Roadrunner

This blog post mentions suicide.  National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 800-273-8255 available 24 hours in English and Spanish. 

Well, of course, I loved him. 

I loved him along with all others who followed his travels around the world and virtually placed themselves in the seat across from him, watching and listening as he flicked on the light of his curiosity.  

Anthony Bourdain shared his worldview as a storyteller.  He loved the strength of well-honed phrases  His rat-a-tat-tat verbal delivery sated the moment. He could have been writing songs he was so lyrical.

This oral finesse along with his bass timbre, lanky gate, commanding height created a navigation system that seemed unbeatable.

But, as we all know, that is the lie. No one is unbeatable.  We all need serious scaffolding to hold us up.

I recently watched this summer's release of Roadrunner, A Film About Anthony Bourdain, and Bourdain's suicide hurts my heart as much today as when he died in 2018.  

The film left me feeling surprisingly untethered; a reminder that the bruises of suicide don't necessarily heal for the living - even those of us watching from the very, very cheap seats.  

Bourdain first popped up on my radar during his No Reservations show on the Travel Channel followed by CNN's Parts Unknown. His appeal was as the cool kid who could lure the viewer into his shenanigans.  We were invited to be his co-conspirators and we could almost hear him utter, "Psssst....come see this!"

A favorite Parts Unknown episode for me aired three months following Bourdain's death.  W. Kamau Bell (I am a big fan of his United Shades of America show) and Bourdain traveled to Kenya - a country neither man had ever visited. Bell's middle  name - Kamau - is Kenyan meaning 'quiet warrior.'

Bourdain savored Bell's discomfort watching goat's head soup being prepared for him. Bell knew the time and space shared was precious and noted this arc while the two sat perched before the golden vista in the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy. It cemented a connection to each other, to Kenya, to Nature, to Life, to feeling small in the raw, wide world. 

I saw it as another perfect example of how Bourdain drew in his guests, his guides, and his viewers determined that they experience the marrow of the moment.

As someone who loves to cook and bake, who delights in reading about food, who pours over recipes, and follows chefs, cooks etc. on social media, I was naturally intrigued by Bourdain's iterations of travel/food television shows. I watched and listened intently always appreciating his ability to straddle being relaxed and edgy as he sought to unspool the essence of location - always appreciating it with a touch of humility. 

I had never read Bourdain's insider Kitchen Confidential until after he died. While I prefer to read the print version of books, I deferred to the audio version listening to it each night as I prepared dinner at home. I chopped, seared, blended, and mashed paying a small homage to this cook turned chef turned author turned TV host turned famous man of the world.  I reveled in the many faces of Bourdain.

My choice of an audiobook had a singular motivation: I hungered to hear him spin tales.

It was excruciatingly clear while watching Roadrunner how Bourdain's many friends and co-workers who appeared in the film did so because of their shared craving to reminisce, to wonder, to search for answers.  Not one of them had yet to find someplace to rest their grief.  

The film's power for me came from this repeated universal need to experience their compadre; to talk of him in shared pain and joy; to utter their loss and struggle as they felt impotent in knowing he slipped through the bonds of their friendship.  

Bourdain insisted he was not a good friend ("I'm not going to remember your birthday") and yet many lined up to be his. He was the guy they all wanted to be around.  And now they couldn't. 

In the 2017 Tony award winner for Best Musical The Band's Visit, the final song's lyrics titled Answer Me bubbled up as I watched Roadrunner.

All alone,

In the quiet,

Ah, my ears are thirsty

For your voice,

For your voice,

Can you answer me?

Criticism of the film's intent noted it as "a snippy tell-all" pointing to heavy focus on Bourdain's TV shows and too little focus on his hefty career in restaurant kitchens and heroin addiction as a young man. I did not see it this way but I understand how the author arrived here. All loss leaves a mark.    https://www.wbur.org/news/2021/07/15/roadrunner-anthony-bourdain-documentary-review  

The article's critic included a spot-on bit from comedian Dave Chappelle's 2019 show Sticks and Stones that referenced a sort of celebrity sleight-of-hand when we think we know how good life must be for famous, rich folk. Chappelle reminded us that Bourdain's death telegraphs one truth: "No matter what it might look like from the outside, you don't know what the f--- is going on inside." 

