Best Picture Project: Unforgiven and Schindler’s List

Tags

american film history, clint eastwood, dark, drama, entertainment, history, liam neeson, movies, oskar schindler, ralph fiennes, sir ben kingsley

Unforgiven (Best Picture, 1992)

It takes a brave actor/director to introduce his character, a retired outlaw and assassin, by showing him face-down in the mud of a pigsty, chasing hogs. But that’s Clint Eastwood in UNFORGIVEN.

This film is the third Western to win Best Picture, after CIMARRON (remember CIMARRON? It was a while ago…) and DANCES WITH WOLVES.  It’s different from either, though. CIMARRON is about the go-West fever, the wandering feet of pioneers, and the struggle between settler and pioneer.  DANCES WITH WOLVES is nostalgic for an idyllic past, mourning the inevitability of the destruction that comes with the US spreading west.

In some ways, UNFORGIVEN is a classic Western, and for that I think we have to thank Clint Eastwood, star and director.  He is, after all, one of the iconic actors of the Western genre, right up there with John Wayne in some estimations.  The premise of the film is quite simple: after one of their number is mutilated by a customer, a group of prostitutes offer a reward for the death of the villain.  A group of older gunmen gather to try and achieve this end.

In other ways, there’s something different about UNFORGIVEN.  This is no MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, full of young gunslingers hot for action, justice, and revenge.  Eastwood’s character is patently out of practice.  His target practice is pathetic, he is unable to mount his horse for several tries.  It would be funny if it wasn’t so heartbreaking.  Wikipedia describes UNFORGIVEN as a “dark Western that deals frankly with the uglier aspects of violence and the myth of the Old West.” Maybe that makes it more honest, but I’m unwilling to think it’s so simple.  As one of my history professors once said, every new history paper or book can be boiled down to the same simple thesis: things were more complicated than we previously thought.  I suspect the truth of the American West is some conglomeration of the three films, plus some things that aren’t in any of them and some things that have been lost to the historical record.

Another thing occurs to me with UNFORGIVEN.  Though the film is really about the men and their rough sort of chivalry to avenge a wrong to a woman (even a prostitute!), there is one woman worth mentioning.  Frances Fisher plays Alice, seemingly a senior figure at the brothel.  She is the quintessential strong woman of “loose morals” in the Western genre, but that’s not why I bring her up.  Sometimes you watch a movie or see a play and realize that one of the actors or actresses is remarkably suited to the fashions of the time period involved.  Frances Fisher is no dazzling beauty, though she is certainly attractive and interesting to watch.  But see her in UNFORGIVEN, and your estimation of her physical attributes may change.  Her narrow face radiates strength and determination, and the hairstyles of frontier life in the 1880s suit her remarkably.  Just like Clint Eastwood looks odd in modern clothes (as I’ll see when I get to MILLION DOLLAR BABY) but really suited to the rough leather and homespun wool of 19th-century frontier fashion, Fisher is comfortable and believable in her period clothes – even when it’s just her shift.

Finally, I’d just like to say I never expected Richard Harris to be in a Western.  For those of you who’ve forgotten, he was the original actor cast as Albus Dumbledore.  Michael Gambon did a perfectly adequate job, but for me, Harris’s death was a tragic loss to the film series.

Schindler’s List (Best Picture, 1993)

SCHINDLER’S LIST, difficult to watch and harder to forget, is arguably one of the greatest achievements in cinematic history.  There is no way I can do it justice here.

Every decision is spot-on.  The casting is genius, from Ben Kingsley to Liam Neeson to the truly terrifying Ralph Fiennes.  The film would be nowhere near as effective in color.  Filming in black and white has two main effects.  One, it gives the film an older look, and second, it highlights the morals of the moment because to call it black and white is really a misnomer.  Hitler’s Germany was supposed to be black and white, and for some it may have been – you are either desirable or you are disposable.  Schindler starts with black and white – he wants to hold onto Jews because they’re the ultimate in cheap labor and he can make an enormous profit that way – but like the film style, he realizes that it’s not so much black and white as grayscale.  Moral ambiguity rules the day.  When Schindler finally flees, leaving his Jewish employees to be liberated by the Red Army, the grateful employees give him a ring inscribed with the Talmudic message “he who saves a single life saves the whole world.”  They are desperately grateful, but Schindler is wracked by the guilt of knowing he could have done more. He could have sold his car, taken every possible sacrifice to get more money for bribes to save more Jews.

