Thanks to Bob Berner for passing this on:

AWAY FROM HER and THE SAVAGES

AWAY FROM HER is an almost perfect little film.

Julie Christie is a revelation. As beautiful as ever, or more so, with age (and likely some face work) and Olivia Dukakis does some fine work as well.

But the ending left me in limbo. Maybe my imagination is weak. Maybe I missed something. Maybe everyone else can figure out what the next scene might be after the film ended, but I couldn’t and I wanted to see it.

I could guess the ultimate ending. That’s clear from the information in the film’s dialogue, as well as the reality of Alzheimer’s. Yet in terms of the dynamics of the relationships in the flick, I couldn’t decide how the next few scenes might actually work, what might happen, or rather, what the author (either Alice Munro in the story the film’s based on, or Sarah Polley’s adaptation) and the director and producers who made the film intended the audience to think was going to happen next.

I wanted to know and felt disappointed that I seemed to get no help from the movie-makers. Maybe I’m just reverting in my old age to wanting endings to stories, endings that are endings. I’m not asking for old-fashioned happy Hollywood endings. Though sometimes they can be quite appropriate to a story and very satisfying to an audience.

Two recent films that I loved were INTO THE WILD and THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY, and both of them have very un-Hollywood endings. And both were based on true stories, so the outcome was inevitable and the ending couldn’t have been more real, because it was real.

AWAY FROM HER is fiction, so why couldn’t it too have as satisfying an ending as these real life stories? Is it supposed to be more sophisticated to leave things hanging, with various possibilities in the air, so that an audience walks away, or at least I walk away, bewildered?

On the other hand, maybe it’s great artistry, because the problems the movie presents are bewildering and ultimately unsolvable. And I have to admit, the movie stayed with me and had me considering the meaning of the ambiguous ending (again, only ambiguous as to the exact next scene—i.e. does her husband bring “Aubrey” in? Does she return to being more physically active and therefore get moved back downstairs? etc.)

I’d love some other perspectives, if you’ve seen it.

THE SAVAGES also deals with the deterioration caused or coupled with old age and dementia. And it too is full of terrific performances, especially Philip Seymour Hoffman’s.

Laura Linney does her usual great job, but some of her quirks and obvious neurotic behavior seemed at times, for me, more indicated than lived. She does this wide-eyed, non-blinking thing that I know for myself when I have played characters far from my personality, devices like that, physical tics, can really help create and sustain a character’s essence, but they can also create a kind of parody of character.

Linney’s too good to do the latter, but it seems to me she’s verging on doing that in this role. And Philip Bosco is getting buzz as a supporting actor nominee, for work that is certainly powerful, but again, I didn’t always buy it, I could see the actor acting, unfortunately.

A lot of people I know loved this movie, so it’s probably worth checking out. But for me it was ultimately another disappointment. There were moments of brilliance, and watching these great actors interact was often exciting and satisfying. But there were also moments when, like I said, I just wasn’t buying it.

So, for me, nice try but no cigar. I’d rather have gone back and re-watched Peter O’Toole from last year’s version of old man dying—VENUS.

MARK TERRILL

One of my favorite contemporary poets, who wrote one of my favorite books, a small collection of prose poems called BREAD & FISH, has another little collection of prose poems just published, called SOMETHING RED (Stay At Home Press).

Like BREAD & FISH, it is a revelation, There’s an “I do this I do that” Frank O’Hara thing going on, though it’s more “I see this I think that” and the Bukowski grasp of the poetry in the anecdotal, told straight and crisply precise.

But there’s so much more. I could cite tons of other terrific poets whose work Terrill’s compares favorably to, but in the end, his work is unique. I’ve never read anyone quite like him, or known anyone with his extensive resume of wordly-working-man-poet-philosopher experience.

I love the poems in SOMETHING RED, as well as the observations and epiphanies they generate, as I did those in BREAD & FISH. If you can find a copy on the internet of either, or better yet both of these books, I believe you’ll consider yourself lucky you did.

IOWA PS

I got a great response to my Iowa post in an e mail today. My response to which seemed a good post script to it. So here's most of what I wrote back:

I am also leaning toward Obama. The problem will be, if he has the political skills to avoid what happened to Carter, who thought by telling the truth to his fellow citizens and firing some CIA and other intelligence organization bad apples, his problems were solved.

