Umberto D and Shoeshine and Solidarity

Posted on 14 Apr 2016 by Frank Moraes

Umberto D I’ve been really down this last week. A lot is going on. Work just gets more and more intense — it’s wonderful in its way, but also terrifying. Also, taxes are due on Friday, and things are, let’s just say, complicated because of my marital situation. My natural response to stress is debilitating anxiety followed by depression. So yesterday, I sat down and watched Umberto D. And since that actually has a vaguely happy ending, I watched another of Vittorio De Sica’s classics, Shoeshine. Although in its way, it is an even more positive film, except for the tragic ending.

What is best about great films is that they affect you differently each time that you seem them. And this time I was most taken by the total lack of solidarity in the stories. In both films, there are two people who are alone in the world and care for each other. But they don’t have the power to help each other. Everyone else is just too caught up in their own problems to care about anyone else. This makes sense because both these films were made shortly after World War II. In fact, Shoeshine takes place during the Allied occupation. Umberto D takes place later, but still people are struggling.

All of this is understandable. Wars do this. And one thing that Vittorio De Sica is great about is not vilifying people. Even in The Bicycles Thieves, he provides motivation for the original thief. It is an act of someone trying to get by. And we sympathize and understand the main character’s theft more only because we understand the context of his life more. It is the system itself that alienates us and allows us to see that our needs and desires trump those of other people.

Shoeshine I’ve long maintained that the corporate hatred of unions is really not about keeping wages down and maximizing profits. Indeed, when unions were strong, many companies just matched what union workers were getting to avoid unionization. Similarly, Milton Hershey was very good to his employees, but he fought aggressively against unions. It’s all about control. And the best way for a business to maintain control is by having the employees fighting among themselves. Worker solidarity is extremely dangerous. It could even — Gasp! — lead the workers to think that they could be running the company.

So now we live in a society that lacks solidarity — but only because those in power wish it so. And you see this even in the difference between Shoeshine and Umberto D. Shoeshine was made in 1946 when the issue was that just about everyone was poor. Umberto D was made in 1952, when things are better. And so we get more of a sense of class where the antagonistic landlord sees the old man not with apathy, but with hostility as an impediment to her getting even richer.

It makes me think of what a pernicious idea meritocracy is. It allows society’s winners to see themselves as totally justified in their privilege. And it justifies the destruction of solidarity, because we are not a group but rather just a collection of individuals, each getting what is right and fitting. As such, meritocracy is just a return to aristocracy, but with a different philosophy to justify it.

In general, we don’t see films like Shoeshine and Umberto D. But I think the times are changing, and we will start to see independent filmmakers start to make films that deal with these important issues.

Umberto D and Shoeshine images licensed under Fair Use, via Wikipedia.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens as Our Empire Dies

Posted on 13 Apr 2016 by Frank Moraes

I went over to visit my brother, who turned out to be doing somewhat better than I had expected (but still not good). He had purchased Star Wars: The Force Awakens through his cable provider, and so I ended up watching the first half of it. My brother was in a surprisingly good mood and was generally amused at my MST3King of it. The whole thing really is just a remake of the original film. But I have to admit: it’s better.

What most struck me was that Finn in the part of Han Solo was far better. Even in 1977, the Han Solo character was nothing but a stereotype. He had all the depth of character that an actor of the depth of Harrison Ford is capable of delivering. But the Finn character has actual nuance. His is a character that I can actually believe.

The film starts with basically the Star Wars equivalent of the My Lai Massacre. And despite supposedly being trained from birth to be nothing but a robotic killing machine, he turns against the First Order. I left right after he told Rey (a much less annoying Luke Skywalker) that he was just running away. I know that he will come back, just like Han Solo, because this is not meant to be a film that surprises you.

Still, as much as I liked Finn and Rey, most of the rest of Star Wars: The Force Awakens was crap.

My brother is incredibly conservative, which is interesting given that he’s been on the government dole most of his life. That’s not a slight on him. I love him. He’s my (half) brother and his biological father badly abused him, and my father was not exactly the understanding kind. But I’ve noticed a lot of people who are dependent upon the government going in exactly the opposite ideological direction than you would think. I assume it is because they are compensating. And when asked, they always say more or less the same thing: they deserve their benefits they are just against other people who “abuse” the system.