Spielberg is said to have expected SCHINDLER’S LIST to flop.  He refused a salary because he considered being paid to make this film “blood money.”  It’s even said that he made the film out of a sort of penance because he didn’t cry when he visited the remnants of Auschwitz.  I haven’t been to any of the concentration camps, though I have visited a mass grave site in Lithuania, and I’ve been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. two or three times.

And I’m with Spielberg in that these things don’t reduce me to tears automatically.  I did lose control at Paneriai, but it wasn’t immediate.  I was on a choir tour and we gathered around one of the pits and sang, and that’s when I lost it. But the Holocaust Museum, reading books like Art Spiegelman’s MAUS, and films like SCHINDLER’S LIST don’t make me cry.  They make me feel frozen.  They make me feel like I’ve lost all color and warmth.

It’s the end of the film, when it eases back into color, that the emotions of what I’ve seen become overwhelming.  Those final minutes spent watching the actors walking with their real-life counterparts to place a pebble on the grave of Oskar Schindler in Jerusalem are more heartbreaking than anything in the film.  Schindler died poor and solitary, always believing he should have done more.  He is remembered by those he saved and the descendants of those he saved as a hero.  I suppose it’s possible that both views are right.

Next Up: Forrest Gump (Best Picture, 1994) and Braveheart (Best Picture, 1995)

Truth Really Is Stranger Than Fiction

Tags

american girl books, books, fantasy, historical fiction novels, history, learning, life, literature, memory, nerds, ooh! ooh!, passion, retrospect, tamora pierce

Ever have one of those moments after making a major decision about academic or career paths when you look back at your earlier years and realize that the chain of events leading to said decision goes back waaaaaaaay farther than you initially thought?

Yeah, happens to me a lot these days.

When I was in junior high and high school, most of what I read was fantasy literature.  Not science fiction. Fantasy.  I tore through the “sheroes” novels of Tamora Pierce and Robin McKinley, and read and re-read the dark fairy tale retellings of Donna Jo Napoli.  Her rendition of Rapunzel in “Zel,” permeated as it was by the intensity of obsessive, destructive love, haunts me to this day.  I read each new Harry Potter book on the day it came out, and almost always finished it that same day.  “The Lord of the Rings” was a bit more of a challenge, but I made it through and fell in love.  “His Dark Materials” was a bit easier, and is probably the closest I got to science fiction.

That was most of what I read.

It’s now, after college and grad school, that I can look back to elementary school and realize that my academic interests can be traced to those years, rather than my teens.  When I was little, the “American Girl” books, associated with the doll series of the same name, were very popular.  I read them over and over, and eventually owned the entire series associated with the doll I had – Samantha – whose backstory falls during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt in the early 20th century.  But I remember more of them by name still, and I can envision the illustrations and remember character names without much effort.

My elementary school years also coincided with a series of journal-style historical fiction novels for kids called “Dear America” and “My Name is America.”  The stories tell of children caught up in major moments of American history, like the Civil War or the waves of Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  There was even a special spinoff series of “royal diaries” supposed to be written by young princesses in history, like Cleopatra or the future Elizabeth I of England.  It’s simplified, sanitized history to be sure, but I devoured every word, including the nonfiction appendices that explained (at a kid level, of course) events like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire or the kinds of classes children had in school at a given time.

In retrospect, it’s not surprising I was a history major. Twice.

What’s surprising to people who mostly knew me best back in junior high or high school is that now I hardly ever read fiction.  My fiction “reading” is done by audiobooks to which I listen when I’m taking a walk or doing other tasks.

These days, when I think of sitting down and reading, my inclination takes me to nonfiction or things that would get classified in the nonfiction section in spite of being fiction, like Boccaccio’s deliciously raunchy Decameron.  One thing I learned during my history MA is that people on public transit send you approving looks if you’re reading a 1000-page book with a medieval-looking painting on the cover.  Obviously they have no idea that the Decameron is a dirty, dirty book!

