Valley Uprising and my memories of Camp 4

Valley Uprising, a documentary about this history of rock climbing over the past 70 years, particularly in the famous Campground 4 in the Yosemite Valley, has extraordinary archival footage that the filmmakers expertly incorporate into a contemporary narrative, including interviews with many of the great climbers from the 60s and 70s. It's a terrific summary of the evolution of the sport from a challenge dependent largely on strategic use of equipment (ropes, pitons) to almost unimaginable free climbing. from the first methodical multi-day ascents up Half Dome and El Capitan to the record-time sprints up the face today with gravity-defying leaps and twists and ridiculously dangerous hand-holds. Cool film with great soundtrack, and I'll just add a personal note: Friend AW and I stayed at Camp 4 for a few days in 1972; we were just looking for a campground that was younger and more hip and stumbled into this one, knowing nothing about the climbing culture. I can tell you that, unlike some of the earlier generation of climbers, the guys (they were all guys) from the 70s had no interest in the outdoors per se - they were there for a sport, not to commune w/ nature. We befriended quite a few of them and it was mainly because we (I should say I, sorry AW) knew how to build a campfire. This was unimaginable to them! They gathered round, asked how we did it, etc. We said we needed more firewood and one of them went off and came back dragging an entire tree! There was a definite hierarchy, and the top-tier climbers set up for the entire summer in VW campers (in this winter, a lot of them we ski instructors, or maybe ski bums, out in Colorado), where their girlfriends set up kitchens complete w/ spice racks, etc. Guys at the bottom end of the tier came w/ bare essentials, all they wanted to do was climb - one guy I still remember came w/ a 20-pound bag of rice, and his dinner every night was "grains again." We tried to supplement his diet a little bit. Amazingly, AW and I told some of the guys that we planned to take some inner tubes and float down the Merced, to which they said, in all sincerity: Be careful! All told a great experience and a look into a completely different culture.

Postscript: AW points out that he was once a Boy Scout (true) and that he can make a fire (probably true), and that his memory is that more than "Be careful!" the guys in the camp were truly terrified about our plan to float down the Merced. Go figure. 

A Romanian Western?: Yes, it's true

The Romanian film Aferim! (I looked it up, it means Bravo!, w/ a slightly ironic twist, as we might say "nice job" sarcastically) is like an American Western set on the Romanian plains - set in 1830, follows a crusty, tough, and intemperate bounty hunter who takes his teenage son - naive, a little timid - on his first excursion as they ride off in search of an escapee - a gypsy who is wanted for having an affair with the wife of one of the tribal leaders, the Boyar as he's known, stealing some money, and taking off for the border. Their search for and capture of the runaway is full of encounters and adventures, most of them brutal not so much in physical violence as in extreme crudity of language, abuse of the weak, women especially, and racism and bigotry, primarily (but not exclusively) against the gypsies, always referred to as "crows," who live in subhuman conditions of slavery and other oppression. The movie builds toward a tremendously powerful conclusion, which I won't give away, but it puts the whole movie into a new light. The movie is difficult, no doubt, especially because of the brutality and oppression, but over its course the personalities of the father and son emerge and become more nuanced and complex as we watch them interact with each other and with others and face a major moral dilemma. The notes at the end suggest this narrative may have been based at least in part on actual events. I'd wondered if it was based on an American Western - maybe not, but I would bet someone as bought the rights to re-make this in English (could also imagine this as a Kurosawa movie) and if done w/ the same integrity and courage it could reach a much wider audience.

Julia Lous-Dreyfus's Veep becomes increasingly complex over the course of Season 1

Veep is not only good in the first season but gets consistently better over the course of the 8 episodes, as Julia Louis-Dreyfus's character becomes more nuanced and complex - till at the end she seems not just the narcissist and somewhat clumsy speaker we saw in the first episodes, funny as they were, but now someone who can go toe to toe with a repugnant Ohio politico, can nimbly dance around the corners of an issue or a situation, can rip into her staff and play them off against one another as needed, and, most surprising, suffers the hurts we all are heir to, can break down, even in public, and then can rally and use her vulnerability as a lever to knock others off balance. The ensemble cast, all types, all of them recognizable to anyone who's been around elected officials and their entourages, are consistently funny, acerbic, ambitious - and media-obsessed. It's the serio-comic version of house of Cards, which presents Washington politics in a harsher (but equally accurate, at least regarding the types and personalies) light. We can see that the arc of the narrative is carrying JLD toward a presidential campaign of her own. How can you not go there w/ her?

Veep is lots of fun ane realistic (to a degree)

The Julia Louis-Dreyfus HBO vehicle Veep is a lot of fun on so many levels, to name a few the brash humor and verbal jousting among the competitive and eccentric members of the VP staff, JLD's terrific portrayal of a character who's the epitome of house angel/street devil, sweet and effusively positive in public (mos of the time) and a harpy in the office and in ordering about her staff, and probably most surprising the accurate sense (exaggerated for comic effect of course) of how a high-level political office operates, threading a course through a field of many hazards: pushing a legislative agenda, building an image for a future election and a rise to the next step, compromising on key issues, playing up to powerful people whom they hate, pleasing the boss (or, JLD's case, the president - never seen, at least in the first 4 episodes of season 1), managing the media, seeking photo ops, handling the ceremonial obligations, and trying to keep personal life out of the picture. It's not exactly realistic - it's a 30-minute comedy series after all - and it's had to accept that JLD (Selina Meyer) could rise as high as she has and still make the elementary blunders that get her into trouble in most of the episodes, but the show is full of quirks and quips, moves at a rapid pace, and gives us a funhouse-mirror version of high and low level political operatives and loyalists at work.

