This week's Top Ten (the first five entries at least) are all about... you guessed it... another FILM! And how it's re-visited magic has touched my life:
1.
Re-examining Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" ...re-examining my week ...my
past ...my city ...my boyfriend
Listen you screw heads... you fuckers...
I have to admit that for years now, every time someone would say to me
that Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" was their favorite film... or quoted
that "You lookin' at me?" line... I would always get a really good
examination of my own mind. This is because my eyes would be rolling so
hard into the back of my head that I would have a clear view of my brain
matter.
Nevertheless, I recently attended a midnight screening of Martin Scorsese's
"Taxi Driver" and was kind of subtly, surprisingly, blown away by a film
that I had seen countless times on video, and always thought was kinda
over-rated. I didn't get one clear view of my brain the entire time! Sometimes
(but not always) seeing older films the way they were originally designed...
that is to be seen projected in a good theater with an adequate sound system,
can change a mind that has grown up in the age of video and DVDs. This
is especially true of pictures that may annoy you because people are constantly
dropping the titles of as "one of the best films ever made" ad naseum.
But... it took a full-bodied viewing of this fine picture for me to realize
how it's imperfections in plot are irrelevant. It is a full-fledged cinematic
experience... and a timeless energy capsule channel-er for the weird energy
of New York City. As well as - a virtual bible for the value systems I
am holding near and dear to my heart this week (as you will see below).
"All the animals come out at night: whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens,
fairies, dopers, junkies... sick... venal. Each night when I return the
cab to the garage I have to clean the come off the back seat. Some nights
I clean off the blood. Someday... a real rain will come and wash all this
scum off the streets."
See it on the big screen if you can (which you probably can't). So instead,
totally anti-social yourself and rent the DVD and watch it with all the
lights turned out and with headphones hooked up to your player, to get
the full sensation of the film. "Taxi Driver" truly is a great film...
after all.
2.
First of all: would someone please get me a replica of one of these
signs?
I realize now my life has been leading up to one goal... one purpose. TO
GET ONE OF THESE SIGNS! It's all clear now. I actually looked around the
internet for people that might be selling replicas of the sign that Travis
Bickle has hanging on the wall of his apartment, the one he speaks to Betsy
about (Cybill Shepard) earlier in the film. It says "ONE OF THESE DAYS
I'M GONNA GET ORGANIZIZED."
No, no... not "organized" ..."organizized" o-r-g-a-n-i-z-i-z-e-d ...it's
a joke! Get it? Like those signs people put on their desks at work that
say "THIMK." Well... sort of. You don't get it? I realize now how much
you are like the others, so cold and distant. Many people are like that.
They're like a union.
Anyway... to be honest... I would think some nerd out there on eBay or
something would be selling replicas of these. I bet if I got in a time
machine and went back to 1976 A.D., I could walk into any Spencer's Gifts
in any mall in America... march right back to the adult section and pick
up one of these for $1.99! But this is 2004. Oh well.
I just want one... to hang up on my wall... right up on my left... next
to where I sit at my computer. Just exactly like Travis has. Somehow...
as I work and do stuff... it will just really, really put things
into perspective... in the truest sense of the word.
3.
Jim... my own Travis Bickle... my hero
I remember right after I went through my whole cancer experience, after
all the treatments were over and I was given a clean bill of health, I
was having kind of a rough time. To be honest, I was practically having
a total nervous breakdown... my doctors told me I was suffering from "post-traumatic
shock syndrome." And since I was indeed having a pretty hard go of things,
and New York City certainly wasn't going to give me a break, I decided
to get out of the city and stay with my parents for a while. It really
wasn't the smartest thing to do, but I really had nowhere else I could
go. My parents really had no idea how to deal with something like that,
which is fine... so I just kind of spent three months... hidden away from
myself... barely visiting with my folks at all... jogging and
lifting weights like crazy... eating a lot... keeping horrible hours...
taking midnight walks in their lush Virginia suburban paradise. It was
weird. Ultimately I would retreat from an easy day of rest, to more rest...
in the guest room on the left of the house every evening. Every too-late
night, I found myself in that perfect room, laying on the Laura Ashley
bedspread with the cable TV on, surrounded by multilayers of tranquility
wrapped in drywall, plush carpet, framed duck paintings, little lamps and
fancy scented bathroom soaps... just sitting there on the bed.... diligently
batting at the terrifying abyss in my head over and over, night after night.
