Elliot’s Reading & Watching - March 2024

Edith Wharton’s seldom-read novel The Mother’s Recompense (1925) tells the barely plausible narrative of the 40ish Kate Clephane who has spent 20 or so years living abroad and returns now to her native New York, where she fits in well with the shallow, narrow-minded wealthy set until her world suffers and extreme bolt as Mrs. K learns that her ex-love, whom she’d broken w’/ some two decades back has fallen in love w/ and plans to marry Mrs. K’s daughter - and Mrs. K does all she can, which isn’t enough, to prevent the wedding - something almost impossible to imagine except that her society is so closely knit that the story gains credibility. It’s by no means the literary rival of Wharton’s greater works, e.g. The House of Mirth, but it’s worth a read for the gossipy and mean tone tone and behavior of the NY social set. The marriage in question should have been or could have been on shaky ground once Anne recognizes that she’d be marrying her mothers ex (who would have feelings about that, to) but, to my surprise, that didn’t seem to be such a hindrance for Kete Clephane et al., - I though the narrative would follow another path: There was talk off the war wounded returning to London for medical treatment - Kate’s intended among them  - and I thought the hubbub about the wedding was because the guy had been wounded in the Crotch, making sexual contact virtually impossible - that that would be a “recompense” for the 21st century - not the 19th. 

The Amazon Prime series Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2024), from Francesca Sloan and Donald Glover, who co-authored the show and co-stared with Maya Erskine, is full of fascinating concepts, life or death combat and chases and face to face all out figting - though never gratuitous - just a lot of to watch the 2 leads interact in some strange and frightening scenarios - lots of fun throughout, for any mature viewer - and don’ be put off by the violence as it’s always well integrated into the story line. The high concept is that the two leads using the moniker smith are assigned by a secretive “force” with whom they’ve enlisted to release their personal burdens and to take on enormous dangerous assigned tasks (harkening back to Mission Impossible - Your mission, should you accept it …) although now of course 30 years or so later, the technology has become more secretive and intrusive. Great to watch the interaction between the two leads, one temperamental and the other laid back and seemingly simpler and more loyal; it’s a series yearning for a sequel. 

Criminal Record (2024. Apple) is an intelligent and exciting if at times densely plotted thriller that begins w/ a “911” emergency call that seems to be a fight in progress - man severely beating his wife/partner - and the plot line takes many twists and turns in which a man with a criminal record is arrested but maybe he’s the wrong guy? - someone who was wrongly convicted and served out another man’s term? The key players. Peter Capaldi, a wizened detective who’s seen it all and who nows may be on the take and Cush Jumbo, who’s just recently joined the force and who pursues this alleged beating and assorted other family turmoil, including her own family. This series is a test case for me: the plot was so rich and full of sub plots etc. - I wish I’d waited till all episodes are posted instead of going week by week and therefore really hard to recollect the details of the episode: Even though I don’t like to see more than one episode per night, the Netflix binge system is the best for me. 

Ear for Eye (2021) is a British film from debbie tucker green (her spelling and punct., a filmed version (on Criterion) of her staged version, which in three acts is tremendously moving and captivating: the first section is almost like a neighborhood conversation among 10 or so Black men and women, in particular recounting horrifying stories about interactions with the police, the 2nd section is just 2 men - a Black woman and a psychiatrist, as she tries with little success to get a word in, she’s dismissed out of hand by the  (white) psych., the 3rd act is a recitation of an array of actual state laws in the U.S. in the 20th c. about segregation and slavery - sad but true. The actors are amazing, with long and extremely complex dialogues and criss-crossed monologs. All would or should be impressed by this team, on this little-recognized (in the US) project.

Bertrand Tavernier’s film A Week’s Vacation (1980) an appealing though perplexing drama about a young literature teacher (Laurence) at what appears to be a middle school in central Lyon, France. L., played by the lovely Nathalie Baye, near the beginning of her long and successful career, is at the outset entirely disgusted by her students - they know nothing, they are unaware of the world around them, their writing is terrible - and she at the outset is so perplexed that she takes a one-week “vacation,” or leave we might say - though honestly it’s hard to tell whether this was approved by her school of if she’s faking sick days for a week. After a series of  well crafted scenes Baye meets and interacts with several people from her orbit, notably her father, confined to a sick bed in his rural home, her mother who pushes for L. to marry - she’s 31, what’s she waiting for? etc., the father one of her students, the owner-operator of a small pub at the ground floor of her apartment, and others - notably her boyfriend/partner. Throughout she seems wonder if somewhat withdrawn among these family, friends, and others but she contains to get about her work and considers quitting her job mid-term - to the point where we really feel her struggle. Not wanting to give too much away, but the transition of her sentiments and of the capacity of her students is hardly credible and, so, what happened? Was her illness and retreat a shame symbol, a what? Particularly troublesome at least for me is her reconciliation with her paramour, whose actions and interactions throughout are barbaric and thoughtless. Surely, she can do better than this, right? 

