Eyes Without A Face (1960)
With a haunting score by Maurice Jarre (Dr. Zhivago) and the haunting eyes of Edith Scob. Eyes Without A Face is — you guessed it — haunting. It’s kind of a horror flick; the director Georges Franju preferred to call it ‘poetic’ horror. But Eyes Without a Face is offensive, because of it’s intentional juxtaposition of reality and fantasy. Pierre Brasseur is a surgeon who wishes to replace his daughters damaged features; so his sinister, devoted assistant (played by Allida Valli) captures a young woman, and they remove her face. The removal is horrifyingly real. Though I kept thinking — would that actually work? Just peeling it off and attaching it to someone else? Of course it doesn’t; and the scene when Brasseur discovers something wrong it's chilling. As he gently touches his daughter’s new face, we sense there is a problem. She wants to smile. He says “Smile, but not too much,” and whether it’s intentionally or unintentionally funny I am not sure, but I couldn’t laugh. The amazing thing is that there is actually nothing camp here, even when Edit Scob stabs Allida Valli in the neck with a scalpel and Valli simply asks: ‘Why?’ The ending is sublime, as Scob releases the caged, tortured dogs Brasseur has been using for his experiments, and they consequently devour him. Franju wanted to insert real violence into art. Audiences at the premiere in Edinburgh walked out, causing Franju to quip, memorably: “Now I know why Scotsmen wear kilts.” The only critic who gave it a good review was fired. Consider Ibsen’s reviews for Ghosts -- “An open drain; a loathsome sore unbandaged; a dirty act done publicly.” Merely hinting at venereal disease was enough to unleash a veritable fountain of rhetorical masturbation. Remember, one Edwardian judge who had to deal with a ‘lesbianic’ performance — Maude Adams’ interpretations of Oscar Wilde’s Salome -- said ‘such subject matter should never be spoken of because it will bring to young ladies’ minds something which they could not normally think of themselves.’ But the human imagination is able to conjure things that are too fantastical even to be real; there’s proof enough in the madness that grips our world now. And it is perhaps relevant that COVID-19 and racism have merged. CNN speaks of them in one breath as ‘sister epidemics’ and I believe they are, because the fight against both appeals to our better selves, and there is no lie more attractive than that. Franju, in contrast, appeals to our baser instincts, and as you are watching the facial transplant, you are on the one hand saying to yourself ‘there’s no need for us to see this’ -- but you can’t tear yourself away. Yes we all have assholes; a startling revelation when you really think of it. A character in Maria Irene Fornes’ Fefu and Her Friends goes on about how amazing it is that people have genitals under their clothes. I must admit I do get quite obsessed with that sometimes, which makes it difficult for me to concentrate. Jerry Ciccoritti once told someone: ‘Sky’s work is just about shocking Mommy and Daddy.’ Except they are long in their graves so why do I still do it? Perhaps it’s an illness, but I think I am exposing hypocrisy by saying: we all have bodies, those bodies do unpleasant things and make unpleasant sounds and leave unpleasant stains on the bed. Christopher Newton’s standard for whether or not a stage character was ‘real’ or not was —‘do they shit?’ The body is death; because bodies die. I only watched half the video of George Floyd being asphyxiated by that cop’s knee. But for those of you who watched it to the end -- all this may have to do with the impossible task we have been set by God. We are conscious, when it would have been so much better to be just a plant or a rock, because they don’t see their own death. To be given this and then have it all taken away — though religion tries to make that into a blessing — seems like cruelty on someone’s part. And that realization may explain human cruelty/voyeurism to some degree. Maybe death won’t happen to us if we do it to someone else, or maybe it will go away if we imagine it happening to ourselves over and over again— and yet. And yet, Bataille says a part of us wants death, and we instinctively long for it, because we were dead before we were born; or at least we weren’t alive. So there are two choices. You either delude yourself into pretending there is no death, or constantly remind yourself there is, and somehow carry on. I’m sorry to tell you that diseases will never disappear and there will always be racism. The weird little bubble we are living in now seems heroic — because it seems brave to imagine a perfect world — but it’s simply nuts. Ibsen wanted to remind us that syphilitic bodies are covered with sores, and then you go mad, and then you die. Franju didn’t want to make a horror movie where the mad scientists cackle — because after all, there are real Nazis in the world who never cackle and are occasionally kind— so instead he made a film about a very cool rational doctor with a deep voice who very carefully cuts someone’s face off and steals it. The two men (Boileau-Narcejac) who wrote Eyes Without a Face also wrote Hitchcock’s Vertigo, which is another dance with beauty and death. So I realise now what happens when I get to this point in one of these blogs and I am nearing the end. And in addition -- now I am getting nearer to the end of writing all these blogs. Because the end must come. (And I think I will have to stop writing them soon. I’m only preparing myself, not you, I know you don’t care.) (Do you?) Both situations call up the same urgency -- that I simply must cram in all this profundity -- somehow -- before the end, because it all must end well, so it's a race with time. And every line I write makes it impossible to write another. (These blogs must be of certain length that I deem to be appropriate.) So the answer to the dilemma — which I have only found because this blog is ending and I must find an answer — is that there is no heroism in a dream that does not acknowledge death. Speaking of being without a face, there is no heroism in a fake pasted-on-smile that is oblivious to the fact that people have dirty naked bumholes under their clothes. But to know that, and acknowledge that, and continue to try and create some sort of beauty, is a kind of hopelessness that we would all do well to yearn for. For all is passing; and you may have missed it already, and it may already be too late.
Sunday, 7 June 2020
Saturday, 6 June 2020
PLAGUE DIARY 80: SKY WRITES REVIEWS OF OLD BAD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES TO KEEP HIM SANE DURING THIS TIME OF HORRIFIC INSANITY
Duck Soup (1931)
The opening image is four ducks being cooked for dinner; that is four live ducks, preening and quacking in a metal pan, over roaring a fire. Not exactly comforting, but in a certain sense, literal. Like the Marx Brothers themselves this image trades on a literality which is semantic based — words are oft-as-not taken at face value: “A four year old could understand this report. So run out and get a four year old — I can’t make head or tail of it.” But there are also puns: “It’s a gala day” which leads to “A gal a day is enough for me — I don’t think I could handle any more.” The instability of language is also the instability of meaning and communication — and ultimately of life itself: anarchy ensues. This includes sexual anarchy as well. Apparently in their real life the Marx brothers were just as horny as they were on screen. Some anecdotes about their real life survive: “Harpo told [Nathaniel] West and his sister to come into the dressing room, asking — ‘Are you decent?’ — when he didn’t have a stitch on.” “At a bridge game at the Whist Club somebody had said to Zeppo, ‘you haven’t got anything,’ and he said ‘that’s a lie’ and took out his privates and put them on the table.” The unlicensed madness in Duck Soup hasn’t aged well, as when Groucho says: “The Headstrongs married the Armstrongs and that’s why darkies were born,” or when a song in praise of war turns into a negro spiritual. Chico wears ‘brownface’ and his schtick is a parody of a dumb, immigrant Italian. (Groucho says: “He may talk like an idiot and look like an idiot, don’t let him fool you, he is an idiot.) And I can’t say, frankly, that I actually find Groucho funny. His painted moustache and eyebrows are somewhat frightening to me. And most of his jokes are bad — although to his credit he acknowledges that. Harpo is another matter; my heart eternally goes out to him. He is — unlike the other brothers (there was fifth— Gummo — who left vaudeville to become a raincoat salesman -- and the sixth Marx brother died at birth) sweet, good-natured, and innocent. Harpo is a child, and there is no viciousness in him, nor could he ever be violent — it seems, because he simply delights in the world; all actions are to him, beautiful actions. It’s about joy; there is no other purpose. Is that not a kind of godliness? This doesn’t mean that Harpo's sexuality, too, isn’t anarchic. But unlike Groucho -- who crawls all over the massive Margaret Dumont, flattering her for money -- Harpo is polymorphously perverse. His philandering is innocent, and when it is not, that's an accident really. He spies a pretty blonde through a window — and since he happens to be riding a horse — he quite naturally dismounts and races up to her room. She is running a bath, and her husband comes home (“My husband! My husband!”), so, naturally, Harpo hides in the bathroom. The husband — a hairy brute — takes a bath, but whenever he leans against the back of the tub there is a disconcerting fart. Harpo rises from the tub soaking wet, honking his horn — and then disappears. Innocent enough. But then Harpo sees another pretty girl through another window, and this time he takes his horse up to her apartment with him. Cut to a shot of a row of shoes by a bed: her shoes, his shoes, and finally the ‘horse’s shoes’ — (horseshoes). Sure enough, the horse is in bed too. This is -- unequivocally -- bestiality, and as anarchic as it gets. But because it's Harpo, we forgive. After all, there is nothing traditionally male about him, with his dopey smile and blond curls. And in Duck Soup he seems to enjoy cutting up phallic symbols with scissors (sometimes they are drooping and sometimes erect) — cigars, pant pockets, coattails. Why? Because it pleases him. He foils masculine rage by making fun of it — he would never fight -- he just imitates the act of fighting -- as masculinity is just a game to him. His habit of inserting a hanging leg into people’s otherwise unoccupied hands -- is disconcerting to say the least. Coming from anyone else it might seem like sexual harassment (with women) or aggression (with men). The classic mirror sequence in Duck Soup is the heart of this film. Chico and Harpo dress up as Groucho. When he sees Harpo, Chico thinks he’s looking in a mirror. Harpo proceeds to imitate Chico’s actions - with impossible ingenuity — anticipating his every move — like suddenly running by the mirror, or at it. At one point The Two Grouchos change places and Chico steps into the imagined mirror, ending up on the other side; this smells of Alice in Wonderland, as well as the metaphor of art itself, and the tantalising possibility that we might enter another world (do other worlds exist?). The mirror game ends when the real Groucho appears, and then there are three. I don’t imagine the Marx brothers — though considered ‘classic’ in a pretentious way today — would be very popular now, as nothing at all is funny anymore. In our world people are either good or bad, right or wrong, and all is serious; the Marx brothers exist outside this paradigm, so we would find them suspicious. Even Harpo’s innocence, would, I think, be suspect today — after all, he randomly chases after strange women, and breaks into their apartments — never mind the ridiculousness of the bathtub or the horseshoes by the bed. I named Buddies in Bad Times Theatre after a poem by Jacques Prevert (Paroles), because Prevert — a French surrealist poet, had the innocence of Harpo Marx. He was fond of children and birds, and suspicious of authority -- i.e. policemen, government officials, and fathers — all those who tell us what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad. He valorised ‘the dunce’ (exemplified by the character he created for Jean-Louis Barrault in Les Enfants du Paradis) and spoke of ‘Kids who love each other / Kiss each other where they stand / Against the gates of night / Passersby in passing / Point their fingers at them / But kids who love each other / Are dead to all the world.” And indeed we are. That is the ‘power of love’ that these days unfortunately has also been judged; some might not think it’s love if you chase some girl and end up making farting sounds in her bathtub — or when a gentle horse lays its shoes beside your bed. The Marx Brothers’ gift is comedy; they plead with us only to stop this infernal judging. But alas, the end of judgement is more frightening, even, than the beginning of love.