But I find it curious that my brother (and let’s face it: the vast majority of people everywhere) find a character like Finn a hero. But he is only a hero because the film defines the First Order as evil itself. If the film had even the tiniest amount of nuance, Finn would be a morally ambiguous character. Consider Bowe Bergdahl: the narrative is that he went AWOL and this is considered a bad thing because it is taken as a given that anything the US does is right. I personally think that running away is the most natural thing in the world.

Still, as much as I liked Finn and Rey, most of the rest of Star Wars: The Force Awakens was crap. The opening scene was clearly shot on a sound stage. It had the look of those Roger Corman television science fiction shows where everything happened in more or less a single room. And then there was all the humor regarding Han Solo being shocked about a modern woman. That sort of thing creates dissonance because it makes explicit the change in the sexual mores of the 1970s and those of today — something that makes no sense in the universe of the film. And if I, having seen only the original film once in 1977, can make out all the references, it’s a pretty ham-handed effort.

For what it is supposed to be, however, it seemed to work just fine. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is, of course, the kind of entertainment that a dying empire creates for itself, so it can pretend that it is still on the side of the rebels. But, of course, we aren’t. We are just an old power doing everything we can to hang onto it. And that means that we will lose that power, just as surely as the First Order will by the end of the third film.

“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” poster licensed under Fair use, via Wikipedia.

Anniversary Post: the Real Shakespeare

Posted on 12 Apr 2016 by Frank Moraes

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford I am, as usual, far behind on work. But that’s not why I’m rerunning this article about Edward de Vere. It is just that this is the kind of information that you need. I get so tired of these conspiracy theories about Shakespeare. They are all, at base, trying to justify how one man could write such amazing plays. The problem is, the plays aren’t that amazing. Just because we’ve had them forced on us our entire lives doesn’t mean they are great.

On this day in 1550, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford was born. He was an awful person. He wouldn’t accept that the first child of his marriage was his. He was pretty much the definition of a libertine. But he was a poet and playwright of some repute. You know, at that time, the rich didn’t have much to do with their time. Of course Edward spent through all of his fortune by the end of his life. And that is with the Queen giving me a thousand pounds per year in addition (an enormous amount of money). I could not possibly care less about this idiot, except for one thing.

A lot of people think he wrote the plays of William Shakespeare. In one way, who cares? I mean, we know almost nothing about Shakespeare anyway. So what does it matter? But it really bugs me that one of the main reasons that people think Edward wrote the plays is because Shakespeare’s plays supposedly show so much knowledge of the way that the aristocracy lived. But this is so ridiculous. I’m poor, but I have a damned good idea of how the rich live. And it isn’t just because of television. In Shakespeare’s time, the poor knew how the rich lived because they saw it — and their servants saw it up close and personal.

What’s more, this desire to find someone — Anyone! — but Shakespeare to have written the plays is based on the idea that the plays are so amazingly great that they couldn’t have just been written an ex-school teacher from the country. Well, I have news for you all. Although Shakespeare’s plays were well regarded during his life, they weren’t seen as any better than the plays of Marlowe or Jonson. And they were seen as inferior to the plays of people who came after. I’m a fan of Shakespeare, but he just wasn’t that great.

So people: get over it. If you want to think that someone else wrote Shakespeare’s plays, at least go with Marlowe. At least in that case you have royal spying and murder and faked deaths. It’s a lot more fun. The Edward de Vere narrative is just boring. But really, I think people get into the whole “who wrote Shakespeare” question because it relieves them of having to read the plays, which are by and large not all that great. So sure, I’d rather read “Shakespeare” Identified in Edward De Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford than The Two Noble Kinsmen. But that doesn’t prove anything.

So happy birthday you great pretender, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford!

Afterword: Who Thinks Edward de Vere Was Shakespeare?

Who believes such nonsense? This guy:

Heil Honey I’m Home!

