Sidney Lumet has been making movies for so long and so well, that his description of the movie-making process is very stripped down — almost aphoristiSidney Lumet has been making movies for so long and so well, that his description of the movie-making process is very stripped down — almost aphoristic. It’s something of a master class.
In his explanation of lenses, he starts:
“Lenses have different feelings about them. Different lenses will tell a story differently.” (p.78)
That’s what I mean by aphoristic.
There are also excellent stories here about how he gets his actors to act. Among them Ingrid Bergman (Murder on the Orient Express), Marlon Brando (The Fugitive Kind), Katherine Hepburn and Jason Robards (Long Day’s Journey Into Night), William Holden and Faye Dunaway (Network) and Paul Newman (The Verdict).
The chapter “Shooting the Movie” gave me the best look at day to day movie-making. Especially interesting was the author’s review of the call sheet for two separate days of shooting. Everything is listed here: what sets/locations will be used; what scenes shot — everything is numbered — which actors present; how many pages of script shot (in eighths of a page); time when Teamsters have to pick everyone up, etc.
Published in 1995, this is analog filmmaking. Today some operations, like editing, have been utterly streamlined. The viewing of rushes, too, have changed with the advent of digital technology. Takes are now seen immediately on set. But the logistics of scheduling, rehearsal, blocking, set lighting, location scouting, camera movements, etc. – less of that has changed....more
Rings at times with a rich, almost Bellovian humor. Though set between the wars, those conflagrations aren’t given a lot of emphasis. It’s more about Rings at times with a rich, almost Bellovian humor. Though set between the wars, those conflagrations aren’t given a lot of emphasis. It’s more about people in the Yiddish theater of Warsaw. It focuses on one young man, Aaron Greidinger, who is surprised by the arrival in Warsaw of two Americans, a Yiddish stage actress, and a millionaire. It’s highly amusing. Over dinner the newly arrived Americans set Aaron to writing a new play so that the woman actor may triumph in the Warsaw Yiddish theater.
He’s given a lot of money to write the play which does not yet exist. With the money he had becomes embroiled in sexual relations with at least three women. In this amorous way Shosha reminds me the author’s earlier novel, Enemies: A Love Story. There is a lot of libidinousness and various peccadillos are revealed. What’s more a lot of the old neighborhoods of Warsaw, now destroyed, are vividly described. The layout of streets, where gardens used to be, what house was where and who lived in it. Here Aaron goes with Betty, the American actress, back to his old neighborhood.
“No. 4 was a huge bazaar, Yanash's Court, which had two gates—one leading into Krochmalna and the other into Mirowska Street. They sold everything here—fruit, vegetables, dairy, geese, fish. There were stores selling secondhand shoes and old clothes of all kinds.
“We came to the Place. It always swarmed with prostitutes, pimps, and petty thieves in torn jackets and caps with visors pulled down over their eyes. In my time, the Boss here had been Blind Itche, chief of the pickpockets, proprietor of brothels, a swaggerer and a knife carrier. Somewhere in No. 11 or 13 lived fat Reitzele, a woman who weighed three hundred pounds. Reitzele was supposed to conduct business with white slavers from Buenos Aires. She was also a procurer of servant girls. Many games were played in the Place. You drew numbers from a bag and you could win a police whistle, a chocolate cake, a pen with a view of Cracow, a doll that sat up and cried ‘Mama.’
“I stopped with Betty to gape. The same louts, the same flat pronunciation, the same games. I was afraid that all this would disgust her, but she had become infected by my nostalgia. . . .” (p. 71)
When Aaron finds Shosha again, after 20 years, living near him in Warsaw, the narrative bloats with sentimentality. Like Little Dorrit, these bits are cloying. Fortunately, they are also brief. I.B. Singers’s novels are unique. For anyone with even a passing interest in Jewish life, they are a revelation — and let’s not forget to mention the enormous narrative pleasure they provide!...more
Just glanced at the opening. A strange over-voluble voice here, which may mitigate as we go. We'll see. Most notable were a few clunky metaphors, whicJust glanced at the opening. A strange over-voluble voice here, which may mitigate as we go. We'll see. Most notable were a few clunky metaphors, which I can't imagine ever seeing in Gardner's fiction. Reads like lecture transcripts. But as I say, this is just my first glance....more
Superb. A note to page 99 by Robert Chandler, the translator, emphasizes the novelty of this text, which the author last revised in 1964.