The opening image is four ducks being cooked for dinner; that is four live ducks, preening and quacking in a metal pan, over roaring a fire. Not exactly comforting, but in a certain sense, literal. Like the Marx Brothers themselves this image trades on a literality which is semantic based — words are oft-as-not taken at face value: “A four year old could understand this report. So run out and get a four year old — I can’t make head or tail of it.” But there are also puns: “It’s a gala day” which leads to “A gal a day is enough for me — I don’t think I could handle any more.” The instability of language is also the instability of meaning and communication — and ultimately of life itself: anarchy ensues. This includes sexual anarchy as well. Apparently in their real life the Marx brothers were just as horny as they were on screen. Some anecdotes about their real life survive: “Harpo told [Nathaniel] West and his sister to come into the dressing room, asking — ‘Are you decent?’ — when he didn’t have a stitch on.” “At a bridge game at the Whist Club somebody had said to Zeppo, ‘you haven’t got anything,’ and he said ‘that’s a lie’ and took out his privates and put them on the table.” The unlicensed madness in Duck Soup hasn’t aged well, as when Groucho says: “The Headstrongs married the Armstrongs and that’s why darkies were born,” or when a song in praise of war turns into a negro spiritual. Chico wears ‘brownface’ and his schtick is a parody of a dumb, immigrant Italian. (Groucho says: “He may talk like an idiot and look like an idiot, don’t let him fool you, he is an idiot.) And I can’t say, frankly, that I actually find Groucho funny. His painted moustache and eyebrows are somewhat frightening to me. And most of his jokes are bad — although to his credit he acknowledges that. Harpo is another matter; my heart eternally goes out to him. He is — unlike the other brothers (there was fifth— Gummo — who left vaudeville to become a raincoat salesman -- and the sixth Marx brother died at birth) sweet, good-natured, and innocent. Harpo is a child, and there is no viciousness in him, nor could he ever be violent — it seems, because he simply delights in the world; all actions are to him, beautiful actions. It’s about joy; there is no other purpose. Is that not a kind of godliness? This doesn’t mean that Harpo's sexuality, too, isn’t anarchic. But unlike Groucho -- who crawls all over the massive Margaret Dumont, flattering her for money -- Harpo is polymorphously perverse. His philandering is innocent, and when it is not, that's an accident really. He spies a pretty blonde through a window — and since he happens to be riding a horse — he quite naturally dismounts and races up to her room. She is running a bath, and her husband comes home (“My husband! My husband!”), so, naturally, Harpo hides in the bathroom. The husband — a hairy brute — takes a bath, but whenever he leans against the back of the tub there is a disconcerting fart. Harpo rises from the tub soaking wet, honking his horn — and then disappears. Innocent enough. But then Harpo sees another pretty girl through another window, and this time he takes his horse up to her apartment with him. Cut to a shot of a row of shoes by a bed: her shoes, his shoes, and finally the ‘horse’s shoes’ — (horseshoes). Sure enough, the horse is in bed too. This is -- unequivocally -- bestiality, and as anarchic as it gets. But because it's Harpo, we forgive. After all, there is nothing traditionally male about him, with his dopey smile and blond curls. And in Duck Soup he seems to enjoy cutting up phallic symbols with scissors (sometimes they are drooping and sometimes erect) — cigars, pant pockets, coattails. Why? Because it pleases him. He foils masculine rage by making fun of it — he would never fight -- he just imitates the act of fighting -- as masculinity is just a game to him. His habit of inserting a hanging leg into people’s otherwise unoccupied hands -- is disconcerting to say the least. Coming from anyone else it might seem like sexual harassment (with women) or aggression (with men). The classic mirror sequence in Duck Soup is the heart of this film. Chico and Harpo dress up as Groucho. When he sees Harpo, Chico thinks he’s looking in a mirror. Harpo proceeds to imitate Chico’s actions - with impossible ingenuity — anticipating his every move — like suddenly running by the mirror, or at it. At one point The Two Grouchos change places and Chico steps into the imagined mirror, ending up on the other side; this smells of Alice in Wonderland, as well as the metaphor of art itself, and the tantalising possibility that we might enter another world (do other worlds exist?). The mirror game ends when the real Groucho appears, and then there are three. I don’t imagine the Marx brothers — though considered ‘classic’ in a pretentious way today — would be very popular now, as nothing at all is funny anymore. In our world people are either good or bad, right or wrong, and all is serious; the Marx brothers exist outside this paradigm, so we would find them suspicious. Even Harpo’s innocence, would, I think, be suspect today — after all, he randomly chases after strange women, and breaks into their apartments — never mind the ridiculousness of the bathtub or the horseshoes by the bed. I named Buddies in Bad Times Theatre after a poem by Jacques Prevert (Paroles), because Prevert — a French surrealist poet, had the innocence of Harpo Marx. He was fond of children and birds, and suspicious of authority -- i.e. policemen, government officials, and fathers — all those who tell us what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad. He valorised ‘the dunce’ (exemplified by the character he created for Jean-Louis Barrault in Les Enfants du Paradis) and spoke of ‘Kids who love each other / Kiss each other where they stand / Against the gates of night / Passersby in passing / Point their fingers at them / But kids who love each other / Are dead to all the world.” And indeed we are. That is the ‘power of love’ that these days unfortunately has also been judged; some might not think it’s love if you chase some girl and end up making farting sounds in her bathtub — or when a gentle horse lays its shoes beside your bed. The Marx Brothers’ gift is comedy; they plead with us only to stop this infernal judging. But alas, the end of judgement is more frightening, even, than the beginning of love.