Posted on 09 Apr 2016 by Frank Moraes

Heil Honey I'm Home! On Thursday, the anniversary post was, Attila the Hun and Monty Python’s Worst Sketch. I was complaining about an awful little skit called, “The Attila the Hun Show,” which is a parody of 1950s sitcoms. And it is terrible. Jurgan then commented, “Kind of reminds me of Heil Honey I’m Home!” I had never heard of it, but luckily, the first episode is on YouTube.

Jurgan was right. Heil Honey I’m Home! is exactly what Monty Python was going for. But instead of it going on for just about the most painful minute of television ever, this show goes on for 25 glorious minutes. But before we get to it, let me explain the premise. Hitler and Eva Braun live in Berlin in 1938. Their next door neighbors are Arny and Rosa Goldenstein, a Jewish couple. Basically, it’s I Love Lucy, but with a war criminal.

Eight episodes of the show were made. Only the first was shown. This is not surprising. According to Wikipedia, historian Marian Calabro called it “perhaps the world’s most tasteless situation comedy.” It’s not surprising. There were a lot of people in the 1960s who thought that Hogan’s Heroes was tasteless. Heil Honey I’m Home! is on a whole other level.

Just the same, unlike “The Attila the Hun Show,” Heil Honey I’m Home! is actually fairly funny. The joke isn’t that Hitler is funny but rather that the shows of these types trivialized the complexity and danger of the real world. And although it is going for a 1950s feel, there isn’t much that changed about sitcoms from then and when the show aired in 1990. For example, The Cosby Show ran from 1984 through 1992. Everything always worked out fine by the end of each episode, even if Bill Cosby himself was drugging and raping women at night.

The first episode revolves around a visit from Neville Chamberlain. Hitler says if Eva isn’t nice to him, he won’t tell her why Chamberlain is coming to dinner. Eva replies, “You don’t have to tell me why! I know why: it’s Czechoslovakia; you finally did it!” Everything gets completely out of hand with Chamberlain, Eva, and Arny doing a conga line as Hitler hides the Munich Agreement — referred to as “Peace in Our Time” because they think Americans wouldn’t know the difference between an agreement and a speech. But Hitler signs it just to save face and the episode ends with Eva and Adolph calling themselves their nicknames and kissing.

On one hand, it is surprising that British Satellite Broadcasting thought the show was worth investing in eight episodes worth of this. On the other, who knows what’s going to work? And it does work. There is something strangely not offensive about the show. I suspect that people were offended by it because they felt like they ought to be offended. What I wonder about is where the show went from here. I suspect nowhere — that it just continued to be a simple parody of the anemic sitcom. And because of that, I’m not disappointed that I will likely never get to see the other seven episodes.

Show title card by Stream Screencap, licensed under Fair Use, via Wikipedia.

On Over-Thinking Bob’s Burgers

Posted on 08 Apr 2016 by Frank Moraes

I had to go to the hospital this morning. The doctor didn’t tell me why, so I figure it is just that she is a vampire. Either that or it is standard when you get a check-up. I prefer to think she’s a vampire. Regardless, afterwards, I was waiting for my ride so I called up Andrea. Now Andrea can be the most charming person in the world. But she fell into a bit of a depression about three years ago and so our conversations mostly involve my bringing up random things to see if I can get her interested in anything. One of those today was Bob’s Burgers.

Normally, I don’t bring up Bob’s Burgers because I’ve used the show a lot. Speaking of which, here’s a great bit. After Louise said, “Why is the front door open?” And Gene responds, “Maybe God closed a window?” Now come on folks, that’s great comedy. But maybe I just like it because I hate that platitude. My thought has always been that when God closes a door, he usually collapses the roof on you as well. But I wasn’t thinking about that. I was, as I often do, speculating about the future lives of the kids.

And Andrea said, “You’re way over-thinking this show.” And I thought that was a distinctly unkind thing to say. To begin with, she is the person who introduced me to the show. But more important, I over-think everything. That is who I am and she should know it better than just about anyone. If I didn’t over-think things, I wouldn’t be Frank. And over-thinking trivial things is what I’m especially good at. Did I not write, The Evolution of the Pets.com Sock Puppet? And, The Shocking True Story of Twin Chickens? And, Bugs Bunny: Rabbit or Hare? Yes, yes, and yes!