Honestly, I'm probably lucky to have had somewhere like that to go... it
may have not been perfect, or even good for me... but at least most of
the time it could be neutral.
Three
months is a long time to have nothing to do but try and distract yourself
from the newly over-sensitized realization that Death is always standing
behind you, and can strike you down again on a cruel whim whenever it chooses.
So rather than heal (which kind of started after I returned to New York),
I placed an imaginary forefinger and thumb stun gun to my temple and *ka-pow*
...kind of sheer-willed my frontal lobe into a lobotomy for the time being.
When your brain is in this kind of mode, your lack of anything to do, rather
than giving you too much time to think, gives you too much time to fantasize.
A lot of people write me and tell me that I'm boy-crazy, and that they
think I write too much about guys in movies or whatever that I think are
sexy. And they're right, I do (for an answer, I always send them here).
Have you ever heard about that study that sexy woman scientist did once
where she tried to figure out the human brain's chemical make-up while
it was an infant in the womb? And then tried to find out which full-grown
human's chemical brain make-up state most matched the un-rememberable "womb"
perception reality? And did you hear it was discovered that the chemical
match-up in a normal person's brain that was the closest match-up for the
womb was the chemical make-up a brain has when it has a crush on another
person? That was the chemical make-up in the brain that most matched
prenatal bliss. Not "love" per se, but that initial fantasy initial crush
on someone you don't really know all the way yet. The place where what
is real and what is imagined meld the mind into hopeful tranquility. Yep.
It's true. Even if I can't find any evidence to support it... you
still must
believe.
So... back there... in that suburban bliss, my mind healed itself by materializing
an imaginary boyfriend. While I was all alone. He was a guy that I knew
I would never meet. It was one who's personality perfectly yanged the ying
I was in at the moment. His personality was this: he seemed damaged from
something in his past, and even though it was unclear what this thing in
his past was, it was clear that he had moved through it and on. And even
though every day was a struggle for him, the only way he could make it
was to be as diligent and clear headed as he could... and always do the
right thing in every situation as best as he knew how. This gave him a
Ninja-like economic sense of survivability if need be. He probably had
a military background but it was a little unclear. He was completely unpretentious
in the trues sense of the word. He was incredibly neardy, perpetually un-cool
- but totally unaware of this. He never did anything because of what it
represented to others... he did it because he wanted to, or thought it
was right... even if it wasn't. He was the type that would put grease in
his hair and part it over very neatly to one side and wear an incredibly
out-of-style suit to a friend's wedding and not see anything wrong with
it when people tried to point it out to him. He wanted his hair to look
nice! It was a suit after all! He was proud of his look! When trying to
please others he was very polite and formal, and sometimes, no... often,
got it wrong... because he really didn't know any better. Like taking a
girl on a first date... giving her flowers and candy and then taking her
to a porno movie because those are the only types of movies he understands
or ever watches. Then taking it hard when he realizes she's upset by this
and trying everything he could do to set it right even though the situation
was un-save-ably wrong. He was an idiot savant with incredible manners,
and he had a false serial killer vibe (that was due to his mental imbalance
and past damaging) which was very perceptible once you realized he had
an extremely happy and giving soul. I remember he was obliviously charming
in a way that was only perceivable to me. I remember he was also very masculine
but not cocky at all and in no way fake. He was taller than me and had
dark hair and was hung like a giraffe.
I found it odd that I would fantasize about such an odd hero in such a
real moment of need. Maybe that's what fantasy is for.
I had truly, totally forgotten about this brief fantasy as the years past
and my post-cancer life went on ... and I stopped trying to figure out
what I thought the conjuring of it in my head for so many nights way back
when meant... how it helped me in my awkward struggle to prevent myself
from falling apart. Until, that is, I saw "Taxi Driver" again.
I realized that the fictional character Travis Bickle was, no... IS that
fantasy character in my head. The ying that complimented my broken yang
that I yearned for so during so many almost dimentia-filled nights so many
years ago.