"Grossman wroSuperb. A note to page 99 by Robert Chandler, the translator, emphasizes the novelty of this text, which the author last revised in 1964.
"Grossman wrote Everything Flows at a time when there was almost no reliable published information on such topics as the Gulag, Collectivization, and the Terror Famine [Holodomor]. Given his dependence [solely] on oral sources, it is remarkable how little he has got wrong."
So the book is a feat of reportage as much as it is one of fictional narrative. It's part harrowing novel and part shattering exposé. The argument about how Lenin had to preserve the old system of slavery in Russia in order to advance the Revolution is fascinating.
"It is, indeed, tragic that a man who so sincerely loved Tolstoy and Beethoven should have furthered a new enslavement of the peasants and workers, that he should have played a central role in reducing to the status of lackeys — State lackeys — such outstanding figures of Russian culture as the writer Aleksey Tolstoy, the physical chemist Nikolay Semyonov, and the composer Dmitry Shostakovich. ¶ The debate begun by the supporters of Russian freedom was finally resolved. Once again, Russian slavery proved invincible." (p. 182)
And later: "Stalin united within him all the most ruthless traits of slave Russia." (p. 191)
Be sure to read Life and Fate, too, Grossman's great Tolstoyan masterpiece....more
Mr Llosa can write. I won't dispute that. But this is not a good novel for me for the following reasons. (1) The author has bitten off far more than hMr Llosa can write. I won't dispute that. But this is not a good novel for me for the following reasons. (1) The author has bitten off far more than he can chew in a mere 400 pages. The scope of the book is vast and too much feels rushed. He might have narrowed his scope, but alas he wants it all. Because of the enormous narrative breadth, this reader never got the level of satisfaction in the area of character development that he would have liked; there are so many characters and after a while they all seem to blur. (2) There is a rushed, headlong quality to the book, probably this is intentional but I do not like it. (3) I find the levels of Catholic motivation to be too much; probably for a Latin American reader these levels are just right. For these and other reasons I did not finish the book and give it two stars.
The book breaks into three stories: (1) that of Urania Cabral, set in the present day, when she returns to a now democratized Dominican Republic years after Trujillo's assassination to confront (torment) her father who was a "senator" (read crony) under the Benefactor; (2) that of Trujillo himself in the weeks before his assassination; and (3) that of the group of men, mostly young men, who will kill him.
The story Urania tells to her incapacitated father, who is now in a wheelchair, is most unsettling. Urania is visiting from New York City where she now lives. She has done extensive reading on the subject, now knows much about those dark mysterious years of her youth. For example, how Trujillo, habitually cuckolded his ministers. Urania spares her mute father none of it. She is so cruel.
Dictator Trujillo is a megalomaniac on the model of Stalin. He terrorized his own people for 31 years. In October 1937 he ordered the slaughter of about 20,000 Haitians in what came to be known as the Parsley Massacre. Typically, the US backed him as a bulwark against Communism. (Now where have we seen that pattern before? Chile, Iran, Vietnam, Cuba, and Korea spring to mind, to mention a few.)
Trujillo's a compulsive neat freak who seeks through personal cleanliness and punctilio a semblance of the moral standing he can never command. We first come across him undergoing his daily toilette with great care. Trujillo's story begins in 1961 some 16 months after a Pastoral Letter has been sent by the Vatican to the Catholic community in the Dominican Republic. Since then the Church has, Trujillo feels, harassed him from the pulpit for his flagrant human rights violations and turned the people against him. The two Catholic leaders responsible for this he imagines feeding alive to sharks, as he has so many other opponents.
The assassins's storyline is set on May 30, 1961, as they await the Generalissimo's car on a stretch of road. There are 4 of them in the car and as they wait there are flashbacks outlining the motivations of each. This is tedious.
In some ways The Feast of the Goat is a counterpart novel to Graham Greene's The Comedians. That excellent book--set in Haiti on the other side of Hispaniola in the 1960s when the corrupt Duvaliers were in power--is a model of narrative pacing and economy.
Merged review:
Mr Llosa can write. I won't dispute that. But this is not a good novel for me for the following reasons. (1) The author has bitten off far more than he can chew in a mere 400 pages. The scope of the book is vast and too much feels rushed. He might have narrowed his scope, but alas he wants it all. Because of the enormous narrative breadth, this reader never got the level of satisfaction in the area of character development that he would have liked; there are so many characters and after a while they all seem to blur. (2) There is a rushed, headlong quality to the book, probably this is intentional but I do not like it. (3) I find the levels of Catholic motivation to be too much; probably for a Latin American reader these levels are just right. For these and other reasons I did not finish the book and give it two stars.