It’s not that I enjoy fiction any less than I used to, but rather that I find I am uninclined to try any of the new fantasy series out there.  Most that I encounter seem to be aimed at the YA crowd, and I find them… predictable.  Why read a book if you can guess correctly after two chapters how it’s all going to end?  I listen to my old favorites again and again on audiobook, enjoying them fully every time.

I have discovered that what used to be an endless appetite for fantasy has morphed into an endless appetite for history.  I am in love with the academic monograph.  It should be evident to anyone who reads this regularly or who knows me at all that I’m unabashedly nerdy, that possibly my greatest passion is for learning for the sheer joy of learning.

Some people have a bucket list of places they want to go or adventures they want to experience.  I’m building a list of topics I’d like to study.  After all, most historical stories, with their rippling ramifications, seem so far outside the realm of possibility that if I didn’t know they happened, I wouldn’t believe it.

Think about it.  Henry VIII and his six wives.  The attack on the Medici brothers on Easter Sunday, 1478.  Catherine the Great.  The Civil Rights Movement.  Genghis Khan and his “horde.”  Moorish Spain, Al-Andalus.  Ancient Egypt’s opulence and monuments.  It’s astonishing that any one of those things or people existed, but all of them?

Mind-blowing.

Best Picture Project: Dances With Wolves and The Silence of the Lambs

Tags

american film history, anthony hopkins, crime drama, Criminal Minds, dark, death eaters, drama, entertainment, harry potter, history, kevin costner, manifest destiny, movies, oscars

Oh oh oh just realized that this pair includes wolves AND sheep… it seems much less incongruous now! *insert joke about wolf in sheep’s clothing here*…. If wolves are dancing, the lambs are probably sensible to stay silent, y’know?

Anyways.

Dances With Wolves (Best Picture, 1990)

I’m sure there are entire volumes analyzing the portrayals of Pawnee, Lakota Sioux, and US settlers in DANCES WITH WOLVES.  That’s not what I want to talk about here.

I’m intrigued by the mood of the film.  In any study of 19th-century America, the concept of “manifest destiny” plays a hefty role.  This is the general idea that white America was destined to expand over the continent, from coast to coast, “civilizing and taming the frontier, and spreading the doctrine of republican democracy.  The term was coined by journalist John O’Sullivan, who wrote:

And that claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.

American Progress (John Gast, c. 1872)

The entirety of DANCES WITH WOLVES is tinged with a nostalgia that seems to me to be only mildly romanticized, though I admit that my knowledge of North American history is not great.  I suppose it’s possible that someone like Dunbar (Kevin Costner) would be able to make friends with a wary Sioux tribe and eventually become one of them.  I suppose it’s possible that he’d become such a celebrity by sighting a buffalo herd.  I honestly don’t know how historically plausible this story is.  But to me it seems the film neither caricatures nor patronizes to any great extent, for what that’s worth.

The mood of the film is nostalgic for a frontier that is already starting to fade away in Dunbar’s time (1860s).  Dunbar himself says he requested the posting because he “always wanted” to see the frontier before it vanished.  DANCES WITH WOLVES is permeated by the knowledge on all sides that the land is in transition.  The frontier will be conquered and settled by whites.  The native peoples will be forced further and further afield from the lands and traditions of their ancestors.  Maybe it’s that the whole thing is colored by hindsight.

For a film about the past, we get remarkably little information about the past of the main character, John Dunbar.  For all we know, his life begins at the moment he’s brought into a Civil War battlefield hospital to have his foot amputated.  His attempt at suicide-by-battle (he rides solo across the field directly at the Confederate forces) instead makes him an inadvertent hero, able to choose his posting of choice.  We know nothing about his life before that day.

Unrelatedly, I wonder how hard it is to get a trained wolf for a film.

The Silence of the Lambs (Best Picture, 1991)

The Best Picture Project has included several films for which I have felt little enthusiasm (THE FRENCH CONNECTION comes to mind).  SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, however, is the first that I have actively dreaded watching.  I strongly dislike suspense, and I’d much prefer to keep thinking of Anthony Hopkins as the nice bookstore owner from 84 CHARING CROSS ROAD. Great movie, by the way. You should go see it.