In 1980, I visited my brother Vincent in Maui for three weeks. His newly claimed home blew open my worldview.  We saw the island from the sea, air, and land and the boxes of slides that resulted in my unquenchable thirst to capture it all numbered in the "way too many" range.  I wanted to share all of it upon returning home and did so to a very patient group of co-workers held hostage by my "you gotta see this" slide show. I easily fell into the 'vacation slides sharing' trap.  (I again apologize to those lovely co-workers.)

I offer this only to say it's easy to overshare.  Bourdain did the opposite of this. He managed to lure us in as travel companions even in this world where any internet search will provide easy context for all things exotic.  We wanted him and his point of view to guide us. 

He managed to deftly describe important moments, making them important to those of us who loved his work. 

Morgan Neville, Roadrunner Director created a 100-song playlist of favorite titles randomly mentioned by Bourdain with some added by the chef's friends.  

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/anthony-bourdain-roadrunner-playlist-1200455/

Listening to it while I meandered through this post I was unsurprised by the 

beat-thumping, electric guitar-laden push of Patti Smith's High on Rebellion, Elvis Costello's Lipstick Vogue, or New Order's Blue Monday.  

These seemed to represent Bourdain's velocity.

Also notable were unexpected softer choices such as the Beach Boys' God Only Knows, The Velvet Underground's Sweet Jane, Earth, Wind, and Fire's That's The Way of the World, and Kevin Morby's Beautiful Stranger. 

I think these, like much of his offerings, pulsed from his soul.   

Roadrunner isn't perfect and neither was Bourdain. We are all just fragile humans. 

Two more links to Roadrunner reviews:

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/anthony-bourdain-movie-roadrunner-doesn-t-allow-life-s-loose-ncna1274895

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/15/movies/roadrunner-a-film-about-anthony-bourdain-review.html

Article on the use of artificial intelligence technology to replicate Bourdain's voice in the film:

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/16/1016838440/ai-brought-anthony-bourdains-voice-back-to-life-should-it-have

Gone Fishin'- in the Yemen

The movie, "Salmon Fishing In the Yemen" opens today in theaters and I (along with many other lucky Bryn Mawr Film Institute members) attended a sneak preview in late February.  Not only were we treated to the film, but actress Emily Blunt, who stars in it, was on hand to answer audience questions following the screening. 

Here is the post I wrote for the BMFI blog. Just click on the link at the end to read it in its entirety!

Three things made BMFI’s screening of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen very special:
1. It was a sneak preview;
2. It was free to members;
3. Actress Emily Blunt answered questions after the screening.

It appeared to be an act of movie magic to see the British actress walk down the theater aisle at the film’s end and take a seat next to BMFI President Juliet Goodfriend, ready to field questions. The full house applauded heartily not only for the actress, but for the film in which she stars opposite Ewan McGregor and Kristin Scott Thomas. Ms. Blunt’s visit was a very sweet digestif to the charming comedy.

Filmed in Morocco, Salmon Fishing pairs a visionary sheik (Amr Waked) and Dr. Alfred Jones (Mr. McGregor), a government fisheries wonk, to introduce salmon spawning in the Middle Eastern country. As the sheik’s PR consultant, Harriet Chetwode Talbot (Ms. Blunt) helps both men as the unlikely project becomes a reality. The film shows what the sheik’s seemingly bottomless wallet and the fishing expert’s understated knowledge can produce when they collaborate on the same dream.
http://www.brynmawrfilm.blogspot.com/2012/03/actress-emily-blunt-visits-bmfi.html

Actress Emily Blunt signing posters promoting her new film, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, at BMFI.

Acceptance Arrives in Many Ways

Here is a look at the Live Action Short Films up for an Academy Award tonight!


A good film touches us in some way – a great one grabs us by the collar with both fists.

The Academy Award nominees for Live Action Short Films fit neatly in either of these two boxes. For me, what separated them was how deeply they churned in my gut.

Pentecost

In the tale of an Irish altar boy caught in the web of expectations from his father, his parish priest and his archbishop, Pentecost invites us to witness a comedic coming of age moment.  The boy, Damian, unwittingly injures a priest when he swings a metal incense ball a bit too enthusiastically and finds himself banned from his duties and from watching his beloved Manchester United football team.  Damian says he’s thankful to be relieved of the church duties because he never wanted them in the first place. This goes unheard.  A plot twist finds Damian as the incense bearer again this time for an all-important archbishop’s visit to his country church.