Friday, 5 June 2020
PLAGUE DIARY 79: SKY WRITES REVIEWS OF OLD BAD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES TO KEEP HIM SANE DURING THIS TIME OF HORRIFIC INSANITY
M (1931)
This is our fate. I imagined that someday this monotony would lift — and we would be ‘free’; that there would never be a’ new normal’ because we might go back to the old one. That hope is gone. When you live in a certain way for three months, with no hope of change, it becomes your way of life. This is my life. I’ve figured out a way to manage, unfortunately — although it’s not the way I want to live. And I’ve figured out how to occasionally wrench a kind happiness out of it — which I know -- for a fact -- means I am doing better than some. Evidently the government is not going to suddenly end the lock down and celebrate life again with us; in fact what is happening is the opposite of that. We have no idea what restrictions will be lifted, or when. Government websites offer no reassuring condolences— except for the families of the very few who have died. No, it’s an ‘ever evolving situation’ and ‘we are doing our best under the circumstances’ — and no doubt, they are (at least those on the bottom of the totem pole). The ones at the top have decided — for whatever reason -- that this whole process must be excruciatingly slow, and nearly imperceptible, like Chinese water torture. On Monday — ‘Oh, well, a garden centre is open!’ or perhaps another store allows you to gingerly approach, and purchase something 'essential' from a paranoid person wearing a mask and gloves. But presently I can’t imagine myself living any other way. And I suppose, oddly, well -- that that’s a good thing. But I don’t know what this means for people who have no income, or are living with abuse. Or rather, I do, It means that poverty and violence — and for some, a kind of madness — is the ‘new normal.’ They were showing the 1951 remake of M by Joseph Losey on TCM — but I’d never seen the original so I rented it — partly due to my fascination with Peter Lorre. Lorre was a tragically underrated actor who fled Germany with the rise of Hitler. In America he was cast in minor bad-guy roles until he ended up in B-movie shlock with Roger Corman. It’s terribly sad, and probably has to do with his physical appearance. He seems gay; he played a gay character in The Maltese Falcon (Mr. Cairo) and his heavy lidded eyes, full lips, and smooth skin — as well as the questionable gift of a rather femme voice, made it impossible for him to play the lead — except of course as a child serial killer. M was at first attacked by the Nazi party for being anti-nazi merely because of its original title Murderer Among Us. When M was released, Variety described it as “a little too long,” which it may be. But I would instead call it relentless. Of course no one wants to see a film about a child serial killer, but that is all the more reason to see it. Lang was careful not to display child abuse— the chilling implications of Lorre buying candy and balloons as his shadow disappears down the street with a little girl — well, that’s quite enough. Most of the film is taken up with the search for the killer, and it is clear from Lang’s approach that the murderer is not the only character who is guilty — but not in the sense of all those silly 50s American films that would have us believe that the origin of all criminality is an absent father. Almost all the characters in this film are to some degree repellent. I think this was purposeful on Lang’s part — even the mothers of the children seem somewhat pitiful — paradoxically both indolent and overworked, and joyless. Lorre’s ‘Javert’ — Inspector Lohmann — was based on a real German official, and the name Lohmann says it all - he is a fat, cigar chewing, climber -- of criminal aspect. But the real coup in M, is Lorre’s trial by his ‘peers.’ For Lorre is — ironically — not initially captured by the police, but instead by a cabal of criminals who gather to try him. Prostitution, speakeasies, thievery and gambling have been severely impacted by the laws instituted to catch the child-killer. These restrictions placed on the populace resemble to some degree those we endure under COVID-19: one Berlin government official expresses misgivings which could have fallen from the mouth of our own Theresa Tam: “The idea that each citizen is responsible for what happens to the poorest most anonymous child on the streets hasn’t even dawned on the public at large.” Lorre's capture by these n’er-do-wells instigates a masterfully constructed moral dilemma — is the child killer guiltier than they are, and should they execute him? Lorre’s eloquent defenae is redolent of The Merchant of Venice “Don’t I have this cursed thing inside me? This voice? This agony? I want to run away from myself. With me runs the ghosts of the mothers and children.” Of course it is impossible to forgive him. But when he says “No one has the right to kill a man who is not responsible for his crimes,” it rings somewhat true. But the thieves and whores will have none of the ‘insanity defence.’ When the crowd yells: “That’s not a human being” — you know Lorre will not be spared. But of course even a child killer is human, and it was the Nazis who decided Jews were not — and we all know what that led to. Lang’s genius is to implicate all of us. Ergo, this film will never be a popular one (despite the Criterion Collection offering its pretentious film commentary on the significance of all the ‘mirror’ and ‘window’ camera shots). The truth is, we are all guilty — which explains why we are so attached to COVID-19. We are all mean, selfish greedy liars. We want nothing but our own satisfaction, and are rarely capable of 'doing under others.’ Ergo, we love a disease that redeems us; for by wearing the mask and staying six feet away — we are not only being good, —but we are in fact the only good ones; all others are evil. But the true essence of evil is not being being a bad person — as we are all bad people — it is being rotten to the core and pretending we are not. I, unfortunately identify with Peter Lorre, being somewhat of a child murderer myself; he is compelled to murder children, and I am compelled to give voice to my most alarming thoughts. For I know that what I write here is not the truth, but merely my version of it. And the fact that I keep reassuring you of that fact is a kind of a trick — but also a way out — for I’m hoping that if you learn to distrust me, you may at some point gain the priceless gift of beginning to distrust yourself.
This is our fate. I imagined that someday this monotony would lift — and we would be ‘free’; that there would never be a’ new normal’ because we might go back to the old one. That hope is gone. When you live in a certain way for three months, with no hope of change, it becomes your way of life. This is my life. I’ve figured out a way to manage, unfortunately — although it’s not the way I want to live. And I’ve figured out how to occasionally wrench a kind happiness out of it — which I know -- for a fact -- means I am doing better than some. Evidently the government is not going to suddenly end the lock down and celebrate life again with us; in fact what is happening is the opposite of that. We have no idea what restrictions will be lifted, or when. Government websites offer no reassuring condolences— except for the families of the very few who have died. No, it’s an ‘ever evolving situation’ and ‘we are doing our best under the circumstances’ — and no doubt, they are (at least those on the bottom of the totem pole). The ones at the top have decided — for whatever reason -- that this whole process must be excruciatingly slow, and nearly imperceptible, like Chinese water torture. On Monday — ‘Oh, well, a garden centre is open!’ or perhaps another store allows you to gingerly approach, and purchase something 'essential' from a paranoid person wearing a mask and gloves. But presently I can’t imagine myself living any other way. And I suppose, oddly, well -- that that’s a good thing. But I don’t know what this means for people who have no income, or are living with abuse. Or rather, I do, It means that poverty and violence — and for some, a kind of madness — is the ‘new normal.’ They were showing the 1951 remake of M by Joseph Losey on TCM — but I’d never seen the original so I rented it — partly due to my fascination with Peter Lorre. Lorre was a tragically underrated actor who fled Germany with the rise of Hitler. In America he was cast in minor bad-guy roles until he ended up in B-movie shlock with Roger Corman. It’s terribly sad, and probably has to do with his physical appearance. He seems gay; he played a gay character in The Maltese Falcon (Mr. Cairo) and his heavy lidded eyes, full lips, and smooth skin — as well as the questionable gift of a rather femme voice, made it impossible for him to play the lead — except of course as a child serial killer. M was at first attacked by the Nazi party for being anti-nazi merely because of its original title Murderer Among Us. When M was released, Variety described it as “a little too long,” which it may be. But I would instead call it relentless. Of course no one wants to see a film about a child serial killer, but that is all the more reason to see it. Lang was careful not to display child abuse— the chilling implications of Lorre buying candy and balloons as his shadow disappears down the street with a little girl — well, that’s quite enough. Most of the film is taken up with the search for the killer, and it is clear from Lang’s approach that the murderer is not the only character who is guilty — but not in the sense of all those silly 50s American films that would have us believe that the origin of all criminality is an absent father. Almost all the characters in this film are to some degree repellent. I think this was purposeful on Lang’s part — even the mothers of the children seem somewhat pitiful — paradoxically both indolent and overworked, and joyless. Lorre’s ‘Javert’ — Inspector Lohmann — was based on a real German official, and the name Lohmann says it all - he is a fat, cigar chewing, climber -- of criminal aspect. But the real coup in M, is Lorre’s trial by his ‘peers.’ For Lorre is — ironically — not initially captured by the police, but instead by a cabal of criminals who gather to try him. Prostitution, speakeasies, thievery and gambling have been severely impacted by the laws instituted to catch the child-killer. These restrictions placed on the populace resemble to some degree those we endure under COVID-19: one Berlin government official expresses misgivings which could have fallen from the mouth of our own Theresa Tam: “The idea that each citizen is responsible for what happens to the poorest most anonymous child on the streets hasn’t even dawned on the public at large.” Lorre's capture by these n’er-do-wells instigates a masterfully constructed moral dilemma — is the child killer guiltier than they are, and should they execute him? Lorre’s eloquent defenae is redolent of The Merchant of Venice “Don’t I have this cursed thing inside me? This voice? This agony? I want to run away from myself. With me runs the ghosts of the mothers and children.” Of course it is impossible to forgive him. But when he says “No one has the right to kill a man who is not responsible for his crimes,” it rings somewhat true. But the thieves and whores will have none of the ‘insanity defence.’ When the crowd yells: “That’s not a human being” — you know Lorre will not be spared. But of course even a child killer is human, and it was the Nazis who decided Jews were not — and we all know what that led to. Lang’s genius is to implicate all of us. Ergo, this film will never be a popular one (despite the Criterion Collection offering its pretentious film commentary on the significance of all the ‘mirror’ and ‘window’ camera shots). The truth is, we are all guilty — which explains why we are so attached to COVID-19. We are all mean, selfish greedy liars. We want nothing but our own satisfaction, and are rarely capable of 'doing under others.’ Ergo, we love a disease that redeems us; for by wearing the mask and staying six feet away — we are not only being good, —but we are in fact the only good ones; all others are evil. But the true essence of evil is not being being a bad person — as we are all bad people — it is being rotten to the core and pretending we are not. I, unfortunately identify with Peter Lorre, being somewhat of a child murderer myself; he is compelled to murder children, and I am compelled to give voice to my most alarming thoughts. For I know that what I write here is not the truth, but merely my version of it. And the fact that I keep reassuring you of that fact is a kind of a trick — but also a way out — for I’m hoping that if you learn to distrust me, you may at some point gain the priceless gift of beginning to distrust yourself.
