Finally got a chance to watch 侯孝賢's first movie made out of Asia, The Flight of the Red Balloon. No, it is not in English; it is in French. And the dialogs are mostly improvised with the actors on the spot, and with a child as one of the main characters. Talk about challenges. What can I say, another jaw-dropping masterpiece from the grandmaster. I am now used to watch his movie with my jaw touching the ground, and am convinced he is not capable of making anything less than a masterpiece.
And if you think that French song playing in the trailer sounds a bit familiar, here is your confirmation:
I remember one time when I was lining up for the cashier at Chapters, a lady behind me was talking to her friend, "I am so glad that I got these Twilight books, cos my daughter would pass them to me after she's done with them. We both love the same thing." And I said to myself, "And I am glad that you are not my mom."
I really can't say much about the literary value of the Twilight "saga", as I have read a total of two sentences from the first book and have no interest to continue. But what I know is, I don't want a mom or a dad that loves the exact same things as I do, especially when it comes to books. I don't want my parents to read the same shits I read. That's gross. I have my pals to share my bad taste with. I don't need my parents to pretend to be my pals, read what I read, dress how I dress, talk how I talk. On their bookshelves, I want to find books that one will need to struggle with. I don't want to see no stupid comics, and if I see celebrity gossip magazines I would curse their birthdays. There I want to see books I have never seen, about topics that are intriguing and open my eyes to see beyond my age and life experience. I want to see them wrestle with what they read. I want to see blood, sweat and tears running down their faces when they are turning the pages.
Pals are many. I don't need a parent to join in the cacophonous chorus. I need to hear an angelic voice that rises beyond the mundane and arouses in me the interest and courage to grow up and live up to its goodness.
I don't have tv cable, and thus have not seen any commercial from even my own company. But I checked out this new commercial today at a company conference, and thought my son may like this not only because the critters are cute but also because it features what he calls "one of his favorite songs", Buffalo Springfield's For What It's Worth. Here is the original:
There's something happening here What it is ain't exactly clear There's a man with a gun over there Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound Everybody look what's going down
There's battle lines being drawn Nobody's right if everybody's wrong Young people speaking their minds Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound Everybody look what's going down
What a field-day for the heat A thousand people in the street Singing songs and carrying signs Mostly say, hooray for our side
It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound Everybody look what's going down
Paranoia strikes deep Into your life it will creep It starts when you're always afraid You step out of line, the man come and take you away
We better stop, hey, what's that sound Everybody look what's going down Stop, hey, what's that sound Everybody look what's going down Stop, now, what's that sound Everybody look what's going down Stop, children, what's that sound Everybody look what's going down
I talked about how I do not believe in music videos, and here is a good example to ponder upon. Personally I think if one is to package this song with an obligatory music video (as it is done nowadays), the song would be absolutely ruined because the colorful and graphic visuals are more powerful when they are created in the listeners mind and not actually seen with their eyes. As you can tell, it is a protest song. But the listeners needn't think only about protests when they listen to it. I think about a scene of final shoot-down in a Western movie. Whenever I hear the line "Stop, children, what's that sound", I see a body being shot and flies up the air and the frame freezes at the word "Stop" when the body was sustained in mid-air. And then the frame would unfreeze and the body would drop down when the next line "Everybody look what's going down" comes. I think John Woo would agree this is a pretty darn good way to "see" this song.
The Pineapple Express is unloading on the BC coast, and there's nothing but rain these days. So how about a few of my favorite songs about rain? But of course, songs about the rain are never really about the rain.
And one of my favorite Elvis songs:
Seven lonely days and a dozen towns ago I reached out one night and you were gone Don't know why you'd run, what you're running to or from All I know is I want to bring you home
So I'm walking in the rain, thumbin' for a ride On this lonely Kentucky backroad I've loved you much too long; my love's too strong To let you go, never knowing what went wrong.
Kentucky rain keeps pouring down, And up ahead's another town that I'll go walking through With the rain in my shoes, searchin for you In the cold Kentucky rain, in the cold Kentucky rain.
Showed your photograph to some old gray bearded men Sitting on a bench outside a general store They said "Yes, she's been here" But their memory wasn't clear. Was it yesterday? No, wait the day before.
Finally got a ride, with a preacher man who asked, "Where you bound on such a cold, dark afternoon?" As we drove on through the rain, as he listened I explained And he left me with a prayer that I'd find you.
Kentucky rain keeps pouring down, And up ahead's another town that I'll go walking through With the rain in my shoes, searchin for you In the cold Kentucky rain, in the cold Kentucky rain.
