Maybe 300 used DVDs at the used books store, and the only one I could take home was THE HOURS. Which I already have in NY. But which seemed like just the right dish for the state of mental and physical exhaustion I was in. And it was. Not as disturbing as I remember my first viewing of it in a NY theatre, where I was so worn out from the upheaval that I had to stay in my seat long after the closing credits ended. I remember leaving the theatre, going down the escalators, knees buckling. Well, nothing like that on this viewing. But it's still a deeply disturbing and very beautiful movie.
I had forgotten that the Julianne Moore character is pregnant and that it's (one of) the reason for her wanting to do away with herself. I had forgotten that all 3 women kiss other women in each of their segments, all out a desperate and nearly unimaginable loneliness. I had forgotten that food plays such an important role in all 3 segments. I had forgotten David Hare's script is so precise, a word that doesn't readily come to mind when I think of David Hare. I should like to read Michael Cunningham's book again very soon, see how it was re-stiched for the movies.
I should like to read MRS. DALLAWAY, or rather, try to read MRS. DALLAWAY again. I tried several years back and didn't get very far. But in the special features of the DVD of THE HOURS, Michael Cunningham says that the book is "an ordinary day in the life of an ordinary person as told by a genius. And at the end of the book you realize that everything you need to know about human life is contained in any day of anyone's life."
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COMING AND GOING, GOING AND COMING....AND ALWAYS TOO SOON
ALFREDO'S JUKEBOX
FOLLOWERS
MY BOOKS
- The History of Love, Bel Canto, 9 Stories by J.D. Salinger, Mr. Bedord and the Muses, Sister Carrie, Tick-Tock, The Season, The Hours, An American Tragedy, Living Well is the Best Revenge, Our Lady of the Lost and Found, 84 Charring Cross Road, Act One, Dancing with the Devil, Familiar Spirits, Love in the Time of Cholera, The Pursuit of Love, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, The Principles of Uncertainty, Cakes and Ale
MY MOVIES
- Babette's Feast, Sullivan's Travels, Dodsworth, All About my Mother, All About Eve, Ma Vie en Rose, A Star is Born (1954), 84 Charring Cross Road, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Brief Encounter, The Hours, Auntie Mame, Infamous, Hollywoodland, Fur, Vertigo, Rear Window, Portrait of Jennie, The Model and the Marriage Broker, Random, Harvest, The Mating Season, Radio Days, Another Woman, The Bycicle Thief, Umberto D, Blade Runner, The Devil Wears Prada, Mr. Hulot's Holiday, Mon Oncle, The Triplets of Belleville, Stevie, My Foolish Heart, The Tender Trap, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Awful Truth, Amarcord, I, Vitelloni, Variety Lights, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961), Dinner at Eight, Beyond the Forest, Mr. Skeffington, The Pirate, Turtle Diary
THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE STARS
- MARY ASTOR - Like so many women of that era (and the era really covered a lot of ground, from the 30s through the 60s) could and did play any part with forthright assurance, style and damned good acting. From the shrewish Brigid O'Shaugnassy in THE MALTESE FALCON to the wordly and serene Edith Cortrigh in DODSWORTH to the Auntie Mame-like society manhunter in THE PALM BEACH STORY to the stark and truly terrifying Roberta Carter in RETURN TO PEYTON PLACE (Oscar nomination,) Astor, like Irene Dunne (soon to appear in these pages) could do it all and, as with Dunn, no matter what the part, a shinning intelligence came through.
- VIVIEN LEIGH – A superb technician and a great beauty. The heartbreak in her eyes and her voice were there from the start and they only became more poignant as she aged. There may not be a more idiosyncratic match of star and role in anyone's career than Vivien Leigh's, who, deliberatly or not, became the spokeswoman for the fragile, shopworn angel, though still smoldering with longing and lust.
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