Thursday, 4 June 2020
PLAGUE DIARY 78: SKY WRITES REVIEWS OF OLD BAD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES TO KEEP HIM SANE DURING THIS TIME OF HORRIFIC INSANITY
The Citadel (1938)
All art is persuasion. I have been persuaded, and now I will try and persuade you. I doubt I will succeed. (With that, I provide the required humility that facilitates my message.). You may not agree with what I say here. (More humility). You may not agree with the message of this movie. But the only reason this film persuaded me is because it’s damn good. The Citadel is about a doctor with a moral dilemma: should I heal the sick or should I make a pile of money? The question may seem shocking as presently we are under the spell of doctors -- and the shifty-eyed Antony Fauci, who tortured us during the AIDS epidemic with lethal drugs, promising us a vaccine that never materialised — is now literally running our lives. Suddenly doctors tell us whether our businesses are open or closed, whether we can see our friends, and whether or not we will simply go mad from enforced isolation. Moreover, we must assume that every public health official — all doctors and persons with a bunch of friggin’ letters after their names — are efficient — nay, brilliant — saints. Well they’re not. Robert Donat is a young doctor treating coal miners in a small town in Britain. He manages to slap a dead baby alive, and when he does so, the music swells. He says to himself “I’m a doctor.” Later he begins to explore tuberculosis in miners. But his research threatens the medical establishment and is soon shut down. He flees to London to treat rich old ladies. He finds that mink stoles for his wife, new cars, and many a golf game, can be funded — not by researching radical theories about illness in miners — but by flattering old ladies —who are not even ill — into imagining they have been cured of a disease they don’t have. When his crazy, drunken, doctor friend Ralph Richardson dies under the knife, he accuses the surgeon who operated on him of murder, and realises that he himself has become an immoral quack. Could all this happen to any one person? Donat manages to convince us that he has changed from a completely earnest man to a charlatan and back again — due to the fierce belief that fires his performance. (I had to say that because The Citadel is pure propaganda if one looks at it from a distance — and it’s because of Donat that we are pulled in.) So let’s say that we are pulled in, what does the movie have to say? Well, The Citadel goes to great lengths to assure us — at the outset (right after the credits in fact) — that it means not to be critical of doctors: “This motion picture is a story of individual characterisations and is no way intended as a reflection on the great medical profession which has done so much towards beating back those forces of nature that retard the physical process of the human race.” Right. But Donat’s words at the end contradict this, with a stinging relevance to our situation today: “Every man fighting a disease who hasn’t got his name on the register isn’t a knave or a fool” and “If we go on trying to make out that everything is right on the inside, and everything is wrong on the outside -- it will be the death of our profession.” Apparently — Louis Pasteur (remember him?), Waldemar Haffkine (bubonic plague vaccine), and Elie Metchniikov (the father of natural immunity), were -- none of them -- doctors. The message could not be clearer. The doctor is not always right. I am not a doctor. Lionel Shriver (the British novelist who shares my opinions about COVID-19) is not a doctor. Just because we are not doctors does not mean we are wrong. The public health officials we have entrusted with —not just our lives -- but much more importantly our livelihoods, have been warning us that we must (literally on pain of death) socially distance. But suddenly they are silent. We see image after image, daily, of thousands of protestors, marching neck and neck to mark the death of George Floyd. Many protesters are not practicing any sort of social distancing. What’s going on? Please don’t misunderstand me; I see the historic magnitude of their cause. George Floyd was brutally tortured and killed by evil, racist, policemen, who deserve nothing less than to be executed for his crime. And yes, I see the hope in the eyes of the young people who want change — and I want to be inspired — but I’m not sure, because I am so very old. So I wonder -- if even after all this -- will anything change at all, or will Trump be re-elected by the idiots who elected him in the first place? But I am not talking about George Floyd here. I am talking about how our lives have been ground to life-threatening halt, and we are prevented from hugging each other, prevented from getting proper medical treatment for non-COVID-19 illnesses, and prevented from being with our loved ones on their deathbeds — because, we are told, if we try and do these things, we will die or cause others to die — of COVID-19. And yet when a thousands of protestors hit the streets pressing against each other, and yelling their germs directly into each others faces, doctors and scientist are utterly, confoundingly mute. Why? Could it be that COVID-19 is a fiction? Yes, it is — just the way AIDS was. And when I first said that years ago, people wanted to kill me. ‘Are you denying that people have suffered and died of this horrible disease?’ No — but the world does not care about AIDS ‘the disease.’ The world cares only about AIDS ‘the metaphor. ‘AIDS meant one thing alone: that gay men and other perverts had to stop having sex. Whatever human suffering there was -- was dwarfed by a social message that changed all our lives, permanently, irrevocably. What does COVID-19 mean? That you must love your fellow man (the old folks, the immune compromised, the disadvantaged). If you do not care about COVID-19 then you do not care about love. This all has nothing to do with science. If it did the George Floyd protests would be shut down. But, hey its not about the facts. It is about alluring, seductive passions -- metaphors, feelings, dreams, nightmares and fantasies. I know that almost no one wants to hear this, but I’m going to say it anyway. Maybe it takes an artist to stand outside of a disease that has become a work of art. I call out COVID-19 for what it is: a giant, stunning, paralyzing fiction. At the end of The Citadel a disapproving doctor tells Robert Donat: I don’t recommend this kind of talk.” Donat replies: “Of course you don’t recommend it. It’s the truth.”
All art is persuasion. I have been persuaded, and now I will try and persuade you. I doubt I will succeed. (With that, I provide the required humility that facilitates my message.). You may not agree with what I say here. (More humility). You may not agree with the message of this movie. But the only reason this film persuaded me is because it’s damn good. The Citadel is about a doctor with a moral dilemma: should I heal the sick or should I make a pile of money? The question may seem shocking as presently we are under the spell of doctors -- and the shifty-eyed Antony Fauci, who tortured us during the AIDS epidemic with lethal drugs, promising us a vaccine that never materialised — is now literally running our lives. Suddenly doctors tell us whether our businesses are open or closed, whether we can see our friends, and whether or not we will simply go mad from enforced isolation. Moreover, we must assume that every public health official — all doctors and persons with a bunch of friggin’ letters after their names — are efficient — nay, brilliant — saints. Well they’re not. Robert Donat is a young doctor treating coal miners in a small town in Britain. He manages to slap a dead baby alive, and when he does so, the music swells. He says to himself “I’m a doctor.” Later he begins to explore tuberculosis in miners. But his research threatens the medical establishment and is soon shut down. He flees to London to treat rich old ladies. He finds that mink stoles for his wife, new cars, and many a golf game, can be funded — not by researching radical theories about illness in miners — but by flattering old ladies —who are not even ill — into imagining they have been cured of a disease they don’t have. When his crazy, drunken, doctor friend Ralph Richardson dies under the knife, he accuses the surgeon who operated on him of murder, and realises that he himself has become an immoral quack. Could all this happen to any one person? Donat manages to convince us that he has changed from a completely earnest man to a charlatan and back again — due to the fierce belief that fires his performance. (I had to say that because The Citadel is pure propaganda if one looks at it from a distance — and it’s because of Donat that we are pulled in.) So let’s say that we are pulled in, what does the movie have to say? Well, The Citadel goes to great lengths to assure us — at the outset (right after the credits in fact) — that it means not to be critical of doctors: “This motion picture is a story of individual characterisations and is no way intended as a reflection on the great medical profession which has done so much towards beating back those forces of nature that retard the physical process of the human race.” Right. But Donat’s words at the end contradict this, with a stinging relevance to our situation today: “Every man fighting a disease who hasn’t got his name on the register isn’t a knave or a fool” and “If we go on trying to make out that everything is right on the inside, and everything is wrong on the outside -- it will be the death of our profession.” Apparently — Louis Pasteur (remember him?), Waldemar Haffkine (bubonic plague vaccine), and Elie Metchniikov (the father of natural immunity), were -- none of them -- doctors. The message could not be clearer. The doctor is not always right. I am not a doctor. Lionel Shriver (the British novelist who shares my opinions about COVID-19) is not a doctor. Just because we are not doctors does not mean we are wrong. The public health officials we have entrusted with —not just our lives -- but much more importantly our livelihoods, have been warning us that we must (literally on pain of death) socially distance. But suddenly they are silent. We see image after image, daily, of thousands of protestors, marching neck and neck to mark the death of George Floyd. Many protesters are not practicing any sort of social distancing. What’s going on? Please don’t misunderstand me; I see the historic magnitude of their cause. George Floyd was brutally tortured and killed by evil, racist, policemen, who deserve nothing less than to be executed for his crime. And yes, I see the hope in the eyes of the young people who want change — and I want to be inspired — but I’m not sure, because I am so very old. So I wonder -- if even after all this -- will anything change at all, or will Trump be re-elected by the idiots who elected him in the first place? But I am not talking about George Floyd here. I am talking about how our lives have been ground to life-threatening halt, and we are prevented from hugging each other, prevented from getting proper medical treatment for non-COVID-19 illnesses, and prevented from being with our loved ones on their deathbeds — because, we are told, if we try and do these things, we will die or cause others to die — of COVID-19. And yet when a thousands of protestors hit the streets pressing against each other, and yelling their germs directly into each others faces, doctors and scientist are utterly, confoundingly mute. Why? Could it be that COVID-19 is a fiction? Yes, it is — just the way AIDS was. And when I first said that years ago, people wanted to kill me. ‘Are you denying that people have suffered and died of this horrible disease?’ No — but the world does not care about AIDS ‘the disease.’ The world cares only about AIDS ‘the metaphor. ‘AIDS meant one thing alone: that gay men and other perverts had to stop having sex. Whatever human suffering there was -- was dwarfed by a social message that changed all our lives, permanently, irrevocably. What does COVID-19 mean? That you must love your fellow man (the old folks, the immune compromised, the disadvantaged). If you do not care about COVID-19 then you do not care about love. This all has nothing to do with science. If it did the George Floyd protests would be shut down. But, hey its not about the facts. It is about alluring, seductive passions -- metaphors, feelings, dreams, nightmares and fantasies. I know that almost no one wants to hear this, but I’m going to say it anyway. Maybe it takes an artist to stand outside of a disease that has become a work of art. I call out COVID-19 for what it is: a giant, stunning, paralyzing fiction. At the end of The Citadel a disapproving doctor tells Robert Donat: I don’t recommend this kind of talk.” Donat replies: “Of course you don’t recommend it. It’s the truth.”