Francois Truffaut’s masterpiece, Shoot the Piano Player (1960), is as fresh nd lively when seen today as it was to any of us who first saw the film in the 60s or 70s: It’s a film that has everything: wit, suspense, drama, emotion, and many surprises along the way, as we follow the life of a guy who plays pano bar in a small Paris bar/bistro. He’s wanted by some dangerous thugs about who we know nothing, and takes refuge in his familiar setting the small nightclub. But there’s a huge backstory, as we learn that he was (once) a piano prodigy who for unknown reasons has fallen off the map - and his girlfriend tries to help him by agreeing to have sex with an agent who agrees to promote the pianist’s career - which he does, but at great cost. The highlights include several chases, on foot or by car, a great shootout at a remote cabin in a snowbound landscape, lots of tough talk, and the central mystery - Who is the piano player and who wants him dead and why - and how?

The Netflix documentary American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders (2024) tells the still-mysterious story of a 20-something freelance investigative reporter who focuses his life some 30 or so years ago to pursue a trail that takes him close to what appears to be a vast conspiracy by key players in the CIA who have set up connections to arms manufacturers to surreptitiously move war weaponry to various trouble spots around the world. Obviously the CIA became disturbed to say the least at the info the journalist, Danny Casolaro, uncovers - and he was the recipient of numerous warnings, telling him to back off - which he did not do - and was later found slashed to death in a room in a nearby (Virginia) hotel. A younger journalist, Christian Hansen, who’d befriended Casolaro, who helped him learn the trade - and over the next 30 years pursued Danny’s leads and participated in the making of this documentary, which leads us to places and relationships and threats and even murder in a plot that one would hardly believe in a fiction movie or book, but here it is - hard to believe but seemingly completely true, based on extensive research and numerous, sometimes shaky, confidences. 

What a pleasure it has been to re-read Willa Cathers’s My Antonia (1918) after many years - each page, each paragraph, is like a beautifully honed essay or poem: the many views of the prairie landscapes, the small adventures of village life and life in the countryside, the interaction of social classes largely along the lines of country of origin (almost everyone is first-gen American), the hard life on the farm, the contrasts between those (whom we see) in later life in the first buds of prosperity, the sorrow of those who cannot make it in America - life on a prairie farm is much tougher than anyone could anticipate, the idiosyncrasies of the major characters esp the title character who rises from house servant to a mom of her own brook of 11, the endless farm tasks, the few amusements (dances, holidays), the ever presence of death. Open the book to almost any page and read a paragraph - you’ll see. One curious aspect of the novel, however, is WC’s reluctance to claim the novel as her own: Although the narrator (first-person) is a boy, later a grown man, named Jimmy, of course we recognize that Jimmy never existed - the novelist is Cather, and, perhaps because of her personality, probably a “trans” long before we had that word, felt reluctant to embrace this novel that is clearly in WC’s voice and always a little surprising when the narrator is addressed by name. All told though an unmistakable classic and a great document of historicity in American prairie farm life, constantly moving, and evolving, early in the 19th c. 

Roald Dahl’s short story The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (1977) was adapted into a feature short-film by well-known director Wes Anderson (2023) and managed to win an Academy Award for best live action short film.  he “story” of HS is of a man who over years under guidance of a guru learns the art of shutting off all of his consciousness touch an extreme that he can “read” hidden texts while securely blindfolded - a skill that he uses to “see” what’s on the front of a dealt deck of cards. W/ that as a premise we see HS make a fortune at cards in a casino - and then he gives away his fortune. OK, big deal - so to speak - but WA tells the tale in a lively fashion with actors both playing the role and occasionally turning toward the viewer with transitory remarks, e.g., “I said,” making the tale both a short story enacted and a story read aloud. All cute and preposterous, like much of WA’s work, which leads me inevitably to think that of course it won an Oscar as the directors of other finalists were unknowns and probably split among themselves small portions the small portions selected for the other finalists. This award should be for those who have not yet directed a feature film. 

Did not finish reading Fifty-Two Stories by Anton Chekhov (1883-1898), tr. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (2020) as it is work entirely for completists and scholars - these 52, of which I’ve read about 10 - starting at there beginning of the chronically arranged collection and, finding the first10 or so stories to be pieces that AC tossed off when young and broke, and they look it - then read the last 5 or so stories that at least are works of literature but still there’s a reason that these stories have never been collected among AT’s best work - they’re OK, workmanlike, but clearly nothing like his greatest stories, Lady with a Lap Dog, The Duel, The Kiss, the list could go on. I’m glad this current collection exists and completes ()I think) a total collection of AT’s stories, but it would be a poor selection for anyone starting out on a reading of AT’s stories. 