Turns out my compulsion to complete sets is stronger than my fear of this film, so here goes.

It may seem surprising to those who know me that I’m so apprehensive about this film, given my strong interest in shows like CSI and CRIMINAL MINDS.  Indeed, CRIMINAL MINDS is a logical progression from THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.  The characters in CRIMINAL MINDS frequently reference the earlier FBI Behavioral Sciences/Behavior Analysis effort to interview known and incarcerated serial killers, psychopaths, and sociopaths.  CM characters Joe Rossi and Jason Gideon are supposed to have participated in that project.

What’s unclear from the film is just why a trainee agent is sent to interview a serial killer as infamous as Lecter in the first place.  If his interview is so vital to the project, why entrust it to an untried trainee who isn’t even a full agent yet?

One of the things that makes Lecter so scary is quite similar to the reason Voldemort in the HARRY POTTER series is so scary.  It’s the fact that impassive, cool calm can be so much more frightening than rage.  Lecter is calm, courteous, and rarely changes his facial expression away from a polite mask.  It occurs to me that much of his character is about masks – his rarely-varying facial expression, his demeanor of calm cool, and of course the infamous mask restraint of green plastic and metal wire.  Interesting trivia — the prop and costume designers of the HARRY POTTER movies intentionally designed the Death Eater masks with Hannibal Lecter’s mask in mind.  The designs on them might be inspired by Maori warrior tattoos, but the shapes and mouth grilles are Lecter all the way.

Death Eater masks, HP movie series

Funnier trivia: Martha Stewart was recently the Not My Job guest on the NPR quiz show “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!”  Before the quiz began, host Peter Sagal asked her to confirm a few things from her Wikipedia page.  She confirmed that she briefly dated Anthony Hopkins, back in the day, but had to break it off because she couldn’t stop seeing him as Hannibal Lecter.

I’m going to go do something mindlessly happy in the spring sunshine now.

Next Up: Unforgiven (Best Picture, 1992) and Schindler’s List (Best Picture, 1993)

Shinies!

Tags

arts, crafting, jewelry, ooh! ooh!, original designs, photos, procrastination, shiny, whimsy

I’m feeling impulsive, so here’s a post featuring some photos of recent-ish crafting projects I’ve completed.  Nearly all are original designs, though there are also a few patterns I got from kits or magazines.  Enjoy, and keep in mind, I’m willing to sell some of what I make:)

original design

original design

original design

original design

original design

original design

Black and silver beads, black, silver, and gold seed bead bezels. Original design.

Mixed green seed beads, 11/0. Fastened with snaps. Herringbone stitch. Original Design.

Dimensions Crafts cross-stitch kit design “In Her Garden”

Original design; lobster clasp.

Spinoff from Infinity Necklace. Original design, Czech seed beads 15/0 in green and black.

Pattern from Beadwork Magazine. Czech seed beads in sizes 11/0 and 15/0.

Swarovski crystal, Delica seed beads. Camelot Cross pattern, from Beadwork Magazine.

Best Picture Project: Rain Man and Driving Miss Daisy

Tags

american film history, comedy, drama, entertainment, history, Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman, movies, oscars, whimsy

Rain Man (Best Picture, 1988)

I’m not sure how I feel about this one.  It is considered a classic, still, and continues to get referenced by other works.  Hoffman’s performance as the autistic savant Raymond is extraordinary, and Tom Cruise as the largely egocentric Charlie is at his angry best.

Charlie is actually my problem with the film.  It’s not that his character is unrealistic, but rather that he is so relentlessly unsympathetic towards everyone around him that it is hard to get past my dislike.  Even someone who knows nothing about autism, as Charlie clearly doesn’t, should be able to clue into the distress Raymond exhibits at breaks from his routines and behaviors that upset him, like someone touching his things.  It’s obvious that Raymond is not “okay” by the standards of the majority of the culture in which he lives.  Even though the things that make him freak out may seem trivial to the rest of us, even though we don’t understand why he gets so upset, it seems reasonable to expect that we, the majority, could pick up on Raymond’s distress and try to avoid triggering the anxiety.