The predictable ending, in which some spirit moves the hero, places this film into the ‘good’ box for me.  However, a hilarious scene that can only be described as a private pre-Mass pep talk is delivered with such fervor that if you close your eyes, you’d swear it was being given in a Super Bowl locker room at halftime. 

 Krish Gupta as Raju

Raju provides a sobering riddle that is dropped into the lives of a German couple as they spend the first hours with their newly adopted four year old son, Raju in colorful, raucous, bare bones Calcutta, India.  In a bustling marketplace with his new father, the boy seemingly vanishes and, from that point, the film pulses with doubt, fear, and anxiety. The father stumbles into a discovery about his sweet child that ironically clarifies his next decision but muddies the waters for his spouse.  Here Raju quietly explodes with a gut check for the audience, asking the question: What would you do?

Interestingly, the film begins with its conclusion, and this deliberate sequence adds greater power to its fuel injected ethos.  In twenty-four minutes, the film dispenses an intense dilemma that sank its teeth into me. 

Ciaran Hinds (Jim) and Kerry Condon (Patricia) in "The Shore"

Ireland is once again a backdrop in The Shore in which an Emerald Isle son, Joe, returns with his daughter, Patricia, to his coastal birthplace and is embraced after a 25 year absence.  A more meaningful reunion lies beneath Jim’s trip across the Atlantic as he seeks his childhood friend, Paddy, and sweetheart, Mary to right a wrong.  The trilogy find themselves in a sequence of two person conversations, sorting out their shared past, as they unlock the contents of their hearts. 

Michael Nathanson (Stillman) in "Time Freak"

Humor appears again in Time Freak in which a Groundhog Day-like plot finds two friends experiencing the power and pitfalls of minute time travel. Evan finds his friend Stillman with his fully operational time machine in a Brooklyn warehouse. Lined with charts, diagrams, and timetables, the spot becomes Stillman’s frequent home base.  His plans of traveling to Ancient Rome become surpassed by life’s simpler conundrums, like retrieving a shirt that is never ready for pick up at the corner dry cleaners and botching a chance meeting with a woman he’d like to date.  The waters become even murkier when the woman tells the time weary traveler to stand up to the dry cleaner.

Stillman sinks into quicksand as he relentlessly tries to repair the situations.  It is like watching someone repeatedly tumble down the same set of stairs – no matter how often he reaches for something to break his fall, he lands badly bruised at the bottom. Every. Single. Time.

It is a purposeful mirror held up for the audience - how many times do we mentally revisit a moment in time with a different dialogue and outcome? Stillman shows us how fruitless these mental ‘do-overs’ are when acted out. Every. Single. Time.

Edvard Haegstad as Oskar in "Tuba Atlantic"

I was prepared to dislike Tuba Atlantic for superficial reasons – freezing coastal Norway, seagulls being gunned down, a cantankerous man named Oskar who is told he has six days to live, sparse settings. That is until Inger, the self-described Angel of Death hospice worker, arrives and melts it all away.  She is an angel in a mechanical, awkward, teenage sort of way that simply endears her to the audience and, eventually, to Oskar. 

The unlikely pair stumble along as their disjointed natures struggle to connect, in spite of themselves.  The cacophonous climax announces what is possible when kindness is offered and accepted. 

The five films share a theme of acceptance.

In Raju and Tuba Atlantic, both wrestle painfully and begrudgingly to reach it; The Shore resurrects it after being buried 25 years earlier; Pentecost and Time Freak tickle audience funny bones to release it.

While my vote for Oscar goes to Raju, I believe Tuba Atlantic will pick up the award because of its quirkiness.  In the spirit of acceptance, I will embrace any outcome! 

Short, and Definitely Sweet

And the Oscar goes to...

That familiar pregnant pause on Oscar night gives viewers one more chance to silently choose the winner before they are revealed.  Up until that moment, who will win Best Actor and Actress, Best Director and Best Picture, are topics on moviegoers’ tongues for weeks before the Academy Awards ceremony.

But when is the last time you heard someone argue the finer points of what animated short film will capture the golden statue?  Thanks to some clever marketing, the likelihood of just such a conversation is greater than ever as Oscar’s lesser known contenders have become more accessible to film goers.