Whether he was taking Cybill Shepard on their first date to a porno movie,
talking to Peter Boyle about the "bad ideas" that were creeping up on him
when he couldn't distract himself with the night shift, or blowing the
brains out of the "scum of the earth" (or maybe almost a presidential candidate)
in a vicious bloodbath... Travis Bickle was that fantasy character
in my head.
Upon further examination of my current life... I realized how my current
boyfriend, Jim, really shares many traits with Travis Bickle. Jim is tall
and masculine and very, very handsome and very smart. He's experienced.
He's unfuss-ily polite. He causes those who rely on pretension to wilt...
because his lack of it is impenetrable. He stands up for me but is un-bossy
and never manipulative. He causes manipulators to back off because he's
tall and scary. If he doesn't like the way people are treating me (like
Travis Bickle didn't like the way 13-year old junkie prostitute Jodie Foster
was being treated by her pimps) he will go make trouble for them. Why Jim
would even make trouble for... oh I don't know, the President of the United
States if he thought he was causing trouble for me. Jim might even take
down the scum of the earth, or some suspicious people he saw over there
...take them down in a violent bloodbath if he thought they were disrespecting
me. Because it would be the right thing to do. Because they were in a Hell
and they were going to die in that Hell just like the rest of them. Because...
listen you screw heads, you fuckers... he's a man who will not take it
anymore, who will not let... wait, ...he's a man who will not take it anymore,
who will stand up against the dogs, the cunts, the filth, the shit ...here
is someone who will stand up. For me.
Suck on this!
I don't think I've ever met anyone quite like Jim. He's my Travis Bickle...
he may even be my Henry Krinkle. Whatever he is... he's my hero.
And that (believe it in absolute horror is you must) makes me feel very,
very ...finally ...truly ...safe.
4.
I rode my bike to some of the NYC locations of "Taxi Driver" and took some
photos - then and now
Completely obsessed... I went on my bike one day along 13th street (between
2nd and 3rd avenue) and the surrounding area and took some photos of the
specific locations that were used in parts of the film. It was while I
was watching it that I was like "Hey that Variety theater is still there!"
And you know what? It is! With the images of the film fresh in my head,
it was easy to find the doorways and buildings that were used one I found
the street. I have taken some pictures from my TV screen from the DVD (sorry
screw heads, I'm too lazy to hook it up to my computer) and compared them
side-by-side below:
Here's the Variety
Photoplay Theater marquee (west side of 3rd avenue between 13th and 14th
street) where Robert Deniro first encounters Jodi Foster and Harvey Keitel
in the back seat of his cab:
- in the film... and now.
And, quite literally
around the corner... here is the street (southeast corner 13th street and
3rd avenue) Robert Deniro later walks down with Jodi Foster and the junkie
girl (above):
- in the film... and now.
Keep panning left...
here is the doorway (on the south side of 13th street) where Robert Deniro
confronts and eventually shoots Harvey Keitel:
- in the film (night shooting shot -
more pulled back)... and now.
Keep panning left...
here is the street Robert Deniro walks down to pick up Jodi Foster after
he has negotiated with Harvey Keitel:
- in the film... and now.
And then... here
is the front of the building Jodi Foster leads Robert Deniro into after
he buys her for 15 minutes (the building is literally down the same side
of the street from the doorway Keitel hangs out in front of, just as is
implied in the film):
- in the film... and now.
...and the tilt pan
up to the top of the same building:
- in the film... and now.
5.
The brilliant film score work of Bernard Herrmann for "Taxi Driver"
One of the things that struck me about the film was the totally, totally
genius score by Bernard Herrmann (a gonzo and jarring mixture of some kind
of military drum and spine-chilling, ominous orchestra stuff blended with
the occasional muzak jazz). This was the last score Herrmann ever composed
in his prolific career
(his most famous score was for Hitchcock's 'Psycho'). Scorsese really wanted
him to score the film, but at the time, Herrmann was getting on in his
years and not well. Herrmann said "no" initially, and Scorsese persisted,
eventually winning him over by showing him the dailies of the scene with
Deniro eating the white bread in a bowl with milk and Schnapps poured over
it (true!) Months later... a week after Herrmann finally completed
the score for "Taxi Driver"... he died. Here is The
Bernard Herrmann Society link.