There’s a passage in the Wikipedia article on RAIN MAN that I find interesting.  “Rain Man‘s portrayal of the main character’s condition has been seen as inaugurating a common and incorrect media stereotype that people on the autism spectrum typically have savant skills, and references to Rain Man, in particular Dustin Hoffman’s performance, have become a popular shorthand for autism and savantism. However, Rain Man has also been seen as dispelling a number of other misconceptions about autism and improving public awareness of the failure of many agencies to accommodate people with autism and make use of the abilities they do have, regardless of whether they are savant skills. Rain Man has been listed as one of the best movies on the subject of autism.”

So I guess RAIN MAN is from a time when awareness of the autism spectrum wasn’t great.  And Charlie does soften a bit over the course of the film – the scene in which he realizes that Raymond is the Rain Man, a figure from his childhood he thought was imaginary, is rather touching.

I do think this film is Best Picture-worthy, but I’m still not sure how I feel about it.  I don’t dislike it, but I definitely don’t like it either.  RAIN MAN is one of the Best Picture winners that is very much of its moment.  By that I mean I’m not sure it would be made today, and even if it did get made today, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as effective as a film.  Maybe it’s because more people have a basic grasp of autism now, or maybe it’s because we’re more obsessed with political correctness than we were 25 years ago.  Or maybe it was just the right film at the right moment, like GENTLEMAN’S AGREEMENT or FROM HERE TO ETERNITY.

Driving Miss Daisy (Best Picture, 1989)

Ah, Morgan Freeman.  Truly one of the great American voices.

There’s a lot that can be said about DRIVING MISS DAISY. In many ways, it’s a quiet little movie, full of moments of discomfort as well as surprising bits of humor.  Miss Daisy, played by Jessica Tandy (who won Best Actress for this role), is an elderly lady whose age gets in the way of her ability to drive safely.  Her son hires Hoke Colburn, played by Morgan Freeman, to be her chauffeur.  The story chronicles the development of their friendship over twenty-odd years with a background provided by world events from 1948 through the early 1970s. 

The discomfort of watching this is easy to find.  The main characters are an older, well-off Jewish woman and a black chauffeur, living in Georgia.  There’s not much in the way of large acts of prejudice, though there is a stressful scene in which there’s a bomb at the synagogue.  Mostly it’s the everyday sort of prejudice that’s clearly ingrained and taught from childhood.  Like the song in SOUTH PACIFIC says, “you’ve got to be carefully taught” from an early age to “hate and fear.”

One thing I enjoy about this film is its score.  The music is simple and unobtrusive, but it conveys a sense of momentum that’s appropriate for a story about driving.  The music also has a tapping sort of beat worked into the tapestry that sounds a bit like a clock ticking, showing the passage of time.

This is actually the second time I’ve seen DRIVING MISS DAISY.  The first time was a couple years ago, before my first visit to the Deep South.  A friend of mine from college (hi, David!) grew up in Macon, GA, and invited me out for a visit.  Before I arrived, though, he strongly suggested that I watch certain movies to illustrate Georgia culture.  If I recall correctly, the list was DRIVING MISS DAISY, FRIED GREEN TOMATOES, MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL, and BIG FISH.  Most illuminating, I must say. 

I’m not sure I could provide a reciprocal list of films to illustrate Bay Area culture.  Anyone have any suggestions?

Next Up: Dances With Wolves (Best Picture, 1990) and The Silence of the Lambs (Best Picture, 1991) (eek)

The Merry Month of May

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comedy, Elizabethan, England, entertainment, history, literature, national poetry month, nerds, poetry, Thomas Dekker, whimsy

One last poem, as we head out of April and National Poetry Month into May, which has all kinds of other things going on in it.

Elizabethan poet and dramatist Thomas Dekker wrote this poem, which was originally published in The Shoemaker’s Holiday (1600).  Due to his lack of reliable patronage, most of his work has been lost, but Shoemaker’s Holiday is acknowledged as Dekker’s masterpiece.  It’s a portrait of contemporary London life, and like most of Dekker’s work, tends towards the comic and the romantic.