Wednesday, 3 June 2020
PLAGUE DIARY 77: SKY WRITES REVIEWS OF OLD BAD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES TO KEEP HIM SANE DURING THIS TIME OF HORRIFIC INSANITY
My Six Convicts (1952)
What happens when a film does not engage me at all? I am angry and alone, resenting the almost-full moon (why can’t you wait ‘til Friday when I’m drunk and having fun?). This is my second Stanley Kramer Company Production. They called him ‘Hollywood’s conscience.’ But what I don’t need right now is a conscience, or films that are telegraphing their earnest goodwill. The poster says ‘Not Suitable for Children’ and the comments on Youtube say things like: ‘how nice to see a film dealing on this subject matter with no bad language’ — which gives you some idea what we’re dealing with here. Yes, it’s a story about a psychologist rehabilitating a bunch of hardened criminals through kindness and understanding, and it all claims to be based on someone’s memoir. But no, it just doesn’t doesn’t ring true. Gilbert Roland’s arms ring true, however, as does the hair on his chest (I can’t believe he was still so hot at 47) and Millard Mitchell looks and sounds exactly like Art Carney, and Charles Bronson has a very small role — (his acting name was — at that time — Charles Buchinsky). I don’t know what to say, and I may go off topic. Like: Ford has extended the lock down for another month and we are all in despair. It almost makes me wish I was an angry oppressed black American activist, and therefore had absolutely no excuse not to riot, and — most of all — get out of the house. But that’s just offensive, I know. Well perhaps I just want to be offensive to stop myself from dying of boredom. When I see a film like this I think of how different I am from everyone else in the world, and it just sends me spiralling into sadness. And I’m trying to get an online reading of one of my plays done, and people are being very nice — but too nice. They’re impressed I‘m so creative in these ‘trying times.’ What’s the mystery? I don’t know. But I do love Rachmaninoff, who —when he went into severe depression and could no longer compose — got a psychiatrist to chant over and over “You will compose a concerto / you will compose a concerto) etc., And it worked! Rachmaninoff use to say “Composing is as essential a part of my being as breathing.” But what comes out of me sometimes is just bilge, like this, tonight — when I’m gazing out of both the dark windows in my room, and the almost-full moon is gradually moving out of frame, and I’m thinking — I can’t stand mediocrity. I used to think it was boredom that I couldn’t stand, but now I think it’s mediocrity, or perhaps they are the same thing? Speaking of prison, someone who loves me very much has a habit of saying ‘you wouldn’t do well in prison’ and that’s true. (And of course I’ve gone on and on already about what a coward I am.) So yes, I am perhaps just a spoiled middle-class boy who needs to be constantly stimulated. Or maybe it’s an illness. I can think of no greater cardinal sin than to leave a movie thinking ‘What a relief, there were no swear words in it!’ Or worse yet ‘Thank God, this movie confirms my long held belief that convicted offenders are really nice people!’ Well I’m sure some of them are, and some of them definitely aren’t, and in this movie it’s Harry Morgan playing a psychopath (he’s usually a comic actor)— who I couldn’t help identifying with. Or maybe I was just hoping he’d do something violent and interesting and wake me up. That is what I pray for on a daily basis — to be woken up (no not in that way), by anything. I was standing in the backyard talking with my friend who I have visited four days a week — at the same time very day — for the last two and a half months, and we are now scraping our brains trying to find things to say to each other. Suddenly a man poked his head over the fence (he happened to be black, I’m just telling you because — I don’t know— well just because it's true — so friggin’ calm down) and he said ‘Who are you?’— which was reasonably shocking as I was in my friend’s yard, and you don’t expect a head to just appear and ask that. He was very nice and said something like: ‘You know, you've got to find something to do or else you get violent’ —which I thought was a very astute comment under the circumstances — and suddenly his friend appeared vaguely, behind the fence too, and said to him — “what are you now, a poet?’ — and after a mild apology or two they disappeared. Incidents like this keep happening, proof that everyone is a little bit at the end of their tether, but even watching them gnaw at a rope that is stretched to the limit is not really quite enough stimulation for me. Speaking of jail, it’s not the actual boredom of all this, it’s not being able to imagine anything else. Yes, that’s it. Somebody told me that when your ‘inside’ you have to not think of getting out. You just have to accept it. Like death. Then you can endure it. Well that’s what I’ve been doing, but tonight I’m having a full-on attack of the weird — a kerfuffle of krazies — because I’m daring to think (is it the almost-full moon?) that there might be something else. Boys that used to fall into my arms and pant breathlessly? Getting drunk with someone at a bar — who you are kind of in love with, but really you just created a play together — and then fantasizing about having sex with him as you stumble down the street? Did this really happen? Ever? Somewhere, someone else might be having fun (Sweden? Iceland?) This has been my problem from the start, my father wanted me to go into the insurance business, and my mother in her heart of hearts — and this is why I loved her — would look at him somewhat askance and think ‘you actually believe this insane attention-deficit-faggot is going to be an insurance salesman?’ (though she never would have actually expressed it in precisely that manner.) I happened to talk to a very nice Canada Council rep on the phone today and he congratulated me for being so creative. I wanted to say — and sort of did — that it’s a disease. But, unlike — or perhaps like — COVID-19, there is no vaccine, or cure. This blog is nothing, it is not even diverting to me, but — I must! I need to get away — anywhere — from this. There is something wrong with me that I can’t enjoy the mundane. Perhaps because I can’t be happy baking endless cakes, and have no children to oppress with my endless love and expectations. So there’s only this, and in a moment the almost-full moon will be gone. Well, almost all six of the convicts in this movie were lovable; I just don’t know why I had to turn out like Harry Morgan.