6.
***ALERT!*** Ed Shepp on Pseu Braun's show on WFMU.org - this Friday, Feb.
20th, 8-11pm EDT!
The totally amazing
and mind boggling Ed Shepp has
been craftily lassoed by the totally amazing and mind-blowing Pseu
Braun... to be her co-host and interview-ee on the impenetrable WFMU.org
(listenable anywhere in the world via the web) this Friday, February 20th
from 8-11pm EDT (on Pseu's regular Friday show).
I haven't been this excited about two people coming together since I used
that device to travel back through the space/time continuum and witnessed
my parents meeting for the first time!
In case you have not
discovered the as-yet undiscovered Ed Shepp (although 'FMU is doing pretty
good job... first as always of course) and his brilliant spoken word whatever-they-are's
(imagine the long lost child of Charles Nelson Reilly and Virginia Woolf)...
go here
or here immediately and check
out his work (or buy some). I think it's totally amazing and, trust me
- you won't forget it. And, if you have never experienced the great, legendary
Pseu Braun on WFMU yet... by all means listen to her
show (i've been obsessed for years).
According to Pseu,
she and Ed really have no plan about what they are going to do for the
three hours... perhaps just talk about Ed and his work amongst themselves
and other stuff. Who knows! It's like your favorite variety show ever,
with your favorite guest host ever, watched from a million cloudy celestial
heavens! Swoon! I will literally be there in front of my computer
this Friday night, tuning in with no distractions whatsoever... the phone
will be turned off, the door will be locked, my roommate Domenic will be
drugged and locked in a closet, I'll be wearing a CamelBak Hydration System
Suit so I don't have to get up and pee (wrapped in a mink coat and slippers
for warmth), my hair will be removed and in curlers and on it's wig stand
so I don't have to mess with it like I do every three seconds, in my lap
will be a big bowl of popcorn and a giant 2-litre bottle of Diet Coke (in
a solid silver champagne bucket with ice), a box of Pierre Marcolini truffe
bresilienne chocolates within arm's reach.. and every single functioning
part of my sound sense perceptors (every anvil, every cochlea, every eustachian
tube, every tiny hammer, every inner ear nerve, every outer ear canal,
every pinna, every semicircular canal) pointing... focused... unwavered...
yearning...
towards my little computer speakers.
Tune in... and don't
expect the expected!
7.
A diamond to really shit your pants over
Speaking of celestial bling... as in one massively unbelievable "hunk of
celestial bling"...
Did you hear about BPM
37093? You know, the 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
(10 billion trillion trillion) carat diamond that a group of astronomers
discovered floating around about 300 trillion miles from Earth, in the
Centaurus constellation? It's a hot core of a dead sun (a white dwarf)
and measures 2,500 miles across. The whole fucking thing is a diamond.
Apparently astronomers had theorized that white dwarfs crystallized into
massive chunks of crystallized carbon for years... but this is the first
time it has been documented.
Just imagining the on-air jokey chatter from QVC hosts trying to hawk a
diamond of that size and density on TV ...is enough to cause your brain
to implode into a black hole! Ha! Ha! No but really ladies and gentlemen...
After the discovery was announced, scientists in California also reported
a strange sound coming from somewhere in Hollywood Hills. It sounded like
crumbling earth, clacking teeth and mincing, bone-y hands. It was later
revealed to be Liberace literally rising out of his grave. Haw! Haw! But
seriously folks...
Looks like Stephen Hawkings has finally had closure on that Marilyn Monroe
poster he's had hanging in his office all these years. No... no, really...
8.
Virginia Woolf's "Haunted Street: A London Adventure"
As an exercise in trying to breath some life, or pump some steroids, or
somehow
charm something into my occasionally tedious "professional" writing, a
friend of mine recently suggested I read Virginia Woolf's short story "Haunted
Street: a London Adventure" - a story all about Virginia leaving her
house to go buy a pencil. It's similar to a piece I am writing, and I actually
enjoyed it very much. My Texas public school and Texas state university
education skimmed only the bare essentials when it came to literature...
somehow it never got around to Virginia Woolf (especially since I gravitated
towards art). I was very impressed with the story after reading it, and
I now see, if I may dare say so after reading one piece, why so many people
refer to Woolf's writing as "God-like." She has an ability to craft words
into something brain-bashingly brilliant... a craft apparently learned
by writing like mad from the age of nine (and being a bit creative and
kooky and unclassifiably intelligent). It's like her sentences form things
that are like perfect molecules... which lead to perfectly structured paragraphs
that form perfect chapters that lead to something reflective of the economical
but beautiful perfection of something created out of nature itself. HOLY
SHIT!!!