But "Americans" (in quote because I don't like the way those of us in the USA monopolize a term that could equally apply to Canadians, Mexicans, and various Central and South Americans) didn't like the truth. And all the fired rogue intelligence agents did was join with some cohorts still in the intelligence agencies to make trouble for Carter, including the Iran hostages, who, as we all know, were not released until Reagan took office so he could get credit, and it was the rightwing CIA agents who had been fired by Carter who made all that possible and went on to wage the secret war in Nicaraqua etc.

Bill Clinton was not only intellectually brilliant, he also was an incredible politician. he made some missteps, especially with the military, but the rightwingers could never get around him or undermine him the way they could Carter. Which is why they were so happy when the Monica thing happened to finally have a pretense to get rid of him (the Whitewater debacle turning out to have no legal standing at all, otherwise the Clintons would still be behind bars, especially after the rightwingers really got control of all branches of govermentl under Bush junior).

Hilary is definitely smart enough and has the political skills, combined with her husband's and their network, to keep the rightwing from undermining her presidency the way they did Carter's and tried to do to Bill's but failed, even after Monica came along. If Hilary were elected president, they would definitely try to undermine her, and pounce on every misstep of hers. But as we know, she makes very few, which is what makes her so much less inspiring than Obama, because she seems to be playing it safe, which comes off as sometimes stilted or pandering or old school.

Obama may truly have the best shot at changing things, because of the inspiration he generates as an African-American who does not use the race card to guilt out white Americans, but rather symbolizes finally growing beyond playing race cards at all, and because he is very smart and has the experience of a grass roots neighborhood oragnizer who knows how to create networks of regular folks, and how to speak for and to them without condescension or smugness.

His problem will be, as I said in an earlier post, getting too caught up in the details as well as the philosophy of reform. It was trying to micromanage the details that got Carter in trouble, and it was longwinded wonky explanations of reform positions that torpedoed Gore's winning by a larger and indisputable margin, and sometimes got in Bill and Hilary Clinton's way in terms of winning converts to certain reforms, like their plan for universal healthcare, etc.

So as it now stands, like I said, any Democrat would be better than any Republican, I believe, and I could easily vote for any of them still in the race (though Richardson, despite his experience and positions I mostly agree with, has seemed way too lackluster to accomplish much on the international stage of most powerful position in the world).

Among the Republicans, McCain remains the least offensive from my perspective, despite disagreement on some important policies. I have no doubt that his own war experience would keep him from saber rattling or from unprovoked attacks on other nations, for instance (despite his support of "the surge").

And after him, Huckabee, though he scares the bejesus out of most of my friends because of his fundamentalist Christian beliefs. But his populist and compassionate statements on several economic issues, including immigration (which is a social and cultural issue as well, but has been de facto handled the way it has been for economic reasons obviously) make him more palatable than the rest of the republican field after McCain.

And even Romney wouldn't be the worst Republican to win, though I doubt he has a chance anymore. But Thompson and Giulliani would be as dangerous and possibly as damaging as what we're trying to get away from in the present administration.

It'll soon be a lot clearer.

IOWA

I spent three years in Iowa, from the Fall of 1966 to the summer of 1969. I lived in Iowa City with my first wife, Lee, while I attended the University of Iowa on the G. I. Bill, where I received a BA in English Literature (minor in Asian Studies) and an MFA in Poetry.

I also ran for office on The Peace and Freedom ticket, for sheriff of Johnson County, in 1968, and did pretty well, despite my shoulder-length hair and radical positions. Hearing Johnson County mentioned by Jeffrey Toobin last night on I think CNN, brought back a lot of memories, which I’ll save for the memoir I’m working on.

But for now, I just wanted to share that Iowa is not, as the Republican commentator on PBS said last night, devoid of “bohemians” or “radicals.” Iowa, actually, has a history of radicalism, and “bohemianism.”

When I was there, Iowa City was known as “the Athens of the Midwest” —a label probably other college towns claim as well. But Iowa City deserved it in many ways. The University faculty was full of some of the most accomplished and celebrated artists and writers and playwrights and poets and scientists etc., and for a reason.

During the McCarthy scourge of the mid-century, most universities, even some of the most liberal on both coasts, began requiring “loyalty oaths” from faculty members, as proof, supposedly, that they weren’t “communists.” As you can imagine, some scholars and artists and such, refused to take the oath.