The book breaks into three stories: (1) that of Urania Cabral, set in the present day, when she returns to a now democratized Dominican Republic years after Trujillo's assassination to confront (torment) her father who was a "senator" (read crony) under the Benefactor; (2) that of Trujillo himself in the weeks before his assassination; and (3) that of the group of men, mostly young men, who will kill him.
The story Urania tells to her incapacitated father, who is now in a wheelchair, is most unsettling. Urania is visiting from New York City where she now lives. She has done extensive reading on the subject, now knows much about those dark mysterious years of her youth. For example, how Trujillo, habitually cuckolded his ministers. Urania spares her mute father none of it. She is so cruel.
Dictator Trujillo is a megalomaniac on the model of Stalin. He terrorized his own people for 31 years. In October 1937 he ordered the slaughter of about 20,000 Haitians in what came to be known as the Parsley Massacre. Typically, the US backed him as a bulwark against Communism. (Now where have we seen that pattern before? Chile, Iran, Vietnam, Cuba, and Korea spring to mind, to mention a few.)
Trujillo's a compulsive neat freak who seeks through personal cleanliness and punctilio a semblance of the moral standing he can never command. We first come across him undergoing his daily toilette with great care. Trujillo's story begins in 1961 some 16 months after a Pastoral Letter has been sent by the Vatican to the Catholic community in the Dominican Republic. Since then the Church has, Trujillo feels, harassed him from the pulpit for his flagrant human rights violations and turned the people against him. The two Catholic leaders responsible for this he imagines feeding alive to sharks, as he has so many other opponents.
The assassins's storyline is set on May 30, 1961, as they await the Generalissimo's car on a stretch of road. There are 4 of them in the car and as they wait there are flashbacks outlining the motivations of each. This is tedious.
In some ways The Feast of the Goat is a counterpart novel to Graham Greene's The Comedians. That excellent book--set in Haiti on the other side of Hispaniola in the 1960s when the corrupt Duvaliers were in power--is a model of narrative pacing and economy....more
A tale of enormous narrative power about military exploits and love. It's an absolute heartbreaker. The narrator is Persian eunuch and great beauty, BA tale of enormous narrative power about military exploits and love. It's an absolute heartbreaker. The narrator is Persian eunuch and great beauty, Bagoas, who acts as Alexander's valet, adviser and lover. In this novel Alexander is an optimist and a gentleman. He sees his wars as making the world a better place. He is a young man whom we see ever so gradually worn down by duty, grief and injury. Somewhere it is said that he lived multiple lives in the span a normal man would have lived only one. In the end, the intensity with which he lives is impossible, unsustainable, reckless — even for someone held to be part divine. The recurring motif here is Homer's Achilles, half man and half god. I encourage you, prospective reader, not to think of the book as mere historical fiction. It transcends genre; it's literary fiction of considerable merit. It's tonally masterful and utterly gripping. I wish I could say how it's done. Staggering....more
The feuilletons are interesting. Most were written during Walser's late twenties and early thirties in Berlin. If they pale they do so because of a reThe feuilletons are interesting. Most were written during Walser's late twenties and early thirties in Berlin. If they pale they do so because of a relentless Berlin boosterism. In fairness, one must say that this is what Berlin's newspapers editors buying and the always impecunious Walser found himself able to supply. Even "The Little Berliner" suffers from this obsession, but that story, written in the voice of a twelve-year-old girl, is more assured and tonally solid and seems to transcend the feuilleton formula. The story is so good in fact that it put me in mind of Walser's four fine novels, and his wonderful Selected Stories, the volume introduced by Susan Sontag. Otherwise the book is a bit of historical and biographical piece work. Essential for the Walser completist, but not the place to start reading him....more
I. B. Singer's first novel. It was first serialized in the Jewish Daily Forward in the late 1940s. This English translation appeared in 1950. Singer'sI. B. Singer's first novel. It was first serialized in the Jewish Daily Forward in the late 1940s. This English translation appeared in 1950. Singer's style is reminiscent of Tolstoy, but not in slavish imitation. He's unique.