Of men and sheep: Rams

The Icelandic film Rams turned out to be disappointing, though there were some beautiful and mysterious shots of the landscape, which brought back memories of a visit to the country, and a true sense of the isolation and difficult life in a small northern Iceland community largely dependent on raising sheep. The sheep in one of the farms are diagnosed with Scrapie, something like mad cow disease I think, necessitating the destruction of all the sheep in the valley. The story concerns an elderly, rugged sheep farmer who illegally tries to keep his flock alive, secretly; the drama is the lifelong tension between this farmer and his somewhat deranged and very angry brother - the two live adjacent and have not spoken for something like 40 years. Over the course of the movie, they bond, at least to a degree, when faced with extreme hardship and danger. The brothers are so strange and taciturn that it's hard to engage with them or with the contentious behavior and the dramatic conclusion, herding a small flock of rams and ewes in an Icelandic blizzard, doesn't carry much tension because we don't care much, at that point in the film, about the outcome. My favorite character was the Australian sheepdog that carries messages back and forth between the bros. (who have the interesting names of Gummi and Kiddi, as if they're the lost Marx brothers).

Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner still holds up as a great film

For my gen., the Tony Richardson 1962 b-w British film The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner was the first and maybe the best small-scale, independent, auteurist film we'd ever seen - somehow it played at a few movie theaters in the Oranges (in particular the"art house" Ormont, in EO, can't imagine what's there today) and it opened up for us all kinds of cinematic possibilities: a great, contemporary movie didn't have to be big, bright, in color, w/ major stars and sparkling dialogue. Here was a film dark, understated, heavily accented (this was a few years before the British invasion), about a working-class teenager struggling with family, love, sex, ambition, and most of all the hopelessness of life in post-War England - the post-war prosperity had definitely not reached the streets of Nottingham. Why couldn't there be films like this in the US? Comparing Loneliness w/ the very popular at the time West Side Story showed all that was lacking (or all that was over-abundant) in American movies. It took a few years before we were able to see - mostly in college (we rarely ventured into NYC for movies) the great European and Japanese films, and understood the place Loneliness had in the canon - not necessarily the leading edge, as it turned out, but one of the few exemplars of the auteur tradition made in English, at least up to that time. W/ some trepidation we watched the film last night and I'm pleased that it holds up so well over time: even today, the story line is gripping, the characters indelible, the conflict between the young "delinquent" - a great Tom Courtenay (still acting - see 45 Years), Colin Smith - and the headmaster of the "reform school" who thinks he's truly helping his charges through good, clean exercise and competition and is really serving only his own ego -is as powerful today as ever. Some beautiful scenes and extremely powerful images: the factories of Nottingham seen from hilltops, the escape to the seaside for a weekend, the whimsical but pathetic shopping spree, the tiny TV and the super-annoying advertisements, Colin's run through the woods. Richardson deserves great credit, but so does Alan Sillitoe, who did a great job adapting his own brief novel (long story?) for the screen (most writers screw up adapting their own works); the novel is from the 1950s and we should probably think of the film as set then as well - closer to the poverty of the war years than the film date of 1962.

Shakespeare and jealousy: what went wron w the winter's tale?

Saw two shows yesterday at the Ashland Shakespeare Festival startin w the the terrific new play Vietgone by Qui Nguyen, an autobiographical account of how his parents fled the country at the fall of the government in 1975 leaving behind family and loved ones and how they met in a refugee camp and built a new life - an extraordinarily powerful, funny, entertaining, and moving ensemble piece for 5 multi-talented actors. Many surprises and I won't give any away but it will hold you rapt from prologue thru the final father son interaction. Other show was the winter's tale , a largely competent production that changed the sicilia to bohemian city- country dynamic to Asia - american west. This can work ok but would have been much better if they'd been more consistent about the west w true western costumes, music ,etc instead of the idiotic outfits the rustics wore. This is no doubt one of s's most weird and difficult plays with some terrific moments in first three acts, strange monologues Esp from the nearly insane leontes, high dramatic effect, the powerful trial scene - and then you have the interminable act iv w the insufferable autolycus and so many elements that make no sense dramatic or otherwise: above all Paulina about whom all I can say is nobody likes a told-you-so and her ridiculous statue scheme. The play is in part about tyranny and abuse of power and also about social class and seems to be heading in the right direction as King polixenes seems to recognize the beauty and loveliness of the peasant girl and thru metaphor argues for intermarriage of classes - but then he scorns her and she's not good enough for his son etc until alas! They find she too is of royal blood. Obviously s was working things out here that he would use to much better effect in the tempest. Have others noted btw that WT is like a replay of hamlet? If hamlet senior had the same suspicions as leontes he could have saved his life and there would have been no Hamlet.