"Haunted Street: a London Adventure" is just a story about all the things
Virginia experiences and thinks of as she leaves her house to indeed ...just
go buy a pencil, and it is a perfect expression of a minute slice of experience
in a complex urban setting. It's so refreshing to read something so lovingly
and craftily spun from an obviously trained, experienced and perceptive
mind ...after years of getting retarded by reading chronically diaphanous,
post-irony, post-modern, post-everything writing. Do you think Virginia
Woolf would have written a sentence as floppy and awkward as the one I
just wrote? NO WAY!!! She was too good. She was a GOD!!!
I actually had the "speaking voices" feature on my computer read this piece
out loud to me and I followed along (sounds retardo but I actually find
it to be a good way to read things - I found 'Agnes High Quality' was the
perfect voice for this piece)... uh, where was I? Oh yea. The really dumb
thing about the experience was that, as I read along, I couldn't get the
image of Nicole Kidman wearing that Cindy Sherman-esque, rubber and CGI-enhanced
wizard's nose (from her role as Woolf in that awful movie 'The Hours')
outta my head. It's like I could see her in my mind's eye, reading aloud
to me, wearing the fake shnoze ...standing on the Academy Awards stage
while holding her Oscar, with a bunch of dancers bumped and grinding behind
her in sexy period costumes with matching rubber noses... twirling batons
shaped like giant pencils. Isn't that SAD of my brain to do that to me?
Anyway... go read it... read about how Virginia went for a walk one Wintry
evening to go buy a pencil. Go and read
Virginia Woolf (perhaps for the first time for you uneducated folk like
me).
Do your brain some good! Go fly a plane full of dynamite and innocent passengers
into the stale smoke and dusty mirror twin towers of postmodernism!!! Now
THAT'S a well crafted sentence!
9.
The guy I always thought I imagined my parents always thought I imagined
I thought they wanted me to be
Who has a better plan - this guy or
this
guy? You decide!
10.
Sunshine and lollipops
Mark Allen's Top Three for February 2nd, 2004:
1.
Withnail
& I and me and me
If you're among the few who haven't seen Bruce Robinson's brilliant 1987
British comedy film Withnail
& I ...I highly, highly recommend it.
I remember the first time I saw the film Withnail & I (1987).
I was in a transitional mood and Stepford Wife-ish pre-mid period of my
life (of course at the time I thought I was totally wicked and brilliant).
The actual physical space I experienced the film in so long ago...
has now passed on. I saw it at the Granada Theater (now torn down) in Dallas,
Texas (I now live in New York)... with a long-known childhood friend (who's
become long lost... twice, the second time very painfully)... at a time
in my life that... like I said, is gone forever. All that physical space
and friend and stuff is gone... and it's taken a lot of stuff (that I couldn't
see at the time) along with it as it has transformed from the present to
the past to the far past and then the "distant memory" category. The invisible
things I couldn't see at the time... the value of friendship, the relentless
action and "everything's new" naivety of youth, the fact that the true
adulthood that awaited me was actually a transformation out of a magical
time into a place of sublte desolation rather than the other way around
(I always felt the true passage into adulthood was akin to that
empty feeling you got as a kid the moment you realized you had ripped open
the last Christmas present on Christmas morning) ...all that stuff I didn't
know at the time and everything that comes with it that I didn't even have
a clue about ...well, it's gone. I'll never see the stuff I couldn't see
again.
