sovay: (Sovay: David Owen)
sovay ([personal profile] sovay) wrote2016-03-22 05:44 am

What if there's no better word than just not saying anything?

I'm not writing about my life much these days; that's because it's not going very well. My physical health is on probation until the end of April. My emotional default is best characterized by that raspberry noise Bill the Cat used to make in Bloom County. Outside of the requirements of not losing my job and making sure that I get to my cats on a regular basis, I am putting most of my resources into Patreon reviews and other forms of thinking out loud because responding to other people's art feels like the last reliable thing my brain has to offer—and, to be fair, because it interests me and I enjoy it. I didn't pour all those words into Act of Violence (1948) or Moonrise (1948) to meet a quota. But I am not surprised that my predominant genre for some months now has been either noir or tonally adjacent. A lot of those drowning outsiders feel very familiar to me.

1. I understand this portrait is titled "Gustav Klimt," but despite the gold it makes me think more of Parajanov. Maybe it's the way the gold is deployed. Maybe the pose. The color palette is totally different, but I end up thinking of Sofiko Chiaureli in The Color of Pomegranates (1969), the poet's face screened behind red and white lace.

2. I have no idea why Criterion decided to come out with discs of Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) rather than any other obscure or influential film, but it's one of my childhood favorite movies, so I pretty much don't care. At this distance I have only the dimmest recollection of the A-plot with Robert Montgomery's plane-crashing prizefighter prematurely translated to the next world by an overzealous angel and bodyswapped back to Earth by his eponymous urbane superior, where he wakes to a noir-suitable mix of murder, infidelity, and crooked financial dealing and turns it all into a screwball romance. He is able to prove his identity by playing the saxophone very badly. There's a girl who he ends up with, but I can't remember how they meet or who plays her; I remember the boxer's excitable manager only because I've seen James Gleason in multiple character roles since. What stuck with me was the heavenly bureaucracy, of which I think Mr. Jordan must have been the cinematic template—it predates Powell and Pressburger's more deliberately numinous A Matter of Life and Death (1946) and even Jack Benny's apocalyptically goofy The Horn Blows at Midnight (1945). There are rafts of cloud, clipboards, streamlined modern airplanes instead of pearly gates. Edward Everett Horton's dithery Messenger 7013 dresses like a commercial pilot and mournfully requests a transfer from New Jersey. First I saw Claude Rains as the endlessly ambiguous Captain Renault, then I saw him as God. Calm, wry, benevolently enigmatic, nothing surprises Mr. Jordan, but he hasn't seen it all yet. He has pilots' wings on his dark suit jacket and a silver streak in his hair. It took me until just now, this very moment, to realize that he must be named after the river as it figures in hymns: the crossing between worlds. I'd have backed the film with Angel on My Shoulder (1946), but maybe they're saving it for a future release. I don't understand their schedule. It's only taken them forever to get around to—no relation—Only Angels Have Wings (1939).

3. I knew someone on the internet would inevitably generate fanart of William Daniels' John Adams and Lin-Manuel Miranda's Alexander Hamilton. I just didn't expect it to be the New York City Center.
surpassingly: (Default)

[personal profile] surpassingly 2016-03-22 01:56 pm (UTC)(link)
It is very much not Gustav Klimt! I mean, there's a tiny suggestion of dimension... /ridiculous laughter

<3 <3 <3

I have been very much enjoying your writing about other people's art and your Patreon reviews; thank you.
musesfool: danny and rusty  (and the living is easy)

[personal profile] musesfool 2016-03-22 03:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks for that link to the interview with Lin-Manuel Miranda and William Daniels!

[identity profile] moon-custafer.livejournal.com 2016-03-22 12:06 pm (UTC)(link)
What's the one in which the passengers of a ship eventually figure out they're travelling to the afterlife, and when a heavenly judge shows up to decide who goes where, it's Sydney Greenstreet? I fully admit I could google this, I'm just making conversation.
Edited 2016-03-22 12:06 (UTC)

[identity profile] moon-custafer.livejournal.com 2016-03-22 12:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Between Two Worlds (1944).
drwex: (Default)

[personal profile] drwex 2016-03-22 02:40 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm sorry you're not doing well. I hope things improve.
gwynnega: (lordpeter mswyrr)

[personal profile] gwynnega 2016-03-22 06:52 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't think I've ever not loved a performance by Edward Everett Horton or James Gleason.

That interview with William Daniels and Lin-Manuel Miranda is terrific (as is the fanart!).

[identity profile] martianmooncrab.livejournal.com 2016-03-22 08:40 pm (UTC)(link)
starting early tomorrow TCM is showing some old serials and Batman/Phantom/ stuff from the 40's. Maybe some Green Lantern, I forgot to refresh my memory before sitting in front of the computer.

[identity profile] martianmooncrab.livejournal.com 2016-03-23 07:37 am (UTC)(link)
I am recording the Phantoms, its stil one of my favorite mythos.

[identity profile] schreibergasse.livejournal.com 2016-03-22 11:41 pm (UTC)(link)
My physical health is on probation until the end of April. My emotional default is best characterized by that raspberry noise Bill the Cat used to make in Bloom County.

< hugs >. I'm really sorry. Let me know if there's anything I can do, including coming by your place to entertain you.

[identity profile] schreibergasse.livejournal.com 2016-03-23 01:02 am (UTC)(link)
PS: Also: can you eat fruit buns? I will probably making more hot cross buns one of the enxt two weekends.

[identity profile] nineweaving.livejournal.com 2016-03-23 05:12 am (UTC)(link)
The Wrong Box, one of these days?

Nine

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2016-03-24 12:02 pm (UTC)(link)
The tall one showed me some sort of a mashup picture, titled "[somebody] Klimt, where "somebody" was an actor or cartoon character... I forget which. It was in the style of the The Kiss of course. I like this "Gustav Klimt" you've linked to, though I wouldn't have linked the picture to Klimt without the name.


It took me until just now, this very moment, to realize that he must be named after the river as it figures in hymns: the crossing between worlds. --Heh. I like it when that happens. Discovery in the process of writing. And I wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't called it to my attention.