January 4, 2000

books and movies

We saw a bunch of movies over the weekend. We rented 'Eye of God' and 'White' and 'The Red Violin.' We went to see 'The Talented Mr. Ripley.' Hence the Nancy Hise Lilly watercolor of the grand canal today. (The big domed building is clerly visible in the movie. What's the name of it?)

In other people's journals, they always seem to comment on movies like critics...they know all the actors, their past work, ditto the directors. Not me. Movies wash over me. If they are rentals, I doze or read a book through part of it on each viewing.

"The Red Violin" like "Accordion Crimes" (which was recently read to me as a book on tape) follows an instrument from person to person. Annie Proulx' novel of the accordion worked well as a book on tape, with the nuances of accents and some original accordion music. "The Red Violin" is one I need to catch again, I think. It was beautifully done but I think I dozed in the wrong places. I picked this rental because I'd mentioned my "Accordion Crimes" tape to somene who mentioned the red violin.

"Eye of God," the 1997 work of writer/director Tim Blake Nelson (OK...I looked in the movie data base), manages to defuse the violence by not looking at it straight on, in a chronological order. This leaves one (especially one like me not given to looking at violence) a chance to look at the characters beyond the violence. Forrest picked this one because it was in Esquire's list of the "best movies you've never seen."

"White" is one of Kieslowski's trio ("Red" and "Blue" are the others). "Blue" was first...the order of the French flag? Juliette Binoche starred in "Blue" and is on the screen in "White" for about five seconds, a little cameo in the court room scene. (Forrest noticed this and proved it with a rewind.) I think we have a laser disk of "Red" around here somewhere. Have to watch it again. And rent "Blue."

"The Talented Mr. Ripley" made me wince, but it drove its theme of the haves and the have nots home hard. I've been accused of being both myself. I am really, neither. I was not born to money, but I have seen just enough to make my peace with it, I think.

"Only two classes of books are of universal appeal: the very best and the very worst."

Ford Madox Ford