God Save Texas (2024, HBO) is a three-part series of documentaries about the state - each could reviewed separately, in any order, or on its own - directed by the film director Richard Linklater (a section on the heath penalty, which /Texas still embraces , boasting of the most executions in the nation), a section on the pollution from the oil industry has affected the health, lives, and property values, particularly in the Black community, which has been trampled w/ plans for a new sports stadium that will displace along-established Black community (directed by Alex Stapleton, a young but experienced documentarian, and newcomer Illana Sosa, who focuses on immigration issues and border conflicts in El Paso - with all three are based on the eponymous nonfiction book by journalist Lawrence Wright - all 4 of whom are native Texans. Each film is a fine portrait of a community under stress and facing change - with Linklater’s take on the death penalty is probably the weirdest, as the other two take on issues that are taking place elsewhere in the US albeit for lower stakes. In Linklater’s segment - which perhaps is a little too long and could have cut sooner - once it make its point - shows uf the panoply of prison workers, relatives of the condemned, victims, politicians, and even men on death row: and the point is that everyone in the city, leaving open the question of whether execution is by its very nature cruel and unusual punishment (not so unusual inTexas btw.)

Bertrand Tavernier’s four-hour documentary, The Undeclared War (1992) is probably not for everyone but in its way it’s a masterpiece of documentary film-making and war reportage. Except for a very few film clips of the fighting Algeria, the film is based entirely on lengthy interviews with a # of men who were active in the war in various capacities. You don’t need to know much or even anything about the “war” except that it was an action by the French government in the 1950s and early 60s to put down insurrection in Algeria, as the Algerians fought, using some terrorist tactics, to break away from France and become an independent nation (see Battle of Algiers for context - the other side of the conflict). The 2 filmmakers “simply” talk at great length with various men who participated in the way as recruits; i starts of slowly and somewhat boring as the men talk about leaving home for battle, the living conditions during the fighting, all very simple and familiar, but as trust and memories build the filmmakers push harder to get the men (no women) to talk about the most unsavory and difficult actions in and aspects of the war - we get the sense that the men had not thought about the war for many years and this filmmaking pushed them to speak about elements that they’d long repressed, gradually and slowly pushing for the most harsh memories: fighting, night patrol, hunger and fear, and finally injury, death, and worst of all torture. We see, some 30 years later the war, some of the men seeming OK but others angry, bitter, still wounded physically and mentally, ruined lives. Btw, for simplicity I call it a declared war, which it certainly was, but the government of France called it an insurrection - Algeria was a French state, not a foreign power, so to call this a war would be to acknowledge the sovereignty of the opposition - so the men who fought received much fewer in benefits than those who found in a declared war. A great film - though quite demanding and upsetting at times  - not through graphic images but through fears, memories, and losses. 

Cash Calloway’s Rain Dogs (2023, on HBO) os another film set inderelitcion in the vast and hideous public housing in London, recalls for me the excellent series Top Boy though the focus is less on Rx dealing and gangs and more about the sufferings of a 30 something mother of a bright child whom she loves dearly but struggles against many demons to provide the level daughter with a good home - even though that takes the mom, the excellent Daisy May Cooper as Costello, who has dreams of writing a novel about her working class and Rx-addled life - and the dream, unlikely as it is (Costello made t, but her dreams fell apart, as she is torn thru most of her meager living by working as an exotic so-called dancer; a key figure is her compatriot and best friend Jack Farthing as Selby, a serious addict with hallucinations and blackouts and rages but is all the same the best person in the lives her Costello and her daughter - this unlikely combo will win support and sentiment for all viewers even if the central mode - you can earn a living by writing about your experiences, with no training of apprenticeship so to speak (and  know that there are exceptions) - it’s a powerful indictment of the British bureaucracy that can’t keep tenants warm and safe and the child-services once more break up families rather than helping them up. 