And this Gordon Lightfoot song has been covered maybe one million times, and I could find at least 20 that are memorable. I've sung it so many times in the shower that even my daughter knows the words (um...other than the line about fast women that I just mumbled).
In the early morning rain, with a dollar in my hand With an aching in my heart and my pockets full of sand I'm a long way from home, and I miss my loved one so In the early morning rain with no place to go
Out on runway number nine, big 707 set to go But I'm stuck here on the ground where the cold winds blow Well the liquor tasted good and the women were all fast There she goes my friend, o she's rolling now at last
Here the mighty engines roar, see the silver bird on high She's away and westward bound, high above the clouds she'll fly Where the early rain don't fall and the sun always shines She'll be flying o'er my home in about three hours time
This old airport's got me down, it's no earthly use to me Cause I'm stuck here on the ground, cold and drunk as I might be You can't jump a jet plane like you can a freight train So I'd best be on my way in the early morning rain
Is it too early for some Christmas songs? Of course not! I have Christmas songs playing in my head all year long, and getting closer to the day only gives me an excuse to post them :)
This is my favorite Christmas song. I've tried to search for another one to replace it, not because I really have any reason to, but just to prove it is irreplaceable. And, yes, I couldn't come up with anything else that I love more.
I don't believe in music videos, and vow to never make one in my life, for a song is for listening, and if the melody is to conjure up a landscape of imagery in a listener's mind, it should be left to the wonderful imagining that goes on between the ears. If one needs to dictate the visuals as part of the packaging, then the song is probably not good enough to stand alone as a piece of auditory art.
And I think it also works the other way around. It is very commonplace for movie-makers to layer their visuals with a familiar tune and become over-reliant on borrowed rapport and pilfer emotions that the scene has yet to rightfully earn. Check out this sequence from the biggest music-video-director-who-pretends-to-be-a-movie-director Mr. Wong Kar Wai.
Two questions: first, if you take away the music, what is left of the scene? Nothing more than Mr. Wong's usual fetish with things from the past. I could get the same kick out of flipping through a magazine about antiques. Save myself two hours. Question number two: don't you think you can make this too? Like, get a piece of music that you really love and hire a brandname actor (again, borrowed rapport) to give you a few really cool-looking gestures and then via editing force the music and images into an unholy matrimony. Voilà, a sublime masterpiece! If you don't think this is high art, then it's because you are not wearing a high hat.
If there really is a place for "music video", I think it should look something like the first clip with Nat King Cole. You place the camera there and let the dude sing. Look at him, the attentive yet relaxed anticipation, the confident yet casual demeanor, just to charm the hell out of us with what? Nothing more than a song. And a song is all I am asking for.
I am a proud Canadian, and one of the things I am most proud of is how this beautiful soil has cultivated some of the best writers ever lived. The other day I was talking about how the Nobel Prize in Literature yielded many less-than-noble choices over the years, and here I would like to humbly suggest three living Canadian writers from whom you could pick a page of writing and read it aloud and find it better than the entire mumble jumbo that is 《靈山》. And they are: Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, and Alice Munro.
And in particular I would like to talk more about Munro. Recently, after winning the prestigious Giller Prize twice in her career, Munro has taken her new work Too Much Happiness out of running for the award. Why? She said she is "clearing the way for younger writers to capture the $50,000 annual prize." The implication in her reason is, of course, that she is fully aware a book of hers is a high-contender by default. Now, if this comes from any other writer, one is risking being ridiculed as an arrogant you-know-what. But when it comes from Munro, you know it is genuine graciousness. Because, yes, she will win if she is in the race. This is how good Munro is.
Here are a few lines of review on her works:
"Alice Munro has a strong claim to being the best fiction writer now working in North America…. Read Munro! Read Munro!" - New York Times Book Review
"The living writer most likely to be read in a hundred years." - Atlantic Monthly
"When reading her work it is difficult to remember why the novel was ever invented." - The Times
"Cynthia Ozick has said of Munro that she is our Chekhov…But she is our Flaubert, too. We couldn't ask for more." - Globe and Mail
"She brings as much depth, wisdom and precision to every story as most novelists bring to a lifetime of novels." - Man Booker International Prize Jury
So if are looking for something great to read, "Read Munro." Don't need to read too much about how many awards she has won or how her pen is sharper than a surgical knife. Just read her works, and you will know. If I could only write one-tenth as good as she does, I might have won the Nobel Prize.
Last night I watched a restored print of Doctor Zhivago, one of the most popular movies of all time, so popular that, according to my Dad, at that time people on the street would greet each others by asking, "Have you seen the Doctor yet?" And who could forget about the Lara's theme (plays here in the clip)? BTW, the images with Keira Knightley were from the 2002 TV series, which I have yet to watch. I adore Keira very much, but I very much doubt if anyone could compare to the incomparable Julie Christie, especially in one of the most iconic characters in cinema's history. Anyway, I think I might write an entire piece on DZ in my column, so let me contain my ecstasy for now.
