison for something that gives our brain some escape. It makes me think of Manuel Puig and movie theatres being the only place where he felt that he could breathe.
I never heard that line; that's incredibly poignant.
(I'm sorry you can't go to that double feature, it sounds great--I haven't seen "Larceny", but "Sorry Wrong Number" is amazing! Yay for another Wendell Corey movie, although I must admit that I remember this one mostly for Barbara Stanwyck--she is *incredible*, and does so much with such a small, confined space, if that makes sense?)
The paramount attraction of Larceny is that it has Dan Duryea and I've never seen it, but it doesn't hurt that it has other people I like in it, too. I'm glad to hear good things about Sorry, Wrong Number; I bounced badly off it when I tried it earlier this spring—I didn't even make it as far as Wendell Corey—but I did think I should give it another try on general principle and 35 mm at one of my local arthouses would have been the obvious opportunity. I am seriously considering just reconstructing the double feature at home.
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... which comes due to me having to get up at 6 every morning, and not because of nice things! X(
I never heard that line; that's incredibly poignant.
It really is! He used to refer to his reality as a "bad western"--he could only get out of it by going into a good movie inside that bad one, which is heartbreaking... it makes so much sense that he felt that he could only breathe there. Also: I can't remember his exact words, but he felt that classic 30s/40s Hollywood movies were timeless, because they were closer to dreams than to reality.
And I can totally see why you'd bounce off "Sorry wrong number". I first read the play and then watched the movie, and I liked it a lot, but agree with you: Barbara Stanwyck could have totally aced "a film with one actor and everyone else's voices", and it would have magnified the isolating, oppressive mood of the play. (I haven't listened to Stanwyck doing the play, but I bet she's great!)
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I'm so sorry!
Also: I can't remember his exact words, but he felt that classic 30s/40s Hollywood movies were timeless, because they were closer to dreams than to reality.
I can understand that view. I often wind up watching for the reality in them, but precisely because it wasn't supposed to be there.
I first read the play and then watched the movie, and I liked it a lot, but agree with you: Barbara Stanwyck could have totally aced "a film with one actor and everyone else's voices", and it would have magnified the isolating, oppressive mood of the play.
I heard the original radio play first, then saw it staged live, then discovered relatively late in the game there even was a film. Agreed with you about Stanwyck and the original script—should you listen to it, I would love to know what you think.
I should let you know: this afternoon I picked up my library copy of Shena Mackay's Dreams of Dead Women's Handbags (1987), which I am looking forward to.
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That makes perfect sense to me.
And I'm terrible with audio stuff, but Barbara Stanwyck is worth the effort! <3 Agnes Moorehead's version is easy to find, but I've yet to spot the 1952 one--I'll report any findings!
And I'm very curious to know what you think of Shena Mackay's collection (that's the one I have too, although a later edition). Some of her characters are the kind that makes you think of them a lot and hope they are doing well...