Bryn Mawr Film Institute (along with other area art cinemas) is screening three categories of Oscar nominated films that otherwise would go unnoticed by the general public. Separate screenings of the nominated live action shorts, animated shorts, and documentary shorts are being shown to better acquaint movie fans with these time-condensed genres. ShortsHD opened up this annual screening practice in 2005 and audiences have jumped at the chance to learn more about entries in these genres.

As a film enthusiast, seeing them makes me feel like an Oscar night insider.
The animated short films emotionally transported me back to my Saturday-morning-cartoon-filled youth. I watched transfixed at the colorful, whimsical parade of images floating across the screen. The cartoon analogy ended there, however, because these films swim in sophisticated waters. Themes of isolation, hope, the environment, parental expectations, and more are interpreted in  a broad color spectrum using minimal dialogue.

The notable differences between each animated short film emphasize the endless creative options filmmakers have available today to realize their vision.

Dimanche/Sunday

Two Canadian entries, Dimanche/Sunday and Wild Life, use the vast Canadian landscape as backdrop to their stories. A young boy and his routine weekly visit with relatives is juxtaposed with a speeding train that literally shakes everything around it as it frequently passes by the sparse homes in Dimanche.  No dialogue is used as the boy’s understated isolation and childhood ennui are bracketed by oversized adults and the overpowering locomotive. Life is moving too fast and loud on the outside while the child’s world reflects a slow, quiet interior. The “T” shaped feet drawn on every character made me chuckle and created a cartoonish style to the black and white short.

Wild Life

Wild Life’s sweeping vistas of softly colored quilt-like images make up the countryside where a young adventurous man of means sets off to be a gentleman farmer. With an overly romanticized view of his new surroundings, the young dandy is a curiosity to his few rural neighbors as well as a disappointment to his entitled father. He realizes the gravity of his choice as winter approaches and he literally succumbs to its overwhelming power. It reminded me of the 2007 feature film Into the Wild and how an untamed world can crush the most curious of souls.

A Morning Stroll

A lone, unsuspecting chicken saunters along the same urban street in 1959, 2009, and 2059 in A Morning Stroll. While the chicken follows the same path, hops up several steps, pecks on the same front door to gain entrance, nothing is the same around him. The nonplussed capon travels through three vastly different scenarios before he reaches his destination, making this stark short film the most rambunctious of all the contenders. The bird’s journey is short, but each time period presents its own brand of danger and dark forces, giving a pointed view of humanity’s decline over time. The bird reminded me of a much slower, plumper version of the beloved Looney Tunes character, the Road Runner, as things and people explode around him while he casually continues on his way.

La Luna

La Luna, Disney’s Pixar Studios offering, presents a child’s wide-eyed wonder as he helps his father and grandfather harness the moon to do some lunar clean up. The threesome climb a ladder into space to sweep up the sparkling glass stars covering the moon. Both men rediscover the magic of their duties as they watch the youngster embrace the enchanted lunar surface. Moonlight and starlight illuminate the human warmth in this sweet, multi-generational tale.

The Fantastic Flying Books
of Mr. Morris Lessmore

My favorite of the bunch, however, was The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.  We meet the bookish Mr. Morris as a hurricane-like wind blows him and his book stacks off an iron-railed porch in New Orleans (a Katrina reference perhaps?) and sends him into a world of life-like books. He hesitantly enters a wondrous home library where books dance and play with exuberance and he learns to embrace their whimsy. Books as birds strike the perfect chord as they excitedly flutter when Mr. Morris gives them attention. The film demonstrated for me how we, as readers, are transported by books, if we just allow ourselves to become lifted into their worlds.

Three additional films titled Amazonia, Skylight, and Nullarbor rounded out the animated short offerings (though they are not nominated for an award) and added a rich dimension to the whole experience.  You can bet I won’t be getting popcorn out of the microwave this Sunday when the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film is about to be presented.

This year I’ll whisper my personal choice, like any other Oscar insider.

Breaking Codes, Secrets, Trust

US Navy code breakers sit in a stark, unremarkable room. They mechanically reveal messages from Japanese correspondence using time-tested code-cracking methods. Their precision is abruptly broken when a new code stymies one seasoned operator.