But my fascination with Bob’s Burgers is not just that it is a hilarious show. Much more important is the fact that Bob’s Burgers is the story of my childhood. My parents always had some little business that was barely getting by. When I was older, we had had a deli, and I remember that at the end of each month, it was this big production to get the money for the rent — just like in the show. And notice that it is a dysfunctional family, but not a hateful one. If I were going to fictionalize my childhood, it would be something like Bob’s Burgers.

So I think that it is about the most accurate depiction of an American family that has ever been on television. The only thing I can think of that even comes close is Roseanne. But this is from my perspective. I come from people who might be described as white trash with big dreams. But both of my parents were the black sheep of their families and so it shouldn’t come as any surprise that the world ended up with me. It’s probably a good thing that I never had kids. If I had had a son, he probably would have been someone like the Unibomber, but with puppets or confetti or something.

Regardless, many people may be able to over-think Bob’s Burgers, but I can’t. And yesterday, when Bob made peace with his father, I cried like a baby — even as I laughed, because Bob is awkward in much the same way I am. Oh, the humanity!

Update: I’m Not Sick

Thank you for all the kind wishes, but I’m not sick. I just haven’t been to the doctor in about 8 years, and thanks to Obamacare, I have a doctor. So I got a check-up and she sent me to get a little blood drawn. And how she has me on Kelp. I feel like a sea otter.

Actually, as a result of going to the doctor, I caught a minor cold. Next time: mask and gloves!

Image of the Belcher family licensed under Fair Use.

Attila the Hun and Monty Python’s Worst Sketch

Posted on 07 Apr 2016 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 451, Attila the Hun sacked the town of Metz. This was part of an attack on the Western Roman Empire. Some day, I must set down and really get straight on all this history. But the truth is that I’m bad at it. This is why I’ve always liked math: you don’t have to remember anything. Generally, Attila the Hun is depicted today as a barbarian. But you know the definition of a barbarian: “not a Roman.” So that doesn’t actually mean that much. Regardless, I just don’t have the time to read up on the man for an anniversary post. I want to talk about something much closer to my heart: the worst Monty Python’s Flying Circus sketch ever.

That sketch was, of course, “The Attila The Hun Show.” It has all the signs of being a Terry Jones and Michael Palin kind of thing. But then it quickly becomes nothing but a straight parody of old 1950s family situation comedies. The only humor in it is that there is no humor in it. It is a bunch of tired jokes that are supposed to be funny because old situation comedies weren’t funny. For example, Attila the Hun gives his children a severed human head as a present, saying, “I want you kids to get ahead.” It is filled with canned laughter that makes it all the more annoying.

In addition to this, we have Eric Idle doing a black-face servant — “Uncle Tom” — that is offensive even coming from England. I blame John Cleese for the whole thing, but they all to blame. Thankfully, it doesn’t last long and they quickly transition into what strikes me as a very Terry Jones kind of sketch where a bunch of perverts in trench-coats watch as Graham Chapman plays a doctor examining Carol Cleveland. Any sketch where “The Stripper” is played was probably written by Jones. And this transitions to Jones himself doing a striptease, something he seems to have rather enjoyed.

Eventually, the whole thing gets to the high point of the episode, which is the documentary about Village Idiots — which still makes me laugh. And it is blistering social satire, especially once it moves to the “city idiots,” where one says, “Father was Home Secretary, and mother won the derby.” And then it goes into this great bit on Masonic conspiracies. It is, in other words, a great episode. But I rarely watch it because I can’t get past “The Attila the Hun Show” and, “I want you kids to get ahead”!

Old Fashioned and Repressed Sex

Posted on 04 Apr 2016 by Frank Moraes

Old Fashioned Brandon Ambrosino over at Vox tried to get to the bottom of an interesting question, Why Are Christian Movies So Painfully Bad? But I think he made it over complicated. The reason that “Christian” movies are bad is that they are made for a particular distribution channel — one that depends upon churches. So part of the reason that these “Christian” movies are bad is the same reason that most of the drive-in movies of the 1950s were bad. The other is that the people who go to see these films just want to be assured that they are the right kind of people.