Many of them discovered that the University of Iowa refused to require it, so they transferred there. It was during this period that the Writers Workshop began to gain the fame that led other universities to copy the original graduate school writers workshop, but few could attract the name writers Iowa did, because of that independent streak that led to their refusing to require “loyalty oaths.”

There was an organization of radical farmers—socialists and anti-agribusiness folks— that had its headquarters in Iowa, as well as other radical groups and individuals, descendants of 19th-Century populist and progressive movements, and Depression era radicals and revolutionaries.

“The Wobblies”—the International Workers of the World organization that was more anarchist than socialist, in many ways, had strong chapters in Iowa. By 1966 when I arrived, some of the older folks from these older organizations were ready to make common cause with young people fighting for civil rights for “Negroes” and against nuclear weapons.

As the Vietnam War heated up, these groups melded into what became known nationally as “the movement”—meaning the movement for civil rights, nuclear disarmament and an end to the war in Vietnam, which many Americans were still almost unaware of. But that changed rapidly.

At any rate, I just want to make the point that Iowans were never, and I suspect still aren’t, the local yokels the media make them out to be. Yes there’re a lot of pigs in Iowa, and unfortunately agribusiness has a toehold there, especially the government subsidized corn industry that fuels the energy-inefficient ethanol industry, etc.

But there’s a strong streak of independence and radical and progressive thinking there as well, which is why, I believe, Obama could get as many people to come out for him, especially those who identify themselves as “independents,” and why John Edwards’ populist anti-corporate message could garner a big slice of the caucus-goers as well.

And although Hillary is now being written off to some extent, or dismissed, or criticized for blowing Iowa, let’s not forget that no one candidate won a majority, and that as a female candidate for president, no matter how strong the Clinton political machine might be, she still made a kind of history herself last night by getting almost a third of the pie that Edwards, the traditional white Southern male Democratic candidate, no matter how populist his message, and Obama, another male, though impressively non-white (and hopefully putting an end to these stupid racial terms, and proving at least in this case that “black” men are now ahead of women of any race at least in the political arena), also only got more-or-less a third of.

Frankly, I’ve seen and experienced enough to appreciate that any of the Democratic candidates would be better than any of the Republican candidates. Someone at a New Year’s Day party asked what the difference was, implying that had Gore been sworn in as president, as he was elected to be, instead of Bush Jr. it wouldn’t have made a difference.

But as I, and others at the party, pointed out: there’s plenty of evidence that a Gore administration would have been more alert to the 9/11 attack planning and perhaps have thwarted it. But even if those attacks had gone through and been as devastating (military planes might have been scrambled sooner, cutting the losses, etc.) the response would have been different.

We still well may have gone to war in Afghanistan to catch Bin-laden, and there’s a good chance we would have gotten him, under a Gore administration, and turned that country into an example of "freedom and democracy" for the Middle East. But we certainly would not have invaded Iraq, not even other Republican administrations would have been likely to have done that, unless they had exactly the same configuration of neo-conservatives behind the scenes.

And therefore we would not have squandered the good will so much of the world had toward us on 9/11, nor would our government be more deeply in debt than ever before in our history, nor would we be so indebted to China financially, etc. etc. etc.

So even if Gore wasn’t your choice, or you voted for Nader because it seemed like a more ideal and pure expression of what a progressive might believe, any vote that took away from Gore having a more decisive win that couldn’t have been ultimately decided by a Republican-leaning Supreme Court, was a vote for Bush junior and the terrible plague his administration has been on our nationa.

Same goes in ’08. I believe Hilary is the smartest candidate out there, period. And possibly the most competent, in terms of politics and actually getting things done. She has proven that in the Senate. But she has also proven, in her Iraq war vote and in her Iranian Revolutionary Guard “terrorist” vote, etc., to be either more militaristic than I truly believe she is, or to be more hypocritical than I would like to believe she is.

But Obama and Edwards are smart too (as are Biden, though not tactful, and Dodd and Kucinich etc.). And any one of them will do a lot to reverse the downward slide, or rather, avalanche, into ruin that Bush junior’s administration has created for our country.

As for the Republicans, Huckabee has a lot of good populist positions, and some unbelievably backward conservative ones. But it’s his likeability that comes across most in his public appearances, and, unfortunately, as we saw with junior, a lot of the electorate responds to that personality thing more than to a candidates positions and accomplishments.

