That wall of bones that holds our tongues in

[sovay]

I find lately that I don't write anything down, because nothing that goes through my head seems worth recording. I have written three successors to this statement and erased them all. I don't know what that goes to show.

I am reading Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons (1960). It is full of Brechtian weirdness, which I wouldn't have guessed from seeing the film once in high school—the play is introduced, partially narrated, and commented upon by the device of the Common Man, who takes all the small nameless roles from More's steward to his executioner and is in his own dissociative way as primary a figure as Thomas More or Richard Rich or the King; he is a cross between a mystery play's Everyman and the stranger who leans over to talk to you during the slow bits, and I wonder now if he affected the Boston Lyric Opera's recent production of Les contes d'Hoffmann, which I never wrote about, either. The staging too is abstract and self-referential, a property basket, a history book; the jury that convicts More is composed literally of the Common Man's various hats. On the page at least, it works amazingly well. By its mystery echoes, it accentuates the fact of More's sainthood, which for obvious reasons cannot be mentioned within the frame of the action itself, and the alienation effect somehow grounds the intellectual abstracts of the dialogue: this is not past and done with, this is immediately relevant, and to you, too, there in the third row. Off the page, I can see how it wouldn't have transferred to film at all, unless you wanted to make something more like Orlando than Becket. Amadeus presents a similar difficulty, and in that case I much prefer the stage version to the screen. I still want to re-watch A Man for All Seasons (1966), as I meant to do in March when Paul Scofield died, especially now that I will recognize the rest of its cast, like Wendy Hiller, Robert Shaw, and John Hurt. And now that I have connected A Man for All Seasons to Robert Bolt who wrote the screenplays for Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Doctor Zhivago (1965), I can be sorry that he never did adapt A Wrinkle in Time; it goes on the shelf of alternate histories alongside Powell and Pressburger's Earthsea.

Is this the longest night? I thought it was tomorrow, also the first night of Hanukkah. I'm so disconnected, I can't tell where we are in two calendars. Go on, ask me the date in Attic months; I think we're in Gamelion. Or we're about to be in Gamelion. The moon's waning. Look out for the sun, anyway.

Comments

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

Wow, I just re-watched A Man for All Seasons last night -- my sister was visiting, and she hadn't seen it and wanted to. Like you I last saw it in high school (before I became a just-about-professional early modernist with a focus in the English Renaissance). I've never seen it onstage, though, and would really like to; even from the film you get that sense of alienation in terms of the way it's constructed, less about narrative than ideas (actually, it would be really interesting to write a paper on it as "history play" -- indeed, now that I think about it the very first English history play was very much that kind of play, which is ironic because it was a Protestant play about King John!)

My sister said "This is really a movie about the job market, isn't it?" I don't suppose she's wrong either.

[sovay]

even from the film you get that sense of alienation in terms of the way it's constructed, less about narrative than ideas

Cool. Somehow I find this reassuring to know.

(actually, it would be really interesting to write a paper on it as "history play" -- indeed, now that I think about it the very first English history play was very much that kind of play, which is ironic because it was a Protestant play about King John!)

I'd read it.

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

I may have to write it! In my Copious Free Time. (I could even make it relevant to my usual academic work if I think a little bit about how Roper's Life of More, which is the play's primary source, fits into all this.)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You make the play- which I haven't seen- sound a lot more interesting than the film- which I have.

[sovay]

You make the play- which I haven't seen- sound a lot more interesting than the film- which I have.

You could give it a read; it's easy to get hold of. I would love to hear what you think of it.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

You made a memory open up for me--the memory of reading that very play, in high school.

And, by a weird piece of synchronicity, we were just watching A Passage To India, which was, I discovered, directed by David Lean, who also directed Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago... and here you tell me that Robert Bolt wrote the screenplays for those two and wrote A Man for All Seasons, which I didn't remember--should we watch that? Maybe I'll put it on Netflix?

Please, by the way, feel free to write down insignificant things. Anyway, significance is like beauty...