One great film that is explicitly Christian is John Michael McDonagh’s Calvary. But the point of the film is not to sell Christianity to people who have already bought it. And, in fact, you see lots of Catholicism in Irish films. But the religion is not the point; it is just part of the lives of the people. It isn’t surprising that that there is a Christian Film Industry in the United States. American Christians are the most insecure religious people I’ve ever see. This is why they get so upset about “Happy Holidays,” because they need constant assurance that everyone believes the same thing they do.

And then there is the Amway aspect of it. I’ve been talking to Jehovah’s Witnesses for decades. They are the most fake people one on the planet. I know all their tricks. And they are the exact same tricks of Amway salesmen or car dealers. They try to find out what you are interested in so they can form a bond, and then they go in with their high pressure sales pitch. In the end, it is all about selling their very specific form of Christianity to you. They have no interest in you at all. They are just “fishers of men.”

But I was really struck by Ambrosino’s prime example, a new Christian Film Industry monstrosity, Old Fashioned. It is supposed to be a response to Fifty Shades of Grey. In this new film, a young man who “Jesus found” during his senior year of college now has very old fashioned ideas about courtship. And he finds himself attracted to the nubile and feisty Elizabeth Ann Roberts. And I’m sure they work through their problems and have a good old fashioned courtship and, just like in every secular romance, it ends where the actual hard work of the relationship starts.

But check out this trailer. Really. I want to talk about it:

I find the trailer of Old Fashioned kind of sexy with all the “I’m an inch away from your face” and “I’m shoving roasted marshmallows in your face.” So really, it’s a movie that is all about sex. It’s just one with sexual mores that are based some kind of Victorian notion of sexual propriety. The thing you find if you read about the distant past — of Christians in the distant past — is that these ideas about sex were never real. They were always about power and contracts. There’s nothing religious about them.

But as usual with repressed Christians, the sex is just bursting at the seams. And I find it ironic. I’m a sexual liberal. I think it is great that people have sex whenever they want how ever they want. If people copulate in the streets, I wouldn’t care. But sex just isn’t that big a deal to me and if you doubt me, you can ask my two ex-wives. But for people like writer, director, and star of Old Fashioned, Rik Swartzwelder, sex is apparently very important — so important he has to make a whole film about it. He is, in fact, just the same as the makers of Fifty Shades of Grey. And I don’t imagine him that different from Osama bin Laden with all his pornography.

Religion makes people very creepy when it comes to sex. It’s like conservatives when it comes to policy: they start every discussion of fixing a problem with everything they can’t do. And that’s a recipe for disaster. The world is about possibilities, not arbitrary limits. And the young man in Old Fashioned is not even practicing his faith; he’s just another cultural Christian with major sexual hangups.

Old Fashioned poster licensed under Fair use, via Wikipedia.

Remembering Ronnie Corbett

Posted on 03 Apr 2016 by Frank Moraes

I just found out that Ronnie Corbett died. He was 85 years old, so it isn’t a big surprise. I know him from some movies, most notably one of my favorite undervalued films, Fierce Creatures. Before I go on, let me just say that people ignore this movie because it wasn’t A Fish Called Wanda. But it is wonderful. And the reason it is so wonderful is because its filled with so many great characters, like Corbett.

Here is a brief scene from it. Corbett is at the beginning and the end of it. The idea is that a Rupert Murdoch like character has purchased this little zoo so John Cleese is put in charge of making it profitable. He wants to make the zoo “dangerous” and so get rid of all the nice animals like the anteater. So the staff stage a bunch of fake accidents to get him to keep the animals. Eventually, he falls in love with the animals and the zoo. It’s totally my kind of movie: silly but extremely sweet.

Mostly, I know Ronnie Corbett from the sketch comedy show The Two Ronnies. But it wasn’t the show so much. It was that every episode had an “armchair monologue” where he would tell a joke. But the joke didn’t matter. It was just an excuse for him to be amazingly funny getting around to telling the joke. In this case, it is the parrot joke, which is one of those great jokes you can tell your grandmother.