What to do?

This is the opening from which the movie The Red Machine reveals a super-secret spy mission undertaken in Washington, D.C. in 1935.  BMFI screened the deliciously intense film on Saturday, February 11 , along with a comical companion short “newsreel”, Gandhi at the Bat. Filmmakers Stephanie Argy and Alec Boehm, appearing with actor Roger Ainslie (Cmdr. Petrie), were all in attendance to answer audience questions.

L to R: Roger Ainslie, Stephanie Argy and Alec Boehm of
The Red Machine and Gandhi at the Bat

Stephanie and Alec brought their enthusiasm for the spy/detective movie genre (along with a costume and some props from the film and fun movie swag) and discussed how they concocted the espionage film. Their deep interest in detective-style storytelling began with a book. “We were in New Orleans book shop and came upon The American Magic Codes: Ciphers and the Defeat of Japan,” Stephanie recalled. The US military’s use of a local con man/safecracker to steal a book containing Japanese communication codes sparked for them. That idea ignited when they were making the Gandhi short film.

“The actors from Gandhi inspired us and gave face to the story we were trying to shape,” Stephanie said.   Based on a short story of the same name by Chet Williamson in a 1983 New Yorker magazine, Gandhi is a supposedly secret newsreel about the peacemaker’s 1933 visit to the US in which he attends a Yankees vs. A’s baseball game.  The hilarious writing was brought to life in part through the authentic-looking visual effects that Stephanie and Alec created.

Petite and wearing a t-shirt with the word ‘SPY’ on it,  Stephanie explained that she and her partner look at spy themes for the fun challenges they present for the audience and themselves. “We’re drawn to pulp, spy, and thief story lines for the intrigue everyone experiences.” Intrigue fills each scene of The Red Machine, as the plot crescendos. A naval officer and safecracker are paired to secure a Japanese code book locked away in a US embassy. Their unlikely match seems questionable, until they discover others’ secret agendas.

Rear view of spy sneakers specially
made for The Red Machine.

Top view of Stephanie Argy's
spy sneakers

The Red Machine’s title is based on the names US Navy code breakers would give to the machines they worked to easily identify country and code origins.  “We tried to get a photograph of the real Red Machine,” Stephanie added. The request for a photo from the NSA reaped no bounty, so they looked at lots of photos of cipher machines and collaborated with their prop master to build what they thought it might look like. However, two years later they found one such photo on the NSA website. “We asked the wrong question,” she laughingly added. ”The machine was always there, but we literally asked for a photo of it. The right question would have been, “Can you take a photo of it and send it to us?’” 

A red machine: Inner workings exposed.

Literal translations aside, the device created for the film was seen by Stephanie and Alec as the vehicle to set the characters in motion. “The idea of this machine was as a sort of precursor to what eventually would become the computer,” Stephanie noted.

The couple’s teamwork continued in post-production with Stephanie working as the primary editor, and Alec as sound editor. To maintain objectivity, they followed advice from a colleague who understood the pitfalls of working on a project with a partner. “A friend suggested that we remember to keep a pair of fresh eyes on each step,” Stephanie recalled. Stephanie would edit the film and Alec was the ‘fresh eyes’ to her choices. Likewise, after Alec did sound editing, Stephanie offered her opinions.

Dress worn by Naomi Shimada
(Madoka Kasahara) in
The Red Machine

As for their unintended code used to describe how they felt about the difficulty of their projects on a given day, they used The New York Times crossword day of the week as their opinion shorthand. Stephanie explained, “You know, Monday puzzles are usually the easiest ones, and by Friday, they’ve grown substantially more difficult. So we would say something like ‘this looks like a Tuesday,’ to communicate how close to the mark something was.” I thought their use of daily puzzle appearance was the perfect tool for filmmakers who are so taken with clever mystery and breaking codes.

Asked about the challenges they faced in making the self-financed film, Alec (a possible doppelganger for actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman) used the analogy of a mine car. “Keeping the mine car on the rails in the mine shaft as much as possible was, by far, the biggest challenge for me,” he said adding “there are so many factors that can push you off course.”

Top secret file of safecracker Eddie
Doyle (Donal Thomas Cappello)
from The Red Machine.