I am still recovering from disbelief weeks after the Nobel Committee awarded their Peace Prize to Obama. Was he given the honor for simply being not Bush? What has Obama accomplished so far in this regard? This makes no sense at all. Smells like a bad case of American Idol of politics.
However, this was certainly not the first time the Nobel Committee pulled off something so laughable. I don't comment on things I don't know enough about. Since I do read books and I love literature, I will tell you the Committee has a history of awarding their Prize in Literature to writers less than first-rate, sometimes downright substandard.
Any Chinese out there who has read any of the works of the only Chinese writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 2000)? Who is that, you asked. Well, I am glad you asked. His name is 高行健. Oh...never heard of him? I don't blame you. Ever heard of his "masterpiece" 《靈山》? Must have read about it in the news, right? Don't know what it is about? Don't worry, if you click on this link, you will see Wikipedia doesn't know either. Maybe not many people care.
Not that the book has nothing good in it, but there are enough bad parts to make it almost unreadable. 曹長青 wrote a ten-part series to express his hatred, and, sadly, I agree with every word he says, about the works of the only Chinese Nobel Laureate in Literature and the Committee's big misjudgment in hailing something so over-bloated and self-indulgent. Read the book and 曹's commentary to see if you agree.
I would bet anything that most of you won't even make it pass the first chapter of 《靈山》.
Well said, as usual. And sometimes he'd write about other things he observed in life. This week when I was busy raking my leaves in the morning, I recalled this piece he wrote a few years ago:
Autumn leaves are falling. Perform a small act of civil disobedience
by Roger Ebert / October 25, 2004
Of all the gizmos forced upon us by the modern world, is any more melancholy than the leaf-blower? The device is manifestly useless. It blows leaves from one place to another, and then the wind blows them back again.
On my walk in Lincoln Park the other morning, I could hear the angry buzz from across North Pond. Rounding the little hill, I saw two workers for the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum solemnly blowing leaves off the path. The museum is currently engaged in expanding its natural prairie landscape, and I suggest that acreage could be set aside where children can learn that, in nature, leaves fall to the ground and stay there.
Heading towards home, I found a woman raking her yard, and this cheered me considerably. The rake is an ancient tool that has a symbiotic relationship with the human body, and if you will learn its Zen (slide with the lower hand, turn with the upper) you will never get a blister and will soon fall into a comforting rhythm.
As a law-abiding citizen, she put her leaves into plastic bags to be picked up by the trucks. But grandparents can remember when leaves were burned in the street. Their aroma on a crisp autumn night made you feel happy and sad and lonely and in a hurry to get home to dinner.
We ordinary citizens are not allowed to burn leaves anymore, because they pollute the air. They pollute with moisture and organic vegetable matter, however, and that doesn’t seem as frightening as some of the stuff we breathe. Coal-fired power plants, waste incinerators and steel recycling furnaces pour tons of toxic mercury and other heavy metals into our air.
Why, just the other day President Bush was up in Michigan praising his $2 billion program to support the coal industry’s pollution, while affirming that carbon dioxide is not responsible for global warming, existing anti-pollution statutes need to be relaxed, and there’s no hurry to improve auto emission standards. Bush’s twinkly little eyes were shining as he hailed his new Clean Coal Program, which extends the use of dirty coal. Bush views the environment with the same interest the Romans took in the Sabine Women.
Meanwhile, leaf blowers assault us with noise and exhaust gases. There’s something so pathetic about a man using one—standing there twitching his nozzle back and forth like a midget elephant. The leaves, once gathered, disappear. Children can’t risk death by riding their bikes through them at high speed. They can’t do a bombing run with left-over Fourth of July firecrackers. Their parents don’t get to shout out the window that the fire is too close to the car.
I suggest a small act of civil disobedience. Gather a small pile of nice dry leaves. Ask the children to circle around. Light the leaves and allow them to savor the magic aroma. Put out the fire before the cops arrive. Tell them that when you were their age, that smell was always in the air in the haunted twilight around Halloween. Why should the fat cats get to dump tons of poison into the air while we humble home-dwellers can’t even burn a few leaves?
"Offscreen Space" refers to the six areas blocked from being visible on a movie frame, but still part of the space of the scene: to the left and right, above and below the frame, behind the set, and behind the camera. Part of the screen action takes place unseen in these areas. According to master Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski, "...what is important frequently takes place outside the frame."