What happens when a film does not engage me at all? I am angry and alone, resenting the almost-full moon (why can’t you wait ‘til Friday when I’m drunk and having fun?). This is my second Stanley Kramer Company Production. They called him ‘Hollywood’s conscience.’ But what I don’t need right now is a conscience, or films that are telegraphing their earnest goodwill. The poster says ‘Not Suitable for Children’ and the comments on Youtube say things like: ‘how nice to see a film dealing on this subject matter with no bad language’ — which gives you some idea what we’re dealing with here. Yes, it’s a story about a psychologist rehabilitating a bunch of hardened criminals through kindness and understanding, and it all claims to be based on someone’s memoir. But no, it just doesn’t doesn’t ring true. Gilbert Roland’s arms ring true, however, as does the hair on his chest (I can’t believe he was still so hot at 47) and Millard Mitchell looks and sounds exactly like Art Carney, and Charles Bronson has a very small role — (his acting name was — at that time — Charles Buchinsky). I don’t know what to say, and I may go off topic. Like: Ford has extended the lock down for another month and we are all in despair. It almost makes me wish I was an angry oppressed black American activist, and therefore had absolutely no excuse not to riot, and — most of all — get out of the house. But that’s just offensive, I know. Well perhaps I just want to be offensive to stop myself from dying of boredom. When I see a film like this I think of how different I am from everyone else in the world, and it just sends me spiralling into sadness. And I’m trying to get an online reading of one of my plays done, and people are being very nice — but too nice. They’re impressed I‘m so creative in these ‘trying times.’ What’s the mystery? I don’t know. But I do love Rachmaninoff, who —when he went into severe depression and could no longer compose — got a psychiatrist to chant over and over “You will compose a concerto / you will compose a concerto) etc., And it worked! Rachmaninoff use to say “Composing is as essential a part of my being as breathing.” But what comes out of me sometimes is just bilge, like this, tonight — when I’m gazing out of both the dark windows in my room, and the almost-full moon is gradually moving out of frame, and I’m thinking — I can’t stand mediocrity. I used to think it was boredom that I couldn’t stand, but now I think it’s mediocrity, or perhaps they are the same thing? Speaking of prison, someone who loves me very much has a habit of saying ‘you wouldn’t do well in prison’ and that’s true. (And of course I’ve gone on and on already about what a coward I am.) So yes, I am perhaps just a spoiled middle-class boy who needs to be constantly stimulated. Or maybe it’s an illness. I can think of no greater cardinal sin than to leave a movie thinking ‘What a relief, there were no swear words in it!’ Or worse yet ‘Thank God, this movie confirms my long held belief that convicted offenders are really nice people!’ Well I’m sure some of them are, and some of them definitely aren’t, and in this movie it’s Harry Morgan playing a psychopath (he’s usually a comic actor)— who I couldn’t help identifying with. Or maybe I was just hoping he’d do something violent and interesting and wake me up. That is what I pray for on a daily basis — to be woken up (no not in that way), by anything. I was standing in the backyard talking with my friend who I have visited four days a week — at the same time very day — for the last two and a half months, and we are now scraping our brains trying to find things to say to each other. Suddenly a man poked his head over the fence (he happened to be black, I’m just telling you because — I don’t know— well just because it's true — so friggin’ calm down) and he said ‘Who are you?’— which was reasonably shocking as I was in my friend’s yard, and you don’t expect a head to just appear and ask that. He was very nice and said something like: ‘You know, you've got to find something to do or else you get violent’ —which I thought was a very astute comment under the circumstances — and suddenly his friend appeared vaguely, behind the fence too, and said to him — “what are you now, a poet?’ — and after a mild apology or two they disappeared. Incidents like this keep happening, proof that everyone is a little bit at the end of their tether, but even watching them gnaw at a rope that is stretched to the limit is not really quite enough stimulation for me. Speaking of jail, it’s not the actual boredom of all this, it’s not being able to imagine anything else. Yes, that’s it. Somebody told me that when your ‘inside’ you have to not think of getting out. You just have to accept it. Like death. Then you can endure it. Well that’s what I’ve been doing, but tonight I’m having a full-on attack of the weird — a kerfuffle of krazies — because I’m daring to think (is it the almost-full moon?) that there might be something else. Boys that used to fall into my arms and pant breathlessly? Getting drunk with someone at a bar — who you are kind of in love with, but really you just created a play together — and then fantasizing about having sex with him as you stumble down the street? Did this really happen? Ever? Somewhere, someone else might be having fun (Sweden? Iceland?) This has been my problem from the start, my father wanted me to go into the insurance business, and my mother in her heart of hearts — and this is why I loved her — would look at him somewhat askance and think ‘you actually believe this insane attention-deficit-faggot is going to be an insurance salesman?’ (though she never would have actually expressed it in precisely that manner.) I happened to talk to a very nice Canada Council rep on the phone today and he congratulated me for being so creative. I wanted to say — and sort of did — that it’s a disease. But, unlike — or perhaps like — COVID-19, there is no vaccine, or cure. This blog is nothing, it is not even diverting to me, but — I must! I need to get away — anywhere — from this. There is something wrong with me that I can’t enjoy the mundane. Perhaps because I can’t be happy baking endless cakes, and have no children to oppress with my endless love and expectations. So there’s only this, and in a moment the almost-full moon will be gone. Well, almost all six of the convicts in this movie were lovable; I just don’t know why I had to turn out like Harry Morgan.
Tuesday, 2 June 2020
PLAGUE DIARY 76: SKY WRITES REVIEWS OF OLD BAD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES TO KEEP HIM SANE DURING THIS TIME OF HORRIFIC INSANITY
They Made me A Criminal (1939)
John Garfield is a dissipated young fighter with a ‘socco’ left punch. His manager accidentally kills a man, but drunken Garfield — and thuggish detective Claude Rains — both think Garfield’s guilty of the crime. So Garfield escapes to the country, meets up with Ann Sheridan and The Dead End Kids, and lickety-split he’s reformed. It’s kinda corny. But there’s a great moral dilemma; Garfield has to decide between boxing to raise money for his newly adopted ‘family’ -- which means getting caught and going to jail — or disappointing Ann Sheridan and the young juvenile delinquents, by not boxing at all. The moment when Garfield decides to fight is a great one— a tribute to Garfield’s acting and Max Steiner’s music, an inarticulate realisation that feels completely real. And from that point on you’re with him, and this movie. I didn’t care how silly it seemed to be rooting for wholesome Ann Sheridan and a bunch of charmingly fake street teenagers, I just was. Finally Claude Rains (a most unlikely tough guy — but he manages to pull it off) — on a hunch — decides not to arrest Garfield, and so there's a happy ending. All of this would be pure as the driven snow, but I couldn’t help finding the silver lining: a distinct gay undertone. There’s Ann Sheridan’s line when she thinks Garfield is going to desert her. I had to listen to the line about five times to be sure — but I’m almost 100% positive she says: “I love you. And I don’t think you’re queer!” (Hear me out!) It would make sense because he’s just said he’s too chicken to box. (And I know to be queer is to be chicken, because I’m both.) And then I found myself rooting a bit too much for Billy Halop and I wasn’t sure why, until I remembered he was the gorgeous adolescent (he was 19) in You Can’t Get Away with Murder with Humphrey Bogart. So I guess I’m kinda in love. Billy and I have been through two movies together, so now it’s a relationship, and both films have implied gay subplots. The earnest young Halop (leader of The Dead End Kids, streetwise, but with a heart) is always falling in ‘idol-worship’ with a criminal. (I’m kinda a criminal; I got excommunicated by Woke People!) Not only that, there are heart wrenching scenes when he’s begging John Garfield to run away with him. And there’s the ending. Well you’d think that when Garfield discovers Rains is going to set him free, he would rush into Sheridan’s arms, right? Except it isn’t her arms Garfield rushes into. It’s Billy Halop’s. And they stroll off, down the railway tracks, with Garfield’s arm around his young, strong shoulders. The final image. Endings are important. It’s important that in 12th Night Viola never takes off her male disguise — even when she’s going to marry Orsino. How things end is how we end, and it’s the way we imagine ourselves. And since I’ve always imagined myself strolling down the railway track with my arm around Billy Halop — not Ann Sheridan — (no offense Ann, you’re a great actress) and I’ve always imagined myself as earnest and handsome like John Garfield — the end of this movie was, for me, true romance. I must tell you I ‘hooked up’ (euphemism) with someone a few days ago. Yes, during COVID-19! I know it’s heretical, but thinking about Billy Halop set me thinking about that. I’m sure not in love with this guy (there are a couple of things about him -- and me -- that make that entirely impossible). But we had a promiscuous encounter (is that what you would politely call it?) that went the way these things are supposed to go. (I promise, no details.) But when you are with someone who obviously cares enough to get you off (uh-oh) — exactly the way you want to get off — that’s kinda special. He was a person who facilitates the pleasure of others; and he facilitated mine. There are those who facilitate, and those who are born to be facilitated. It’s called top and bottom, but it’s also much more complicated then that. It’s always been a revelation to me that my sexual selfishness is actually quite appealing to someone who us obsessed with being sexually unselfish. But then I’ve never believed in this ‘equal’ thing when it comes to sex. Love has to be equal, sex has to be unequal. It’s because sex is about power and affection is not. Not the other way around. If affection is about power, and sex is not, then it’s just awful. There’s dry lightening outside tonight, and on the TV they are still rioting over George Floyd. Sex should be like that — not dry, but certainly lightening, and definitely a riot. (But you kinda know, if you fall -- he’s gonna catch you). Do I imagine Billy would want to lie around kissing and hugging me for hours on end? Oh for sure yeah, but at some point he would have ‘needs’ that might frighten me. I remember trying to explain all this to a young lesbian playwright. I said sex was power, and love was affection. She didn’t like it: ‘But my lover and I have affectionate sex!’ Oh dear. I didn’t mean to critique her sex life. I said -- ‘If it’s equal, and full of caressing, and no one is ever taking charge, then it’s love — but if there’s power play, then it’s sex.’ ‘Are you saying my lover and I aren’t having sex?’ No, I would never say that. I reassured her that I wasn’t judging her, or her sex life. And if you think my definition of sex comes from Foucault you’re wrong. I got it from a lesbian dominatrix, my best friend Johnny Golding — when she was called Sue. Sue asked me if I was a top or a bottom and I had no idea. Then she asked: 'Do you want to organise the sex, plan it out, figure out everything you guys are going to do?' I told her that would be terrifying. 'Well then you’re a bottom,' she said. But the biggest revelation was something another dominatrix told me not to tell anyone. But those rules do not apply here. (These days when we are outside — there are rules everywhere — so here, in this blog, there will be no rules). I was talking to her about S/M and safe words and she explained it all to me, and then she said: 'The truth is…don’t tell anybody…but sometimes it’s actually more fun…..without a safe word.' Of course I wouldn’t recommend not having a safe word when you’re having sex with a stranger. but - and this is a big butt— If Billy Halop ever wanted to do it with me, I would say 'Go ahead honey, and screw the safe word.' I would trust Billy. And we’d just have to say to hell with Ann Sheridan.