But most of the lead up to the joke is about Ronnie Corbett’s wife. Why? Who knows?! That’s what’s so great about these bits. But it is interesting to noted that they married 30 May 1966, which means that they were just about to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. Corbett was diagnosed with ALS just one year ago today, and he died, as is appropriate, surrounded by his family.

Death is not such a bad thing. But it is sad when a great person like Ronnie Corbett is taken from us.

Anniversary Post: Kundun and Dalai Lama’s Escape

Posted on 31 Mar 2016 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1959, the Dalai Lama escaped the People’s Republic of China and made it to safety in India. I don’t have a lot to say about it. I don’t believe in theocracy. Just the same, I’m not sure it is any worse than any other form of government. It seems like it is just luck of the draw: who happens to be in power and where you find yourself in the pecking order. And the current Dalai Lama seems like an all right kind of guy.

But I do want to talk about something: the movie Kundun. I was dragged to the film by my girlfriend. And I loved it. I thought it was an amazing piece of cinema. And it isn’t surprising. It’s a Martin Scorsese film. What I always find interesting is that Scorsese makes brilliant films like Kundun and New York, New York and Bringing Out the Dead. But it’s films that are far more pedestrian like Raging Bull and Taxi Driver and Goodfellas that are held up as great works of art.

Look: I’ll give you Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, which have something to say, even if they are thoroughly unpleasant films. But Goodfellas?! I know so many people who love that film. They apparently think it is some kind of accurate depiction of organized crime — the truth compared to the romanticism of The Godfather. But Goodfellas has neither the art of Greek drama nor a spark of truth other than that there are people who use violence to get what they want.

But when it comes to a really compelling film like a healer losing his mind because of his incompetence or the true story of one small man coming to terms with the destruction of hundreds of years of tradition he’s been raised to uphold, it isn’t interesting. These films lose money. But more important: they are neglected by “critics” who should expect something more from a movie.

Movie poster licensed under Fair Use, via Wikipedia.

Anniversary Post: My Fair Lady

Posted on 15 Mar 2016 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1956, My Fair Lady premiered on Broadway. I have two things to say about this. The first is that when I was 17 years old, I was part of a concert band that toured Europe. It was interesting. But the band was filled with people from the south. There were only two people who were at all from the west coast: a guy from Alaska and a gal from Arizona. Now the guy turned out to be my best friend on the trip. He was the only one who was willing to crawl out of windows and go roaming around the great cities of Europe drinking wine. Really: most of those kids were real duds.

But London was where we had first arrived and I didn’t know him that well. But in London, they had set up for us to go to see one of two plays on the West End: Annie or My Fair Lady. Well, I certainly did not want to see Annie — perhaps the most vacuously American play ever. And although My Fair Lady was at least British, I had seen the movie many times and I generally wasn’t interested.

I was a theater nerd. I loved the theater and I knew what was going on around the world in the theater scene. My thing was theater of the absurd, but I stayed up on everything — I read the weekly Variety at the library. And I had always thought that if I made it to London, I would have to see, No Sex Please, We’re British. I tried to stage a revolt. But the only person I could get on my side was the gal from Arizona. So we went to see My Fair Lady. I think there were only maybe 4 of us who did; the rest of them went to see Annie. And people wonder why I think so lowly of the south! (For the record, the performance of My Fair Lady was exceptional.)

Pygmalion and My Fair Lady

My second thought about My Fair Lady is a joke from Woody Allen. In his routine “The Vodka Ad,” he goes through a list of people the company was trying to get before him. He said, “They wanted to get Noël Coward originally for it, but he was not available. He had acquired the rights to My Fair Lady and he was removing the music and lyrics and making it back into Pygmalion.” Now, Pygmalion is a George Bernard Shaw play from 1913. And My Fair Lady really is just Pygmalion with songs. Some of the scenes are almost word for word.

Anyway, here is the Woody Allen routine, which is stand-up comedy at its best.

Broadway poster taken from Wikipedia and licensed under Fair Use.