I couldn’t stand to watch more than 15 minutes of Richard Lester’s post-nuclear disaster film, The Bed Sitting Room, based on play (?) by Spike Milligram and John Antrobus - a supposed all-star cast of British comedy actors but nothing in this movie comes close to the work of, say, Monte python - the jokes are lame, the depiction of life after nuclear war was juvenile and impossible, compare it against the man post-apocalyptic films or books and you’ll see that they make no attempt to wonder what the world would be like - despite some nice b/w footage of a city abandoned and in ruins, to jokes and jesting are just obscure and pointless - IOt’s obvious why this film is little-known today. DNF

Graham Greene’s 21 Stories includes some (all?) of his short fiction from the 30s till the mid-50s. We see in this collection the germination of ideas built out in more detail, later, including the sensitive and troubling lead story in the collection, The Basement Room, that makes us feel with great sorrow the troubled life of a child in a turbulent household right through the last story (added to a previous edition of this stories The Destructors, which makes  us wonder about GG’s sanity and sympathies - an incredibly cruel story that goes against the grain of all compassion for young men - you will hate GG, at least for a while, when you read this on e(last in the collection). We also see tribal runs at his famous novel A Burntout Case (in a leper colony). Some are just quick knockouts probably for the cash, and none rise to the level of Power and Glroy, End of the Affair, Comedians, and many more - but that’s a high level and an enormous output - so I’d say the story collection might be a way to test out onoe’s taste for GG’s sharp but often cruel fiction. 

Bertrand Tavernier, perhaps the most under-rated of the great French filmmakers of the 19th c., has made a film, L.627 (which references a segment of the criminal code) that feels in its look and style as if it were a documentary - true-to-life, gritty, jumpy cinematography as if half the filmier shot with hand-held equipment and that presents the police of Paris, with particular attention to a senior cop, Lulu, who focuses on abuse of immigrants and the sorrowful state of the women in the vice trade - familiar ground, yes, but this films one of the few to zero in on abuse by the police in particular that seemingly devout family man Lulu has a sexual relation with not one buy several of the prostates working his term; we get a sense of how difficult and frustrating the police work may be and the risks and dangers that cops face every day but also we see their contempt for the concept of law, their way off base in taking advantage of their prime suspects, and wasting a great deal of time playing cards and drinking on the job - it’s a little like the Wire but not even close to hagiography - a film that, in the U.S., would have provoked outrage and pickets I would think. All that said, it’s a major if perverse police procedural - worth anyone’s time. 

I got about half-way (115 or so) in Edith Wharton’s Twilight Sleep (1927) before putting down in dismay. There’s a reason this novel was out of print for ca.30 years - not because it was ahead of its time, it wasn’t, but because, well, it was bad! What at her best was an outstanding chronicle of the ways and whims of the uppermost rank of NY society in the early 20th C - ion such works for ex. as The House of Mirth, The Cuson of the Country, even the outlier Ethan Frome - but to succeed with her novels that include a vast # of characters all in the same milieu (she doesn’t write about class consciousness; rather, about tempests in the teapots of those with china teapots) - but to make this work the characters must be delineated clearly so that we can keep them straight and distinct in the mind of the harried reader. This problem, of lesser import in the greater novels, inapparent with TS - I literally just don’t know one character from the next by the halfway point. I’s a challenge she chose as a writers and so be it (a table of characters at the outset would help, a la Hundred Years of Solitude, or most of the Russians) but with so little at stake for the characters - fretting about their overwhelming work, these plains by lawyers who come home every day all the way up town for lunch, and who take 2 or 3 weeks off from their “busy” practice - yes, times were different, but the author has to offer some guidance, some reminders, or if not that she must clearly delineate the characters through reminders to the reader or distinct characteristics that we can hang on to as we slide down the slope. 

Bertrand Tavernier’s Daddy Nostalgie (1990) is a low-key look into the lives of a small family - mother, daughter, father (Daddy) and how they act and re-act w/ one another with at the center of the narrative is that the father - Dirk Bogarde as “Daddy” in his (Bogarde’s) last film as he is dying of an undefined illness, probably ca. There’s some tenderness, esp in the lovely adult daughter’s attempts to hold the family together  the mo. is cranky and obviously frightened about her future, the daddy is grumpy and seems to have a much better relationship w/ his (older?) daughter than he does with his rather cold and unexpressive wife. This is another fine Tavernier film that slips under the radar of most cineasts, and it most viewers would, I think and hope be moved to at least choke up a bit in this no-holds-bard on depiction of an ordinary family facing mortality. 

The British series The Gentlemen (2024) is the kind of film that could easily and usually does run off the rails but here the producing crew and the two lead actors - Theo James and Kaya Scodelario- he’s a part of British royalty well trained in the Army on self-defense and KS a colder than ice manager of a massive rx enterprise - their interactions are pretty intense but they never quite cross the line - though they might , as a 2nd season seems to be in the offing. This is th kind os show that you can’t really believe in (A massive drug ring operating undetected in underground (in both senses) hot houses - don’t worry that it’s all preposterous and just accepts as a fun and funny (if at times gruesomely so) improbable British action film that contains some peculiar scenes both disconcerting and ludicrous - notably the chicken dance, the explosion from older brother and being passed over by father’s will, and the different, eccentric types involved in the various aspects of the drug traffic.