John Garfield is a dissipated young fighter with a ‘socco’ left punch. His manager accidentally kills a man, but drunken Garfield — and thuggish detective Claude Rains — both think Garfield’s guilty of the crime. So Garfield escapes to the country, meets up with Ann Sheridan and The Dead End Kids, and lickety-split he’s reformed. It’s kinda corny. But there’s a great moral dilemma; Garfield has to decide between boxing to raise money for his newly adopted ‘family’ -- which means getting caught and going to jail — or disappointing Ann Sheridan and the young juvenile delinquents, by not boxing at all. The moment when Garfield decides to fight is a great one— a tribute to Garfield’s acting and Max Steiner’s music, an inarticulate realisation that feels completely real. And from that point on you’re with him, and this movie. I didn’t care how silly it seemed to be rooting for wholesome Ann Sheridan and a bunch of charmingly fake street teenagers, I just was. Finally Claude Rains (a most unlikely tough guy — but he manages to pull it off) — on a hunch — decides not to arrest Garfield, and so there's a happy ending. All of this would be pure as the driven snow, but I couldn’t help finding the silver lining: a distinct gay undertone. There’s Ann Sheridan’s line when she thinks Garfield is going to desert her. I had to listen to the line about five times to be sure — but I’m almost 100% positive she says: “I love you. And I don’t think you’re queer!” (Hear me out!) It would make sense because he’s just said he’s too chicken to box. (And I know to be queer is to be chicken, because I’m both.) And then I found myself rooting a bit too much for Billy Halop and I wasn’t sure why, until I remembered he was the gorgeous adolescent (he was 19) in You Can’t Get Away with Murder with Humphrey Bogart. So I guess I’m kinda in love. Billy and I have been through two movies together, so now it’s a relationship, and both films have implied gay subplots. The earnest young Halop (leader of The Dead End Kids, streetwise, but with a heart) is always falling in ‘idol-worship’ with a criminal. (I’m kinda a criminal; I got excommunicated by Woke People!) Not only that, there are heart wrenching scenes when he’s begging John Garfield to run away with him. And there’s the ending. Well you’d think that when Garfield discovers Rains is going to set him free, he would rush into Sheridan’s arms, right? Except it isn’t her arms Garfield rushes into. It’s Billy Halop’s. And they stroll off, down the railway tracks, with Garfield’s arm around his young, strong shoulders. The final image. Endings are important. It’s important that in 12th Night Viola never takes off her male disguise — even when she’s going to marry Orsino. How things end is how we end, and it’s the way we imagine ourselves. And since I’ve always imagined myself strolling down the railway track with my arm around Billy Halop — not Ann Sheridan — (no offense Ann, you’re a great actress) and I’ve always imagined myself as earnest and handsome like John Garfield — the end of this movie was, for me, true romance. I must tell you I ‘hooked up’ (euphemism) with someone a few days ago. Yes, during COVID-19! I know it’s heretical, but thinking about Billy Halop set me thinking about that. I’m sure not in love with this guy (there are a couple of things about him -- and me -- that make that entirely impossible). But we had a promiscuous encounter (is that what you would politely call it?) that went the way these things are supposed to go. (I promise, no details.) But when you are with someone who obviously cares enough to get you off (uh-oh) — exactly the way you want to get off — that’s kinda special. He was a person who facilitates the pleasure of others; and he facilitated mine. There are those who facilitate, and those who are born to be facilitated. It’s called top and bottom, but it’s also much more complicated then that. It’s always been a revelation to me that my sexual selfishness is actually quite appealing to someone who us obsessed with being sexually unselfish. But then I’ve never believed in this ‘equal’ thing when it comes to sex. Love has to be equal, sex has to be unequal. It’s because sex is about power and affection is not. Not the other way around. If affection is about power, and sex is not, then it’s just awful. There’s dry lightening outside tonight, and on the TV they are still rioting over George Floyd. Sex should be like that — not dry, but certainly lightening, and definitely a riot. (But you kinda know, if you fall -- he’s gonna catch you). Do I imagine Billy would want to lie around kissing and hugging me for hours on end? Oh for sure yeah, but at some point he would have ‘needs’ that might frighten me. I remember trying to explain all this to a young lesbian playwright. I said sex was power, and love was affection. She didn’t like it: ‘But my lover and I have affectionate sex!’ Oh dear. I didn’t mean to critique her sex life. I said -- ‘If it’s equal, and full of caressing, and no one is ever taking charge, then it’s love — but if there’s power play, then it’s sex.’ ‘Are you saying my lover and I aren’t having sex?’ No, I would never say that. I reassured her that I wasn’t judging her, or her sex life. And if you think my definition of sex comes from Foucault you’re wrong. I got it from a lesbian dominatrix, my best friend Johnny Golding — when she was called Sue. Sue asked me if I was a top or a bottom and I had no idea. Then she asked: 'Do you want to organise the sex, plan it out, figure out everything you guys are going to do?' I told her that would be terrifying. 'Well then you’re a bottom,' she said. But the biggest revelation was something another dominatrix told me not to tell anyone. But those rules do not apply here. (These days when we are outside — there are rules everywhere — so here, in this blog, there will be no rules). I was talking to her about S/M and safe words and she explained it all to me, and then she said: 'The truth is…don’t tell anybody…but sometimes it’s actually more fun…..without a safe word.' Of course I wouldn’t recommend not having a safe word when you’re having sex with a stranger. but - and this is a big butt— If Billy Halop ever wanted to do it with me, I would say 'Go ahead honey, and screw the safe word.' I would trust Billy. And we’d just have to say to hell with Ann Sheridan.