Stephanie’s reply was introspective: “Saying our goodbyes.” She added, “Once the script was done, it was sad but we knew we had to cast the film so that made me happy.” The cycle of one piece ending and one beginning juggled the sadness and joy throughout until the film’s eventual completion. The couple’s mix of practical and intangible reflections reminded me, an avid movie goer, that the human factor behind the movie magic is always present on and off the screen.

Stephanie’s closing remarks regarding the choice of the film’s time period offered a deeper glimpse into the couple’s purposeful approach to films.  “Looking back on those times, we know they were very rough,” she shared, noting the Depression years and early events in pre-WWII Europe. “It’s our way of saying we got through those times and can get through these as well.”

Link to Bryn Mawr Film Institute: http://www.brynmawrfilm.org/ 
Link to The Red Machine web site: http://www.redmachinethemovie.com/
Link to Roger Ebert review (3.5 stars) of The Red Machine: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100818/REVIEWS/100819989/1023

Dangerous: The Method or the Men?

Overstepping the slender line that separates the doctor/patient relationship is one of the most dangerous decisions a health professional can make—at least that was the consensus reached by moviegoers discussing the film A Dangerous Method following a recent afternoon screening during its opening weekend at Bryn Mawr Film Institute.

An alternative event to the Super Bowl XLVI, some 20 or so filmgoers joined Dr. John Frank of the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia to talk about their impressions regarding the film's characters as part of BMFI’s "Inside the Characters" forum. The guided discussion, offered monthly at BMFI, opens an opportunity to answer the timely post-movie question, "What did you think?" or, more specifically, "What did you think of the characters?"

Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Viggo
Mortenson) discuss their views on the 'talking method' of
psychoanalysis at the turn of the 20th century.

The discussion initially focused on the expanded view of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung as two of the film's trio of main characters during a period where they collided on their professional journeys. The film looks at how these forces of psychoanalysis navigated their work and relationship with each other, as well as how they formulated and employed the 'talking method' of treatment. The discussion was equally rich and uncomfortable as moviegoers wrestled with the way these men’s personalities and practices collide in their search to understand the human psyche. 

Today, using talking as a way of emotionally healing is the predominant path taken in psychoanalysis. At the turn of the 20th century, this method was in its infancy. Its use (and abuse) provided the basis of one of the film's troubling themes. 

Jung (Michael Fassbender) successfully treats a young female patient whose consuming hysteria blasts the movie's first scene wide open. The patient, Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightly) responds exceedingly well to the talking method of treatment, but reminds us that a complete cure can be elusive. Her uncontrolled bouts of fear are dramatically reduced.  This opens the door for her intuitive intelligence to emerge as she attends university to study psychology.  However, lingering sexual arousal from being beaten continues to burn within her, a sad reminder of her father’s beatings when she was a child.



Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightly) and Carl Jung (Michael
Fassbender) in A Dangerous Method.

Audience members seemed to appreciate the defined success of the married Jung's care for his patient until his suppressed sexual needs supersede Spielrein's treatment.

Spielrein's portrayal as the one who initiates the physical relationship with Jung did not sway the discussion participants from the overriding concern about the damage done when a patient/doctor relationship breaks the bond of appropriateness. Said one participant, "This goes to the basis of aberrant behavior and abuses any trust between the two." The group seemed unanimous in demanding that, as the professional, the doctor’s role in protecting that trust was paramount.

In the post-movie chat, other participants whose professional life is/was in social work or mental health also took pointed exception to Jung's breach of conduct. One woman explained, "We'd be in a terrible state if everyone did whatever they wanted." Added another, "Jung goes directly against keeping the necessary boundaries of the doctor/patient relationship." The film's presentation of this taboo behavior tainted Jung's professional achievements for many in the discussion.

In the film, psychologist Otto Gross (Vincent Cassel) represents uninhibited expression and freedom to the extreme. Gross described a patient's desire for the same freedom to both have an affair with her doctor and to commit suicide as a consistent expression that should not be "cured." "Freedom is freedom," he quips much to the audience and Jung's disdain. The audience was as critical of his character as they were of Jung’s malfeasance. One participant noted, "He was a horror."