The period of my life that I happened to see this film in was a confusing
time for me. Just sitting here typing into the computer about it almost
makes my thumbs go weird. If that period in Texas represents anything to
me, it represents very happy memories... (especially looked at through
the rear-view) but also the age-old realization that our far past and all
the things that were invisible are nevertheless obliterated in the truest
sense, and that there are no dress rehearsals for memories. In addition,
the eons of of time that have passed, and the accidental and monumental
events that have happened to me during the (un)normal serpentine paths
of human existence since that night I sat in that modern art house cinema
in suburban Dallas, Texas and watched what I probably didn't realize at
the time was such a superb film... well the area of squiggly lines that
connect those two phases, and what it all means to me, would be a cartographer's
worst nightmare.
Who knew a way-into-the-future (2004), second-time viewing of Bruce Robinson's
superbly sentimental and creepily touching gay(-ish) / bohemian / English
/ 1960's buddy pick Withnail & I on a DVD could ring a bell
in my head like Pavlov's mutt and open a door and allow me to basically
view the long-decayed body of that time ...like attending a funeral for
the past way ahead in the future. Doesn't talking about such cliché
lessons about the far past seem dumbly pointless? Haven't I been through
these realizations already ten years ago? Is reminiscing this much like
a re-run wrapped in a re-run re-run wrapped in a re-run wrapped in a migraine?
Am I talking absolute twaddle? I see films all the time that I viewed once
and liked years ago that don't resonate so profoundly with me when I see
them again. Some resonate with me and some don't.*
(see
below)
Are you as viewers of my site starting to suspect that I am drifting into
the arena of the unwell?
Anyhow, about the film itself; way back in 1986, Withnail & I was
produced by the same team that was cashing in and churning out the excellent
Terry Gilliam/Monty Python surreal mega-comedies during the 80's. A few
weeks into production, the producers apparently balked when they saw first-time
director Bruce Robinson's (first time director who also wrote the script)
very dimly lit, character-driven black comedy taking shape... and they
almost halted the production because the comedy didn't appear "big" enough
(they were nearly successful in pulling the plug... but persistence by
the director and actors won out in the end). It's impossible to imagine
a treasure of a film like Withnail & I getting the usual gonzo
Python-esque slapstick English comedy treatment (which was of course brilliant
for those films). Withnail's contrast to that particular medium
shows a rich emotional depth hidden amongst caverns of dismally hysterical
situations and ingeniously acidic one-liners. Withnail & I is
a comic masterpiece... being swallowed by a black hole.
The film's plot is incredibly simple. Two frustrated, out of work actors
in Camden Town in 1969 are broke, living on the dole, starving, freezing,
on some drugs and lots of booze and fed up with everything. They decide
to pool what little resources they have (Withnail's rich, eccentric uncle
Monty primarily) and go away to the countryside to spend a week in a Monty's
countryside cottage. Bleak chaos ensues (Withnail's rich, eccentric uncle
Monty primarily) and the two finally return home... one with a brand new
acting job (with a possible path to an acting career) and one without (with
no discernable path at all). The two friends who had relied on each other
amongst so much eventful chaos, part ways... possibly forever(?)
The film's first three quarters do something important in any fictional
work of art that portrays down-trodden characters in a comedy setting:
it shows the recognition of absurdity amongst total despair, which always
results in (certain members of ) the audience instantly bonding with said
characters. If done right, the film concludes with an inspirational outcome,
no matter how black the despair or how bleak it's ending. Fellini's Nights
of Cabiria and Hal Ashby's
Harold and Maude both do the same
thing. All three of these films may be pure fiction, unrealistic and ultimately
manipulative in their sentimental slyness... but their views of swatches
of time in the lives of characters that represent society's outsiders packs
an emotional wallop to the audiences they speak to most. Watched in the
right mood... the ends of these films are heart-wrenching, but also warpedly
inspirational.
Withnail & I has developed a world-wide, devoted
cult following... and like most great works of art, nobody seems to be
able to quite put into words why the film is so important to them.
The characters of Withnail and Marwood (referred to only as 'I' in the
film) may possibly be gay, it's subtly hinted at, but never thoroughly
explored. The bond between the two is much more important than a romance
though; it's an important friendship. Withnail and Marwood seem to have
an unspoken dependency on each other to act as a kind of stage or palette
for the other to exhibit certain personality characteristics. Each character
relies on the other one to allow their most extreme personality quirks
to bloom, which would probably wither and die without the other one present.