I wonder who the Peg is in the poem.  Peg is a nickname for Margaret – and it must be a character in Shoemaker’s Holiday, though I can’t find any mention of a Peg or a Margaret in the brief Wikipedia synopsis.  Saucy little poem, this.

THE MERRY MONTH OF MAY

by: Thomas Dekker

THE month of May, the merry month of May,

So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green!

O, and then did I unto my true love say,

Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer’s Queen.

 

Now the nightingale, the pretty nightingale,

The sweetest singer in all the forest quire,

Entreats thee, sweet Peggy, to hear thy true love’s tale:

Lo, yonder she sitteth, her breast against a brier.

 

But O, I spy the cuckoo, the cuckoo, the cuckoo;

See where she sitteth; come away, my joy:

Come away, I prithee, I do not like the cuckoo

Should sing where my Peggy and I kiss and toy.

 

O, the month of May, the merry month of May,

So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green;

And then did I unto my true love say,

Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer’s Queen.

The Road Not Taken

Tags

choices, contemplation, literature, national poetry month, poetry, robert frost, thinking

Between a trip East for an extended-family gathering and a vicious cold, I’m a little behind my preferred posting schedule of at least once a week.

Here’s another poem for you all.  It’s a little cliche, perhaps, but I love it.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

– Robert Frost

The Lady of Shalott

Tags

books, drama, king arthur, literature, national poetry month, nerds, poetry, Tennyson

At this point, nearly everyone seems to have a basic idea of the legend of King Arthur.  The ideas of Camelot, the Round Table, and knights driven by the ultimate code of chivalry are widely recognized.  Over the centuries, the story has incorporated other elements, like the quest for the Holy Grail that involves the Fisher King and can only be completed by a knight of pure virtue.  There’s also the story of Arthur’s nephew/son Mordred, who delivers Arthur’s fatal wound and brings about the end of the Camelot age.  And, of course, the adulterous romance of Guinevere and Lancelot.

Arthurian legends have fascinated and entranced for centuries.  Aside from being great stories, they illustrate powerful and intensely human emotions like envy, jealousy, love, ambition, and the struggle to maintain virtuous behavior.  Arthur the Welsh warlord/prince/king appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s 12th-century book History of the Kings of Britain, as well as serving as a peripheral character in some of the stories of the Mabinogion, a collection of Welsh folklore that is still one of the most confusing books I’ve ever read.  Sometimes it works well to translate texts from bardic poetry into prose, and other times a lot gets lost in translation.

The Victorians were notoriously obsessed with Arthurian legend, thanks in great part to Tennyson’s poem “Idylls of the King.”  There are volumes and volumes of scholarly analysis of the Arthur obsession.  I’m not here to write about that this time.

I prefer another of Tennyson’s Arthur-related poems, though I have to admit it’s mostly because I like the way the Canadian singer Loreena McKennitt interpreted it.  The Lady of Shalott, especially as interpreted by McKennitt, is a strange combination of matter-of-fact and devastating.

Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right—
The leaves upon her falling light—
Thro’ the noises of the night
       She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
       The Lady of Shalott.

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darken’d wholly,
       Turn’d to tower’d Camelot.
For ere she reach’d upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
       The Lady of Shalott.

–From The Lady of Shalott, by Alfred Lord Tennyson

I Contain Multitudes

Tags

books, confusing, literature, memory, national poetry month, poetry, song of myself, thinking, walt whitman

The past and present wilt — I have fill’d them, emptied them,
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.

Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a
     minute longer.)

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.

Who has done his day’s work? who will soonest be through
     with his supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?

Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too
     late?

– Part 51 From “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman

I’ve seen this quoted a couple times in different places, and it’s that middle bit, that third thought, that always grabs my attention.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I’m not sure what it is about this that fascinates me, though I gather from my google search for the whole poem section that it’s a pretty popular quote from “Song of Myself.”

I haven’t read much Whitman, though the few bits I’ve read have always struck me as strangely disjointed, as though it was written by several people who didn’t really communicate well with each other.  Maybe that’s what this small stanza is supposed to refer to.