It is not always smooth sailing for Freud and Jung
in A Dangerous Method

The character of Sabina Spielrein was interesting because of how she seeks answers while remaining acutely aware of her scarred past. "I give Sabina credit," one male participant stated, noting that she benefits from Jung's initial treatment and unhappily moves beyond their sexual relationship to "ultimately succeed in getting better and living a very productive life." The contrast from this woman's uncontrollable breakdown at the outset to her resounding intellectual achievements received appreciation from some—but not all—in the group.

Another woman noted, "Sabina was never really cured, even though she achieved a great deal in her field." This led to a discussion regarding how much does one need to be healed to live a productive life. As discussion leader, Dr. Frank added, "Sabina was seen as someone history cast aside early on, but her work in the new area of child psychology was eventually recognized as groundbreaking."

Freud's (Viggo Mortensen) influence as father figure to Jung and to the psychoanalytic movement in Europe received notable emphasis in the film and also with the discussion participants. Said one woman, "The film supported the view that Freud and Jung were smart men but when it came to their personal relationship, Jung struggled with having Freud as a substitute father." 

Spielrein's deeply rooted humiliation at the hands of her biological father also influenced how she saw both Jung and Freud. "Each character was traumatized in some way by the other," added one gentleman. "The father-figure role impacted all their lives."

Delving inside the film's characters with other moviegoers added a dimension to the movie experience that mirrored its intent—by talking through our impressions of the film's players, we not only had our say but had to consider how others saw them. The power of talk, whether as a psychoanalytic tool or vehicle for discussion, gives us all a chance to be heard.

Upon exiting A Dangerous Method, I reflected that the film’s title was somewhat misleading since 'the method' was not necessarily dangerous. The danger lay with how Jung, Freud, and Gross chose to use it, reminding me that sometimes, the disease seeps into the cure. 

Link to Bryn Mawr Film Institute where I will occasionally appear as a guest blogger: http://www.brynmawrfilm.blogspot.com/2012/02/dangerous-method-or-men.html

A Favorite Thing

My $5.00 gift to myself this Christmas has brought me more joy, laughter, and vocal challenge than I could imagine.  And I was thrilled to be sharing it with 349 other joy-seekers for a third year.

I sang with the beloved Julie Andrews.
And the dashing Christopher Plummer.
And the incomparable Peggy Wood.
Even sweet Angela Cartwright (the actress I wanted to become aside from Marlo Thomas!)

I attended Bryn Mawr Film Institute's annual screening of "The Sound of Music." What makes it one of my favorite things is that it is a sing-a-long.  It's a sort of G-Rated Rocky Horror Picture Show with audience members in costume, and lots of interacting with the action on the screen, family style.

Nuns, kittens (with whiskers), several "Do-Re-Me" choruses, two brides in full wedding garb, brown paper packages tied up with string and girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes filled the theater to participate in the holiday ritual. There was even a group who came as the hills - very much alive! My friend Susan, daughter Ali, her friend Tori and I donned our restrained, literal costumes - a single sparkly snowflake on each of our noses (could not figure out how to get them on our eyelashes). One friend noted it was a sort of Halloween inspired Christmas.

Just watching costumed people file into the theater was fun enough. But the best was yet to be when the lyrics appeared on the screen to the title song (and the others to follow.) The exuberant "Do-Re-Me" captivated us while the innocence of "Sixteen Going On Seventeen" belied what was to come.

Hearing a theater-full of patrons wholeheartedly join Mother Abbess (the amazing Peggy Wood) in climbing every mountain and fording every stream gave me chills.  I teared up wondering about the collective burdens we all carry and the dreams we try to follow. In those brief three hours, we set them aside and let movie magic take over.  

Two women and their daughters sat beside us and were our favorite reincarnations.  One was a dead ringer for Max Detweiler (with a superbly drawn on pencil mustache)  and the other, a fur toting Baroness sporting a tiara.  Their daughters dressed in old curtain fabric with kerchiefs to match. Perfection!

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We cheered for the 'problem' Maria, booed and hissed at the unrelenting Nazis and the universally misunderstood Baroness, and waved goodbye with the real party goers in the palatial VonTrapp foyer. None of the unwritten rules of movie etiquette were observed - we were unleashed to connect with our inner VonTrapp. We unabashedly displayed our silly selves and made Neil Young proud by letting our freak flags fly.