Anniversary Post: Saint Bones and Nikephoros I

Posted on 13 Mar 2016 by Frank Moraes

St Nikephoros - Saint Bones On this day in 847, the bones of St Nikephoros I were interred at the Church of the Holy Apostles. As far as I can tell, this was a big deal. Nikephoros had died almost 20 years earlier. But saint bones were a very big thing back in the day. People thought that by being near them, they could be healed and stuff like that. Those were the days my friend!

That was when the church was kind of sealed off from the rest of the world and people looked upon it as a place of magic. And it was! If you consider power magic. And I do.

But the whole thing makes me think of Cadfael — the series of television movies (based upon Edith Pargeter’s novels, which I have not read). They take place in 12th century England. Cadfael is a monk — but one who entered the church later in life, having previously been a warrior. He is an herbalist and thoroughly anachronistic in that he is clearly an enlightenment thinker. All around him — even the good people — are stuck believing the most ridiculous nonsense. But not Cadfael.

Saint Bones of Winifred

Anyway, in the series, the abbey has the bones of St Winifred, and it acts as a kind of funding mechanism for the church. People come on pilgrimages to the abbey just to be near the bones. But we find out in A Morbid Taste for Bones (which was the first book, but not the first episode), that there are no saint bones in the box that apparently the church keeps these things in. Instead, it is the remains of a murderous (and mentally ill) monk. It makes for wonderful social commentary with people coming from hundreds of miles to be near the saint bones when the the saint bones are actually still in the ground in Wales.

Of course, the way Cadfael sees it, why can’t the bones of St Winifred work their magic from wherever they are? I mean, if it truly is magic — the work of God — what does proximity have to do with it? But these are the kind of enlightenment forms of thinking that do stick out in a story about 12th century England. Still: I recommend the films. They are great fun.

Friendship and Midnight Cowboy

Posted on 03 Mar 2016 by Frank Moraes

For some reason, I was thinking about Midnight Cowboy. I’m not that fond of the movie or the novel. It’s so dark. But as dark as the movie is, it is nothing compared to the novel. The movie only hints at Joe’s early life and pretty much all of the homosexuality is washed away. Joe is a far less interesting character in the film. But what I’m interested in is the friendship between Joe and Ratso. This is the part of the book that the film is most faithful to.

I’ve noted before that the film is a lot like Waiting for Godot. Basically, you have two characters who have nothing but each other. And outside their friendship (which is hardly without its problems), the world is a very nasty place: lonely and cruel. In Godot we never learn what Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for. Godot is little more than a symbol of hope that even if life can’t be better, it can at least be different. Joe and Ratso do hope for a better life — some kind of success, but it is hopeless.

The ending of the movie is the only part that I can force myself to watch anymore, because I’ve always seen it as so sweet. Just as in the book, Ratso dies on the bus to Florida. Joe tells the bus driver who says that they just have to continue on and then they will deal with Ratso when they arrive. So Joe goes back to his seat and puts his arm around Ratso. For decades, I always thought that Joe did this as a sign of love and a symbol of their friendship. But that’s totally wrong.

The nature of friendship is interdependence. Joe and Ratso need each other. And as bad as Joe’s life was with Ratso, it was the best that it ever was. When he goes back to sit with Ratso’s dead body, Joe is terrified. Of course he loved and honored Ratso. But what will Joe do without him? Joe is such a wounded character — a beaten puppy beneath the thinnest veneer of bravado. And now he is so alone.

I worry that as a society we only become more and more like Joe and Ratso. We have a society in which success is a commodity. But there is no expanding market. There are only a handful of “greatest” violinists and rich executives. And even if the market were expanding, it would only push greater absolute numbers of people into the category of the worthless.

But that wouldn’t matter, except that we have all bought into this lie and allowed a society to develop that denies the validity of the kind of connection that Joe and Ratso shared. Friendship is something that exists between equals. And who is going to choose to be friends with Ratso? Well, Joe — because Joe has no one else. But do any of us? Joe starts off alone and he ends alone. Maybe he’s wiser now. But that’s likely to make the loneliness all the more acute.

Midnight Cowboy poster image taken from Wikipedia, licensed under Fair Use.

Frankly Curious

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Category Archives: Film, TV & Theater