McCain too is a mixed bag of beliefs, some progressive, some conservative, but his willingness to cave in to people he once saw clearly for what they were (like the folks at Bob Jones University who up until, and well into, Bush junior’s campaign still had the late Pope on their website as the “anti-Christ” and representative of Satan etc. and which did not allow non-whites into its fold until recently and still proselytize against “mix-race” dating and marriage etc.) and flip positions to garner the support of the most rightwing fundamentalist wing of his party makes him highly suspect in my eyes.

Romney is way too phony and a fundamentalist in a religion that has beliefs that are even more farfetched than those of fundamentalist traditional Christians and Muslims. And Guilliani has the same bullshit macho phony pose that junior used to impress people who couldn’t see him for the spoiled Yalie cheerleader bully he so obviously is.

Guilliani proved, as mayor of New York, that what mattered most to him was personal loyalty, to him, not to an ideal or the people or the constitution, etc. Just like junior. And he’s a total liar, trying to avoid blame for putting the city’s anti-terrorist headquarters in the World Trade Center, even though it had been attacked before, successfully, and there were tons of warnings that it was a primary target for terrorist attacks in the future.

After 9/11 he said he was against putting it there, though memos and notes of meetings and eye witness testimony have since shown that he was advised against it and ignored that advise. The man’s a meglomaniac with obvious self-image and relationship issues.

And Ron Paul, though refreshingly honest about some things others are too scared to even talk about, has other beliefs that are just plain scary.

So, I’m glad the Democrats came out in such numbers last night in Iowa, double the Republican numbers, and that so many Independents decided to go for a Democrat. As for the top three winners so far:

I like Edwards anti-corporation stance. But though someone has to take on the corporations that rule our world, who can actually do that successfully? I doubt Edwards actually can. Obama might have a better chance, as a totally new face with an almost clean slate, he could use his capacity to inspire (though from his speeches that seems sporadic to date) and the office of the presidency to confront corporate power, and if the Democrats can take back the Senate (with a majority that can actually pass bills), where Hilary could be a very effective bi-partisan leader as she has already proven to be there, corporations might lose some of the government welfare and other privileges smaller businesses and individual citizens don’t have.

Hey, whatever happens, it’s the most interesting and unpredictable election of my lifetime, at this point, as well as the most historically precedent setting. An African-American is a viable candidate, not a protest candidate (as Jesse Jackson was in many ways, and certainly Eldridge Cleaver was, on that same 1968 Peace and Freedom ticket I was on), as is a woman and a Hispanic (though a far-behind fourth place, nonetheless, I believe Richardson is the first Hispanic presidential candidate to make it this far and to do this well), as well as a Mormon and an Italian.

'Bout time.

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY

One of the best films of 2007—maybe THE best.

Directed by Julian Schnabel, whose broken-crockery artwork didn’t appeal to me back in the ‘80s when he was a downtown neighbor becoming famous in the art world, but who’s willingness to take big risks always did.

This is a big risk: to film an adaptation of a book written by a relatively young man (40s) with “locked-in syndrome”—unable to move any part of his body except one eyelid, which a dedicated hospital worker took advantage of by devising a system of naming letters until he blinked and putting the letters together to make words and sentences and eventually the book that became an international sensation when it was published ten days before the man, the editor of French ELLE, died.

But Schnabel turns out to be the perfect person to make a film that is mostly from the perspective of a paralyzed “locked-in” man. Visually the film is stunning, as you might expect, but even more than that, it is possibly the most sensuous movie I’ve seen in years.

Like only a handful of movies I’ve seen this year, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY is just about perfect. The acting is superb, and what is it about European women, in this case French women, that makes them so appealing, no matter their age (yes most in the film are youngish and attractive, but not in that plastic Hollywood way, with real lines in their faces and sometimes unattractive postures or expressions, etc.)?

The writing and the cinematography are a perfect fit for the subject, and the directing is worthy of all the awards, though I doubt Hollywood will even recognize it, especially since Schnabel chose to film it in French with subtitles.

But if it’s showing anywhere near you, I highly recommend it. It’s truly a masterpiece.

FIVE-WORD LIST

In talking to friends about the movies of 2007, I realized that the ones I talked most about—LARS AND THE REAL GIRL, because it may be my favorite so far, and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, because it disappointed me the most and therefore pissed me off the most—had five-word titles. Which seemed unusual to me.