The sing-a-long opened up some thoughts on my favorite things - they are always changing, but right now they include:

The moment I feel fear unlock its grip.
The understanding from a friend.
The understanding from a stranger.
Music that pricks at our unlimited emotions.
Our Christmas Eve 'Seven Fish' tradition.
Feeling loved.
Giving love.

And, of course, being a Von Trapp for one silly little evening.

It All Ends Here

I was uncharacteristically patient. I did some deep breathing, checked on my sleeping four-and-a-half-year-old daughter curled up in the seat to my left, flipped thoughtlessly through a magazine, and bided my time until the young male reader to my right closed his book, a copy of the third installment of the Harry Potter series - "Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban."  Then, I pounced! (metaphorically of course.)

This grade school boy paused long enough from reading for me to ask what he thought about the book so far. As our plane pierced the evening skies at 30,000 feet we discussed the turbulent, creepy, mystifying world of the neophyte wizard for two hours.  During that flight home from Florida, we paused only long enough to let the other speak as we swapped opinions, favorite characters, themes, and questions about the future of Harry's world in and out of Hogwarts.  My fellow passenger (we never did exchange names) and I relayed our mutual enthusiasm for J.K. Rowling's works with what has become expected fervor.

This conversation took place twelve years ago and I savor its memory as we enter this Friday's momentous opening of the closing Potter movie, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2." How can it be?  All the books have been read and, in no time at all, the movies will have been viewed.  As the movie poster eerily claims - it all ends here. Sigh.

As my seatmate and I spoke in animated bursts about events in books one through three, I noticed a woman seated in the middle spot across the aisle. She leaned forward and stared, frequently. She stayed in my sight line. I grew concerned that we, ensconced in Potter World, may have been talking too loudly, however, the woman never shushed us.  I learned upon exiting the plane that she was this young man's mother. It turns out she was afraid that he was monopolizing my time.  Ha!

This is Jo Rowling's gift.  She wrote something so timeless, ageless, and universally appealing that a fifth-grade boy and a forty-something mother, muggle strangers on a plane, could maintain an animated, breathless, continuous conversation about three books for 120 minutes.  I mused over the unlikely pair we made.  I mentally thanked the author.

Months later I got to say 'Thanks' in person.  Jo Rowling toured the country visiting small bookstores that supported her first book when it was a fledgling entry into the increasingly competitive publishing world. This was her way of thanking them. Amazingly, one such store was in The Olde Ridge Shopping Village in nearby Chadds Ford, PA.  This was a moment.  While gracious with each one of the devoted fans who passed before her in a breezily paced greeting, the author consistently stopped the line to engage the children who stood before her.  She sincerely connected with her core readers. This is one of her finest skills. I delight in this memory because the author stayed true, even as her celebrity jettisoned.

We all have our Potter memories.  My youngest daughter's ninth birthday fell on the opening day of the "Prisoner of Azkaban" movie.  Aside from her and her friends feeling uber cool by being dismissed from school early to attend an afternoon screening, the picture that is frozen in my memory is seeing these third graders each wearing the young wizard's signature round, black eyeglass frames as they entered the theater. 

Years later, my oldest daughter and her friend straddled their mutual Potter passion with musical mania in one night. They drew lightning bolts on their foreheads and donned the signature black glasses upon leaving a John Mayer concert in Camden NJ.  On that simmering July evening, bookstores stayed open past midnight to release the seventh book "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."  I witnessed these sixteen-year-olds ardently embrace both events with equal fervor.  It was never a question of whether or not there was enough room for a musical heartthrob and a literary hero.  Both held proper sway.

A brief article in the NY Times noting the impact of this final installment of the Potter movies on the craftspeople who worked on the films struck me.  Making these vivid novels come alive in visual truth has been a stunning feat by these "backstage wizards."  Who could have seen this coming in June 1997 when "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" crept into bookstores?  No one.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/magazine/harry-potters-sorcerers-of-stagecraft.html?ref=movies

Last summer my family toured Warner Brothers Studio in Los Angeles.  It included a visit to the studio museum, the second floor of which houses movie props, costumes, and memorabilia used in the Harry Potter films.  We marveled at it all, especially the sorting hat, which unflinchingly announced which Hogwarts house we were assigned.  We giddily let the magical riptide pull us deeper into this enchanted world, the seed of which was painstakingly planted by one woman. 

We muggles are sad but grateful for the wild, wizardly ride.