Monday, 1 June 2020
PLAGUE DIARY 75: SKY WRITES REVIEWS OF OLD BAD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES TO KEEP HIM SANE DURING THIS TIME OF HORRIFIC INSANITY
The Human Comedy (1943)
This vile, lazy, corrupt, garbage, this contemptible, heart-wrenching pile of bird-doo-doo, this unwatchable, tedious, touching, testament to man’s stupidity to man, this lacklustre, lubricious, lullaby to mediocrity, this festooned fullabaloo of fentimental muck. William Saroyan didn’t write it; I refuse to believe he did. They asked him to write it, then he demanded complete control of the film, but they wouldn’t give it to him, so he left it to a screenwriter who massacred it. Then Saroyan wrote a novel with the same name to redeem himself from this pungent pile of putridity. Yes, well — mother plays the harp, son with odd freckles and weirdly wide-side set eyes falls asleep on it. Van Johnson is off to war serenading earnest young soldiers on their way to death with sweet accordion melodies. Everyone is so nice. Too nice. Real people are not this nice. A crotchety old codger loves the boys who steal the apricots from his tree (yes, I’m afraid he appeared — to me — to be vaguely pederastical). This ancient fart loves the little thieves because they have ‘hope.’ The Human Comedy was nominated for several academy awards — including one for Mickey Rooney. But the critics recognised it as: “maudlin gobs of cinematic goo” (I am not the only one to be tempted to hyperbolic alliteration by this film). Speaking of that wholesome spark — young Mickey Rooney — that’s not ‘the whole truth and nothing but.’ He was playing a teenager at age 20; and was at the same time trapped in a fraught marriage with Ava Gardner that lasted less than a year. She said: ’“He was catnip to the ladies. He knew it, too. He probably banged most of the starlets. Lana Turner called him 'Andy Hard-on.'” And this fine fresh-faced boy once shyly remarked to Ava: “I figured you were a new piece of pussy for one of the executives. I wanted to fuck you the moment I saw you.” (Sorry. After enduring this candy-floss concoction I needed a dose of reality.) Saroyan, like many great writers, barely survived Hollywood; it turned them ALL into bitter alcoholics. Speaking of alcoholics, the only character I identified with in The Human Comedy was the old drunk at the telegraph office (Frank Morgan -- yes, the wizard, in The Wizard of Oz) who is exactly my age, 67. He asks his young co-worker Mickey Rooney to douse him with cold water when he’s dead drunk — and then give him a cup of coffee. But if they meet on the street, Frank says if “you behold me lost in the embrace of alcohol, greet me as you pass, but make no reference to my condition, I prefer not to be the object of public solicitude.” (I believe William Saroyan wrote that line.) Another Frank Morgan gem:“I am a man with a memory of many wondrous worlds gone by.” I too have wondrous memories. Once there was a thing called ‘gay.’ And we would get dressed up in tight pants when we went out at night, and oh, mounting the stairs to the club. My friend Nick once described what it was like, being young and beautiful, his heart pounding, anticipating ‘making that entrance.’ My friend Christopher also used to speak of ‘when love mounts the stairs.’ We were mounting a lot in those days — well that was certainly part of it, but not all. We proudly identified as pansies, and girly boys, sashaying down the street, our asses to the stars, and we loved the dark alleys, and the bars were seedy because they were run by the mafia, but we didn’t care. And then we made our own neighbourhoods, where we could hide, and the straight people were afraid to go there, but that was fine by us. And the bars had dark sexy corners, and men would do things there, and sometimes women friends would watch, and they were called faghags — but they were simply the fiercest funniest women alive — and the only ones brave enough to be our friends. And we would laugh about poppers, and pop antibiotics when we felt ‘the clap’ coming on, and we took people’s contempt and wrapped it around ourselves like a shimmering shawl. Everyone knew what we were, and what we did, everyone whispered. And so many hated us, because they knew we were getting what they weren’t. And then ‘the disease’ came, and they told us it was our fault, and we should be ashamed, and it was better if we died. So we did. So many died. And then we pointed to our dressup games -- when we sometimes dressed as construction workers and leather men -- and we claimed we were more masculine than straight men. Anything not to be the wilted pansies that got ‘the disease.’ That didn’t work though, so we started going to church, and getting married, and adopting children, and speaking loudly of how much we loved the police. And then we all moved to the suburbs, and we didn’t like those gay streets anymore, and we decided it was better to be fat (because if you were fat you didn’t have ‘the disease,’ don’t you see?). So we stayed at home, and we were boring like everyone else, and watched soul-numbing movies like The Human Comedy. And then came Netflix, and COVID-19. And when COVID-19 came we had to be the very first to don the masks, for we loved our fellow human beings (especially the old folks!) much, much more than we loved ourselves. Because the lesson we had learned from ‘the disease’ was that if we were good citizens, and everyone loved us and respected us, then we would never ever, again get 'it.' But there was also GRINDR and SKRUFF, and even more drugs than ever before — because we hated ourselve even more, because of ‘the disease.' The disease, oh the disease. Well, those wondrous days are over now, and the gay streets are boarded up — due to COVID-19. And the bathhouses will never open again. (You know — germs! Immune systems! After all, we invented them!) And when we are very, very old we will say (as Frank Morgan says to Mickey Rooney) “Sing me a song, boy, protect me from the murder of age and time.” Ah. Where is that boy, and what is that song? But there is no defense against those things. Even Ava Gardner knew it — or else she wouldn’t have dumped that little ‘Andy Hard-on.’ Well there are those who will forget, and those like me who will remember, and perhaps I will travel back there, now and then— if I happen to find a young man who will sing me a song. But for the murder of age and time, there is alas, no defense at all.
This vile, lazy, corrupt, garbage, this contemptible, heart-wrenching pile of bird-doo-doo, this unwatchable, tedious, touching, testament to man’s stupidity to man, this lacklustre, lubricious, lullaby to mediocrity, this festooned fullabaloo of fentimental muck. William Saroyan didn’t write it; I refuse to believe he did. They asked him to write it, then he demanded complete control of the film, but they wouldn’t give it to him, so he left it to a screenwriter who massacred it. Then Saroyan wrote a novel with the same name to redeem himself from this pungent pile of putridity. Yes, well — mother plays the harp, son with odd freckles and weirdly wide-side set eyes falls asleep on it. Van Johnson is off to war serenading earnest young soldiers on their way to death with sweet accordion melodies. Everyone is so nice. Too nice. Real people are not this nice. A crotchety old codger loves the boys who steal the apricots from his tree (yes, I’m afraid he appeared — to me — to be vaguely pederastical). This ancient fart loves the little thieves because they have ‘hope.’ The Human Comedy was nominated for several academy awards — including one for Mickey Rooney. But the critics recognised it as: “maudlin gobs of cinematic goo” (I am not the only one to be tempted to hyperbolic alliteration by this film). Speaking of that wholesome spark — young Mickey Rooney — that’s not ‘the whole truth and nothing but.’ He was playing a teenager at age 20; and was at the same time trapped in a fraught marriage with Ava Gardner that lasted less than a year. She said: ’“He was catnip to the ladies. He knew it, too. He probably banged most of the starlets. Lana Turner called him 'Andy Hard-on.'” And this fine fresh-faced boy once shyly remarked to Ava: “I figured you were a new piece of pussy for one of the executives. I wanted to fuck you the moment I saw you.” (Sorry. After enduring this candy-floss concoction I needed a dose of reality.) Saroyan, like many great writers, barely survived Hollywood; it turned them ALL into bitter alcoholics. Speaking of alcoholics, the only character I identified with in The Human Comedy was the old drunk at the telegraph office (Frank Morgan -- yes, the wizard, in The Wizard of Oz) who is exactly my age, 67. He asks his young co-worker Mickey Rooney to douse him with cold water when he’s dead drunk — and then give him a cup of coffee. But if they meet on the street, Frank says if “you behold me lost in the embrace of alcohol, greet me as you pass, but make no reference to my condition, I prefer not to be the object of public solicitude.” (I believe William Saroyan wrote that line.) Another Frank Morgan gem:“I am a man with a memory of many wondrous worlds gone by.” I too have wondrous memories. Once there was a thing called ‘gay.’ And we would get dressed up in tight pants when we went out at night, and oh, mounting the stairs to the club. My friend Nick once described what it was like, being young and beautiful, his heart pounding, anticipating ‘making that entrance.’ My friend Christopher also used to speak of ‘when love mounts the stairs.’ We were mounting a lot in those days — well that was certainly part of it, but not all. We proudly identified as pansies, and girly boys, sashaying down the street, our asses to the stars, and we loved the dark alleys, and the bars were seedy because they were run by the mafia, but we didn’t care. And then we made our own neighbourhoods, where we could hide, and the straight people were afraid to go there, but that was fine by us. And the bars had dark sexy corners, and men would do things there, and sometimes women friends would watch, and they were called faghags — but they were simply the fiercest funniest women alive — and the only ones brave enough to be our friends. And we would laugh about poppers, and pop antibiotics when we felt ‘the clap’ coming on, and we took people’s contempt and wrapped it around ourselves like a shimmering shawl. Everyone knew what we were, and what we did, everyone whispered. And so many hated us, because they knew we were getting what they weren’t. And then ‘the disease’ came, and they told us it was our fault, and we should be ashamed, and it was better if we died. So we did. So many died. And then we pointed to our dressup games -- when we sometimes dressed as construction workers and leather men -- and we claimed we were more masculine than straight men. Anything not to be the wilted pansies that got ‘the disease.’ That didn’t work though, so we started going to church, and getting married, and adopting children, and speaking loudly of how much we loved the police. And then we all moved to the suburbs, and we didn’t like those gay streets anymore, and we decided it was better to be fat (because if you were fat you didn’t have ‘the disease,’ don’t you see?). So we stayed at home, and we were boring like everyone else, and watched soul-numbing movies like The Human Comedy. And then came Netflix, and COVID-19. And when COVID-19 came we had to be the very first to don the masks, for we loved our fellow human beings (especially the old folks!) much, much more than we loved ourselves. Because the lesson we had learned from ‘the disease’ was that if we were good citizens, and everyone loved us and respected us, then we would never ever, again get 'it.' But there was also GRINDR and SKRUFF, and even more drugs than ever before — because we hated ourselve even more, because of ‘the disease.' The disease, oh the disease. Well, those wondrous days are over now, and the gay streets are boarded up — due to COVID-19. And the bathhouses will never open again. (You know — germs! Immune systems! After all, we invented them!) And when we are very, very old we will say (as Frank Morgan says to Mickey Rooney) “Sing me a song, boy, protect me from the murder of age and time.” Ah. Where is that boy, and what is that song? But there is no defense against those things. Even Ava Gardner knew it — or else she wouldn’t have dumped that little ‘Andy Hard-on.’ Well there are those who will forget, and those like me who will remember, and perhaps I will travel back there, now and then— if I happen to find a young man who will sing me a song. But for the murder of age and time, there is alas, no defense at all.
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