![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
But when the sun comes out—and only when the sun comes out
Good afternoon. It is busily snowing, because God forbid New England should have spring when it's the right time of year for it.
Yesterday, after not feeling miraculously better as soon as I woke up, I saw a doctor just to make sure it wasn't anything exciting that was making me feel so exhausted and achy and was immediately put on Tamiflu, which answered that question. I spent the rest of the afternoon at the Somerville Theatre watching D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916) on 35 mm with live music by Jeff Rapsis. Three hours of cross-historical epic with monumental sets and thousands of extras, including an elephant that I was delighted to see during the fall of Babylon. Just for Griffith's Babylon, it was worth the time. I should check on the state of Assyriology at the time of the film's production: the intertitles for the thread are full of citations for Babylon c. 539 BCE and the sets and costumes are an amazing mix of archaeological record, nineteenth-century painting, contemporary fashion, and just plain fantasy, like the reframing of Cyrus' conquest of Babylon as an internal religious conflict between the priesthoods of Bel-Marduk and Ištar leading to a treacherous betrayal and a romantic double suicide between Belshazzar and his "Princess Beloved."![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
derspatchel and I were a little disappointed that with all the impressive effects onscreen, at no point did a mystical hand actually write mene mene tekel upharsin on one of the enormous walls. Then again, rather than an arrogant blasphemer who is about to have his ass handed to him by God with a little help from the Medes and Persians, Griffith's Belshazzar is the noble, slightly naive ruler of a doomed and sympathetic city, a brief shining moment of open-minded decadence whose epic hero is the ass-kicking Mountain Girl played by Constance Talmadge. We were not at all surprised to come home and read that Griffith actually recut the Babylonian story into a feature of its own with a happy ending for its heroine, a warlike tomboy whose independent behavior in the marriage market wins her the royal favor of marrying or not marrying as she pleases; the gesture causes her to fall in love with Belshazzar and fight for him in men's armor on the walls of besieged Babylon, successfully spy on his enemies as they regather their forces, and even race a chariot breakneck home from Cyrus' camp in an effort to warn the celebration-drunken city of their mortal danger—all to no avail, because of the inexorability of history and the point Griffith is making about the destructive forces of intolerance, but that's the kind of woman the goddess Ištar loves. I mean, the Huguenot story was just kind of there from my perspective, the Christ story has some nice moments, the modern-day story is a social melodrama which led me to whisper to Rob, "Go on, D.W. Griffith, tell me how you really feel about SJWs!" and the last five minutes are cinematic batshit at its finest with a swords-into-ploughshares vision of choirs of angels descending to put an stop to World War I. Griffith's Babylon, however, as it should be, is something else again.
And tomorrow I get up very early to catch a train to New York City for the Clockwork Phoenix 5 launch party, at which I hope to see several of you. Before then, I think this afternoon is snow and laundry.
Yesterday, after not feeling miraculously better as soon as I woke up, I saw a doctor just to make sure it wasn't anything exciting that was making me feel so exhausted and achy and was immediately put on Tamiflu, which answered that question. I spent the rest of the afternoon at the Somerville Theatre watching D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916) on 35 mm with live music by Jeff Rapsis. Three hours of cross-historical epic with monumental sets and thousands of extras, including an elephant that I was delighted to see during the fall of Babylon. Just for Griffith's Babylon, it was worth the time. I should check on the state of Assyriology at the time of the film's production: the intertitles for the thread are full of citations for Babylon c. 539 BCE and the sets and costumes are an amazing mix of archaeological record, nineteenth-century painting, contemporary fashion, and just plain fantasy, like the reframing of Cyrus' conquest of Babylon as an internal religious conflict between the priesthoods of Bel-Marduk and Ištar leading to a treacherous betrayal and a romantic double suicide between Belshazzar and his "Princess Beloved."
derspatchel and I were a little disappointed that with all the impressive effects onscreen, at no point did a mystical hand actually write mene mene tekel upharsin on one of the enormous walls. Then again, rather than an arrogant blasphemer who is about to have his ass handed to him by God with a little help from the Medes and Persians, Griffith's Belshazzar is the noble, slightly naive ruler of a doomed and sympathetic city, a brief shining moment of open-minded decadence whose epic hero is the ass-kicking Mountain Girl played by Constance Talmadge. We were not at all surprised to come home and read that Griffith actually recut the Babylonian story into a feature of its own with a happy ending for its heroine, a warlike tomboy whose independent behavior in the marriage market wins her the royal favor of marrying or not marrying as she pleases; the gesture causes her to fall in love with Belshazzar and fight for him in men's armor on the walls of besieged Babylon, successfully spy on his enemies as they regather their forces, and even race a chariot breakneck home from Cyrus' camp in an effort to warn the celebration-drunken city of their mortal danger—all to no avail, because of the inexorability of history and the point Griffith is making about the destructive forces of intolerance, but that's the kind of woman the goddess Ištar loves. I mean, the Huguenot story was just kind of there from my perspective, the Christ story has some nice moments, the modern-day story is a social melodrama which led me to whisper to Rob, "Go on, D.W. Griffith, tell me how you really feel about SJWs!" and the last five minutes are cinematic batshit at its finest with a swords-into-ploughshares vision of choirs of angels descending to put an stop to World War I. Griffith's Babylon, however, as it should be, is something else again.And tomorrow I get up very early to catch a train to New York City for the Clockwork Phoenix 5 launch party, at which I hope to see several of you. Before then, I think this afternoon is snow and laundry.
no subject
no subject
I'll have to re-read Mendoza in Hollywood!
no subject
no subject
The Tamiflu helped amazingly! I was not functional to make myself dinner on Saturday and Monday I was still all but asleep on my feet; by Thursday after the trip, I was tired from the traveling, but not sick at all. I had no idea that was even possible.
no subject
Someone had the inspired idea of running Holst's Mars- bringer of war- over the Babylonian battle scenes.
no subject
Nice!
I think every movie I have seen since with siege towers owes Griffith a debt.
no subject
Wow! Sign me up! And especially for that recut film (which--let me be sure I'm understanding--is separate from this film, right? There's this film, but then he went and made a separate one just for the Mountain Girl, correct?)
no subject
Yes; it sounds like it's mostly the same footage as the Babylonian thread in Intolerance, but released as a separate feature film. I think he did the same with the contemporary story, but I have much less interest in that.