At the film's poignant end, when they say goodbye to each other, they are
actually saying goodbye to more than each other.
It was Gore Vidal that said; "It is not enough to succeed. One's friends
must fail." An extreme and appropriate quote from an extreme and appropriate
source. And this biting realization perhaps sums up the end of Withnail
& I more under the surface than on it. At the end of the film,
Withnail and Marwood are saying goodbye not just to each other, but to
the "friends" inside themselves that they have relied on for so long, and
who are no longer needed. Marwood may be answering a call to arms in saying
goodbye to the past, but Withnail obviously needs to be dragged kicking
and screaming (and he still may not go). How ever many ways you want to
metaphorically cut through each character's dimensions and the multiplicity
of their separation from each other and themselves... the truth is that
neither wants to see the other one go.
I think another reason some people find this film so addictive is the physical
spaces it portrays. The contrasts and details of the settings are almost
dream-like, and (get ready to wince) Freudian in their seemingly accidental
background semiotics. Withnail and Marwood inhabit cluttered apartments,
cluttered relative's homes, a cluttered country cabin, cluttered sepia-toned
pubs, cluttered car interiors, cluttered romantic advances, cluttered drug
dealing friends... which seem to reflect their own confused interiors.
This is then alternated with outdoor shots and scenarios of meandering,
lush green parks, vast concrete highways, winding hilly roads and picturesque
countryside and bizarre outback farm yards... none of which either character
seems to be able to connect to. The visual palette is often made up of
outside shots (in sun-less overcast) that alternate concrete or stone grays
with vibrant natural greens - which are then contrasted with dusty, complex,
golden-lit interiors. Even in the dark or pouring rain (sometimes both)
these landmark-less locations seem comfortably familiar and weirdly embracing...
like a places you notice in the backgrounds of photos of famous English
tourist traps. Also... extras seem to be kept to a minimum. Save for the
pub and restaurant scenes... very few other people are ever seen in public
settings in the film. Even if we see other characters in the film, it's
really as if Withnail and Marwood are the last people on Earth.
So, for whatever reason, when I watched this film after not seeing in over
a decade, I found myself bawling my eyes out at the end. Realizing that
the things in the film that seemed so quirky were actually reflections
of real-life experiences see-able to those who, for whatever reason and
to whatever extent, have been on the fringes. I became temporarily obsessed
with the film and started to watch it over and over and over and nod at
the screen and cry and laugh and quote the lines endlessly (great, great
lines...
never have swear words sounded so ...poetic.). I realized that my
sadness in seeing the two friends part at the end was not because I was
saying goodbye once and for all to a period of my life that existed so
long ago (the period I discussed above, when I first saw the picture as
a youth)... but that what I was seeing in the film represented
was the very nucleus of saying goodbye to things in my life, large and
small, on a daily basis... everywhere and at anytime!
Saying goodbye, in the truest sense, to something you love means knowing
you will never see that loved thing... you will never experience it's characteristics
that you, until that very moment, had not even realized were of value to
you. Saying goodbye can be profound in the smallest or the largest sense
(from spitting out a piece of gum - to saying goodbye forever to an important
friend).
Somehow... the end of Withnail & I was plugging right into that
nerve dot, that primal emotional response, that existed inside my gooey
brain... the cranial gland that spurted out the mixed feelings of loss
and hope whenever I said goodbye to anything, anywhere. The film found
it's way right into that nerve and then pressed. Somehow... the
creators of the film had concocted this celluloid drug that had addictive
qualities... addiction to the mix of sadness and hope that you felt when
saying goodbye. No wonder I had been watching it so relentlessly and crying
my eyes out every time Marwood said goodbye to Withnail in the rainy park!
Have Bruce Robinson and crew created a real life, but much weaker version
of James O. Incandenza's fictional film Infinite Jest
from the novel
of the same name by David Foster Wallace? Did I need a toke off of a Camberwell
Carrot? Pretty soon I realized I must be mad and I obviously had a brain
tumor the size of a birthday present. So I told the nostalgic, longing,
wistful half of me to shove it up his ass for free and fuck off while he
was doing it.