Gamelion is a beautiful word, and I thought at first you were writing "gamelon," then noticed the extra vowel, then wondered whose calendar it came from, then discovered the answer thanks to the generous, knowledgeable Internet--then discovered anyway you had hinted at it by saying Attic months, but I hadn't noticed. Searching out answers makes a person (retroactively) a more careful reader.

Never you mind about the sun, it will be dark and restful for a while longer.

[sovay]

And, by a weird piece of synchronicity, we were just watching A Passage To India, which was, I discovered, directed by David Lean, who also directed Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago... and here you tell me that Robert Bolt wrote the screenplays for those two and wrote A Man for All Seasons, which I didn't remember--should we watch that? Maybe I'll put it on Netflix?

I can certainly recommend the script. (See other comments for views on film versus play.) How was A Passage to India?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I had mixed feelings about Passage to India, and since I haven't read the novel, I'm not sure how much was the film and how much was the novel. I did like the actors a lot, though I found it weird that Alec Guiness was cast as a "mysterious Indian." It was also beautifully filmed, and well told, I think. Yes, I think my problems, such as they were, were really with the story. But there was plenty to like, too.

Do you know the plot? (Have you read the novel?)

Although I hope we're mainly past blatant racism of the sort Forster was criticizing, I think what he's saying about the mistakes that come from ignorant overzealousness in attempting to connect cross-culturally--the pitfalls you blunder into, and the difficulty of recovering from them, and the consequences of mistakes--is still relevant, and it was interesting to see it dramatized.

It's not that you can't connect--you see a successful (well, eventually successful) friendship at the very end--it's that your own cultural assumptions and baggage run deep and pop up when they're most unhelpful.

It was kind of broad-stroke, though....

[sovay]

I did like the actors a lot, though I found it weird that Alec Guiness was cast as a "mysterious Indian."

Yeah. Er.

Do you know the plot? (Have you read the novel?)

No; so far I have read only A Room with a View, which I loved. I am still looking for Maurice and short fiction and may have to resort to buying them new.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I saw it in the Sherman theatre in Cardiff about thirty years ago, and it was awesome and knocked me over completely. I was fourteen and I insisted on going because I was in love with the guy who played the son-in-law, I'd recently seen him in Journey's End and been smitten. And then I was so glad I'd gone. It was the first modern play I'd seen that worked the way it was supposed to. I went three times, thus starting my profligate career of seeing live theatre repeatedly. The Sherman is theatre-in-the-round, and they did the hats bit actually right up in front of the audience, with him sitting in a chair, as if we were also the jury. And there was a lot of leaning on chairs and moving in and out.

The film is good, but a different thing entirely.

[sovay]

The Sherman is theatre-in-the-round, and they did the hats bit actually right up in front of the audience, with him sitting in a chair, as if we were also the jury.

Oh, cool.

The film is good, but a different thing entirely.

I wish I remembered it better. What I really think I want is a stage production, and the only one I know about right now is in New York (and dubiously reviewed, albeit by someone who doesn't seem to have liked the play much to start out with).

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

I have never actually seen a review of the play written by someone who did like it! They all seem to go "blah blah blah hagiography blah blah heretic burning blah blah only relevant if you're Catholic blah blah blah ably performed by the entire ensemble, the end."

[sovay]

They all seem to go "blah blah blah hagiography blah blah heretic burning blah blah only relevant if you're Catholic blah blah blah ably performed by the entire ensemble, the end."

Clearly more early modern historians need to go into theater criticism . . .

[xterminal.livejournal.com]

I find lately that I don't write anything down, because nothing that goes through my head seems worth recording.

I've been having this problem on and off since 1994. Mostly on.

[sovay]

I've been having this problem on and off since 1994. Mostly on.

I hope it breaks soon. I like the poems I've seen too much for them to be the only specimens of their kind.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly certain that tonight (1st night of Hannukah, dH) is, in fact, the longest night.

[sovay]

I'm fairly certain that tonight (1st night of Hannukah, dH) is, in fact, the longest night.

Thank you. Cool.