Until last night when in my usual falling asleep ritual, I came up with an alphabet list of creative works that I love that also happen to have five-word titles. The first popped into my head instantly, and I was off and, as always, I got a little carried away.

So here ‘tis, the first list of the new year:

ADVENTURES IN THE SKIN TRADE (Dylan Thomas’s novel, almost completed by the time of his death)
BRANCH WILL NOT BREAK, THE (James Wright’s breakthrough book of poems)
CONFESSIONS OF AN IRISH REBEL (Brendan Behan’s great memoir) and THE CORNERS OF THE MOUTH (early book of poems by Elaine Equi and still a favorite)
DOCUMENT FOR AN ANONYMOUS INDIAN (this odd book by Arn Hendersen is as far as I know unknown by just about everyone, a more or less book-length poem with photos, it is one of my all time favorite books and has been since I first discovered it in the 1960s) and DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL (St. John of the Cross, first major poem to have a big influence on me, in translation of course)
EVERY DAY I GET THE BLUES (I think that’s the name of that blues tune, which I dig the Jimmy Rushing with the Count Basie Band version best)
FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE, THE (an underrated late Robert Mitchum flick—early 1970s—in which Richard Jordan played a minor hood that all my friends said reminded them of me at the time)
GREAT BOOKS OF THE 1950S (an atypical, yet somehow emblematic “poem” by Tim Dlugos, and one of his own favorites)
HUMAN LANDSCAPES FROM MY COUNTRY (Turkey’s great poet, Nazim Hikmet’s novel in verse)
I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC (Walt Whitman’s revolutionary, at the time and in many ways still, poem) and I’M NOT A JUVENILE DELINQUENT (the Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers 45 that came out when I became a teen and identified with totally, not poet Jerome Sala’s first book which had the same title except he dropped the contraction making it six words and so ineligible for this list, phew!)
JOURNAL OF ALBION MOONLIGHT, THE (poet Kenneth Patchen’s mid-20th-Century American version of a surrealist novel that had a major impact on me as a young man)
K? (all I could think of was THE KING OF MARVIN GARDENS, a flick I didn’t dig that much)
LARS AND THE REAL GIRL and LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (the Eugene O’Neill play and Katherine Hepburn movie made from it)
MORNING OF THE POEM, THE (James Schuyler’s title poem from his Pulitzer-Prize winning collection, which, full disclosure, mentions me in it, but is not great only because of that—little humor there) and MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS WITHOUT END (Gary Snyder’s lyrical book-length poem that took most of his adult life to complete)
NOTEBOOKS OF JOSEPH JOUBERT, THE (Paul Auster’s translation of these 17th century aphorisms is one of those rare mostly unknown literary—and philosophical—treasures)
ODE ON A GRECIAN URN (Keats’ famous poem with the line “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” or something close to that—he was a big influence on me as a young man)
POEM READ AT JOAN MITCHELL’S (a great Frank O’Hara poem) and POEM TO PISS EVERYONE OFF (a great Maureen Owen poem, a poet way underrated these days, but one of the most original poets of my, or anyone else’s, generation)
QUIET NIGHTS AND QUIET DAYS (was that the title of that bossa nova song or am I getting mixed up?)
RETURN OF MARTIN GUERRE, THE (great Gerard Depardieu flick) and THE REMAINS OF THE DAY (the Anthony Hopkins/Emma Thompson tour de force)
STEP AWAY FROM THEM, A (Frank O’Hara’s great elegiac poem) and SONG OF THE SILENT SNOW (the collection of short stories by Hubert Selby Jr.)
THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD (Zora Neale Hurston’s amazingly lyrical novel) and THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE (William Saroyan’s still great play) and THINGS TO DO IN PROVIDENCE (Ted Berrigan’s great poem)
UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING, THE (Milan Kundera’s masterpiece novel)
VERY THOUGHT OF YOU, THE (Nat King Cole’s version, beautiful)
WHEN NEW YORK WAS IRISH (Terence Winch’s great Irish-American anthem)
X?
YOU WERE MEANT FOR ME (a very romantic song when I was young, for which Gene Kelly wrote the lyrics! and sang it in either SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN or AN AMERICAN IN PARIS I think))
ZIP-A-DEE-DOO-DAH (the great Johnny Mercer tune from SONG OF THE SOUTH, not exactly five words, but not exactly not either—they’re not exactly syllables so…?)