I refrained from watching the DVD yet again and crying like an acidic git...
instead, I told a friend glowingly all about the picture, someone I knew
would appreciate it. Over dinner I loaned him my copy of the DVD. It turns
out he had heard about it for years and had been dying to see it. I told
him to be sure and watch it when he knew he wouldn't be distracted by the
phone and other things... when he could really concentrate on it and pay
attention to all the dialogue.
Really... I was trying to get the thing out of my site. The compulsion
to watch it again and have it hit that oozy brain nerve was too much of
a draw... and the body and mind's ability to filter and sieve sadness certainly
has a limit. It's like I was discarding the DVD in the same way someone
finally puts away an urn of the ashes of a dead loved one. My friend will
love it I'm sure. At the least he'll be counted amongst the many who consider
it a small masterpiece.
Whatever it's draw... I think there is a certain kind of rare sensibility
that one must posses before one truly appreciates the film. Not necessarily
a sophisticated sensibility, but one borne of a certain type of hard, weirdly
brave life experience. If you've spent any chunk of your life on the fringes,
the real ones, then this film will bring up a lot of memories for you.
Where others might just see a quirky and memorable film, you'll denote
a very depressing yet tangible sense of hope. A very depressing yet tangible
sense of hope that is free to those who can afford it... but very expensive
to those who can't.
(note)* I
did have a very frightening and unhealthy week-long, screaming, crying,
yelling at the screen, blinds drawn in the middle of the day while I watched
it over and over binge and purge viewing orgy of David Fincher's Fight
Club... that particular flick also seemed to hit a really strong memory
gong with me (odd that both Withnail & I and Fight Club
involve two male characters that in essence seem like [or are] two halves
of a whole - that eventually painfully split). Perhaps I'll write another
time about why watching Fight Club for me is practically a religious
experience for me (trust me, I got pretty obsessed
there for a
while).
2.
Florrie Fisher
If you're in the mood to hear a really ripping and long MP3 then you're
gonna go bonkers for this. Go here
to hear and find out everything about Florrie Fisher you've ever wanted
to know.
During the middle of the 20th century, Florrie Fisher was an ex-junkie,
ex-boozer, ex-prostitute, ex-con (who had dropped out of high school) ex-inhabitor
of the slithering underbelly of America for 32 years. She partied from
the teens straight through middle age... without looking back. After she
reformed... she then returned to high school in the 1970's, at the age
of 46, by going around to from school to school and lecturing (yelling,
actually) to kids about the horrors of a junkie/hooker/con lifestyle and
how drugs and booze were dead ends and blah, blah, blah. Sound familiar?
Look familiar? The cast and creators of the brilliant cult comedy TV series
"Strangers
With Candy" constantly site her and documentations of her lecturing
career as the inspiration for main character Jerri Blank. Well duh.
Even if you aren't a fan of the show or have even heard of it... Florrie's
story is a time capsule itself into the values of another time (several
actually). She actually wrote a book about her life as well, called "The
Trip Back". I actually don't know if Florrie is still alive... but she
left quite a warped legacy behind.
You must and I mean must go here
and listen to Florrie's 20 minute-long stock lecture to high school kids
(it's actually audio from a 70's school film about her), read the transcript,
look at a list of drug slang references she uses, as well as find out how
to get a copy of her book. If you're a fan of "Strangers With Candy" you'll
recognize a lot.
3.
The Hugging Machine (aka: The Squeeze Machine)
If there's one thing I've learned in life it's this: if you ever meet anyone
who, within the first five minutes of meeting you, says that they think
"...people should hug more" or that human touch "...is very important"
...like this is how they introduce their persona to you... drop the introduction
and turn around and RUN. Literally... turn around and run screaming in
the same way Marilyn Burns ran through the forest screaming to get
away from Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
According to the Therafin
Corporation... a simulated hugging/squeezing machine such as this can be
used to sooth the secretly retarded, unknowingly schizophrenic, obliviously
autistic, pathalogically giving, or those that are just a little too
unselfishly loving. Here
is a link... according to their website, "This ingenious system is used
for deep touch stimulation and produces a calming effect on hyperactive
and autistic individuals The Squeeze Machine allows the individual to control
the amount of pressure as well as the release of pressure." ...and
you must read the published
research on their findings. I think it would make the world a happier
place.
Copyright 2004 Mark Allen
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