Heading an enormous cast is the old man Meshulam Moskat. Richer than Croesus and in his 80s, he has just returned from taking the waters at Carlsbad with a 3rd wife. It's some years before World War 1. Moskat has put his children in charge of collecting his rents — and he hates them for being dependent upon him. He is a horrible, bitter, egomaniacal old fuck. And yet he's the head of this huge clan who gather around him thinking about their inheritance. But the joke is on them because he dies without a will. The greedy scramble afterward is not pretty.
A theme in The Family Moskat is the split between religious (Hassidim) and secular (assimilated) Jews. Asa Heshel, grandson of a prominent rural rabbi, reads Spinoza and comes to Warsaw for further study. A daughter being pressured into an arranged marriage, Hadassah, runs away from the family home with Heshel. Their flight to Switzerland fails. Hadassah is returned to her scandalized family by the police after several days in prison. Heschel, stuck in Switzerland, marries the wrong woman.
An extraordinarily strong sense of community arises from persecution. When Marilynn Robinson writes about Christian folks, or when Naguib Mahfouz writes his Muslim characters, there is no similar sense of danger because they are writing about largely unmixed societies.
One of my favorite things about Singer's novels is his deep knowledge about the rituals and traditions of Judaism. Not surprising, I suppose, when you learn he came from a family of rabbis. You get both the cultural richness and the petty vindictiveness and everything between. Here we are in a Polish prayerhouse before World War I:
"They came to the antechamber, stopping to wash their hands at the copper urn, and went into the prayerhouse. A candle flickered in the Menorah. The pillars that enclosed the reader's stand threw elongated shadows. The shelves around the walls were packed with books. Some of the students were still bent over the tables, reading in the dim light. Worshippers paced back and forth, softly chanting. A youth swayed fervently in a corner. Near the Ark was a framed inscription in red: 'God is always before me.' On the cornice of the Ark two carved gilded lions held up the Tablets of the Law. There was a heavy odor that seemed to Asa Heshel to be compounded of candle wax, dust, fast days, and eternity. He stood silent." (p. 237)
I love it when the characters are walking around pre-war Warsaw, and the reader gets all this description of a city that for the most part no longer exists: the neighborhoods, streets, buildings, public parks and street life. The following is from the scene in which Hadassah runs away from her family and her arranged marriage to be with her true love, Asa Heshel.
"The evening was coming on when they left the coffee house. They passed the prison at the corner of Nalevki and Dluga and went along Rymarska Street and the Platz Bankovy. On the Iron Gate Square the street lamps were already burning. A cold wind came from the direction of the Saxon Gardens. Tramcars rolled along. Crowds of people thronged the market stalls. Hadassah held Asa Heshel's arm tightly as though afraid she might lose him. Farther along, at the bazaars, stall-keepers presided over mounds of butter, huge Swiss cheeses, bundles of mushrooms, troughs of oysters and fish. The torchlights were already ablaze. They passed a slaughterhouse. Floodlights blazed in the building. Porters with hoses were swishing water on the stone floor. Slaughterers stood near blood-filled granite vats, slitting the necks of ducks, geese, and hens. Fowl cackled deafeningly. The wings of a rooster, its throat just slit, fluttered violently. Hadassah pulled at Asa Heshel's sleeve, her face deathly white. A little farther on, in the fish market, stood tubs, barrels, and troughs. In the stale-smelling water, carp, pike, and tench swam about. Beggars sang in quavering voices, cripples stretched out stumps of arms. Away from the glare of the lights inside, the darkness of the court was intensified." (p. 158)
I know of no other novel that shows us so plainly what we have lost. The rabbis and elders fear the Jewish way of life will soon be destroyed. They are correct, but their downfall will not be effected by the Most High as a punishment for secularization, rather it will be carried out by Nazis about to enter the scene.
The characters are so vibrantly realized. There are scenes of great religiosity in which the core of the characters never wanes. One Sabbath scene is pure ecstatic joy. This scene marks the return of Asa Heshel to Warsaw after five years of war. He was in the Czar's army and lived through the Bolshevik Revolution. Asa travels from house to house and is greeted with a Sabbath celebration in each. I wish I could better describe the sheer scope of the book, both its big-heartedness and its moments of gravity, but that's beyond me. That said, this excellent novel is not Singer's best. It has a tendency toward melodrama, sometimes very amusing melodrama — Singer had a gift for humor — but grave moments of doubt and personal danger too.
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