But I do think that it’s a succinct definition of what it means to be human.  We talk about teenagers and young adults trying to figure themselves out, trying to work out who they are and who they will be.  I’m not sure if, at 26, I still count as a “young adult” or if I’m just an “adult” now (probably depends on who’s describing me and how much older than I am they are!).

What I’m trying to say is, I don’t think the process of figuring ourselves out ever ends.  I can say some things definitively about how I am now, but I know deep down that there’s no guarantee of permanence.  Some things seem likely to stick around, since they’ve been true for as long as I can remember – I like having a lot of quiet time, I don’t like crowds, I sometimes have trouble controlling my temper – but others may change.  I mean, I remember at age six or seven gagging on pickles or mushrooms.  I still don’t exactly love mushrooms, but I can eat them without being sick.

I’m reminded a little of a particularly troublesome question of Spanish-language grammar with which I struggled when I first started trying to learn Spanish in middle school.  My school experience had, shall we say, limited lessons that were clearly about grammar rules.  The topic tended to get worked into other things and we picked up a lot through osmosis and example.  Spanish class was the first time I had to sit and work through clearly written-out rules of grammar, and I was puzzled by the concept of what the teacher called “the verb ‘to be.’” This got worse when I discovered that Spanish has two different verbs that mean “to be.”

Estar and ser have the same literal meaning, but they are more complicated. The primary distinction between them, as I understand it, is in permanence.  For instance, you would use “ser” when identifying yourself, because in theory your name is permanent.  Let’s leave aside the question of stolen identities/legal name changes/witness protection for right now and just go with the simple idea that your name is permanent.  On the other hand, “estar” would be used for a temporary state, like being cold or hungry or excited.  Those things will pass.

In defining ourselves, we often encounter contradictions that can range from the slightly disconcerting through embarrassing and all the way to insurmountable.  But then, we are large, and contain multitudes.

A few years ago, I reconnected with a friend from high school I hadn’t seen since I graduated.  It didn’t take long for him to tell me I hadn’t changed a bit, and I’m still surprised by the vehemence of my reaction.  The girl he knew in high school is still within me, but I am not only her anymore.  I can’t reconcile all I’ve experienced, both good and bad, in the years since high school with the idea that I haven’t changed.

The eighteen-year-old version of me is still there, inside 26-year-old me, and she makes an appearance sometimes.  It’s not like rings in a tree – those are too static for the feeling that I can look back at how I was at eighteen, twelve, ten, or six, and call that self to the surface for a moment.

What can I say, other than:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

A Simple Prayer

Tags

eli eli, hanna szenes, history, judaism, music, national poetry month, religion, spirituality

I’d like to admit something that may come as a surprise, given my postings for National Poetry Month last year and this year.

I don’t read poetry.  Not really.  Other than a brief foray into Edmund Spenser’s “Faerie Queene” this fall and an equally short glance at Shakespeare’s sonnets a little further back, I haven’t sat down to read a poem since junior year of college when I read Seamus Heaney’s translation of “Beowulf.”

The poetry I encounter most comes with music attached.  And so, for the rest of National Poetry Month, I’m going to post favorite song lyrics.  Some were written to be songs from the start, while others began as traditional poems and found themselves set to music later on.

I’d like to begin with one of the latter type, a poem/song that is now often found in Jewish services and prayerbooks.

Hanna Szenes was a freedom fighter and partisan during World War II.  In 1944 she and some compatriots parachuted into Yugoslavia to help rescue Hungarian Jews from being deported to Auschwitz.  She was arrested at the Hungarian border, imprisoned, tortured, and eventually executed by firing squad.  Her diaries and other writings have been published and some have been widely used, including the poem I’m featuring today.  In fact, this poem is used to close some versions of SCHINDLER’S LIST.

אלי, אלי

אלי, אלי, שלא יגמר לעולם

החול והים

רשרוש של המים

ברק השמים

תפילת האדם

Eli, Eli, Shelo yigamer l’olam:

Hachol v’hayam

Rishrush shel hamayim

B’rak hashamayim

T’filat ha’adam.

My God, My God, I pray that these things never end,

The sand and the sea,

The rush of the waters,

The crash of the Heavens,

The prayer of Man.