Veep still gets it right - if exaggerated

Julia Louis-Dreyfus's Veep continues solid into the second season, with the humor still building - especially as we get more accustomed to the types that populate her office, each of them quite believable (if exaggerated) and at least one cast against type (the polling guru who controls the President, cast not as a wonkish nerd but as a handsome outdoors-man). What continues to make the series especially strong, aside from JLD's great acting, is the range of her character and of the reactions she provokes in us: sometimes she's winning and charming and we root for her, sometimes she's a tyrant and a termagant and we wonder how she could be so cruel to those she works with. And in this she's typical of many politicians, I think - able to put on the charm when needed, but touch as nails, and often terribly narcissistic, in constant need of reassurance and reinforcement. Her tirade on AF2 when she learns her comic song has gone viral - of course she should never have expected it to remain confidential - is great. And the dislikable characters - Jonah from the West Wing, her aide's girlfriend the overbearing Dana, the Senator from Ohio - are so loathsome it's entertaining every time they're on screen. Five seasons? I don't know if it can sustain that, but going along fine and the midpoint on 2.

The romantic idea of the artist and the silence of God - in Autumn Sonata

Adding a note to previous post on Bergman's 1978 film, one of his last, Autumn Sonata: Watched the Criterion "commentary" version and made several observations. First, after the long night of drinking and confession and gut-spilling, culminating in Eva (Ullmann)'s charge that her mother, Charlotte (Ingrid Bergman) caused the illness of her daughter Lena through her abandonment and neglect, yes, we see Charolotte as a narcissist and a monster - she's so cold to Eva and indifferent to Lena, so wrapped up in her own world - as noted in the haunting he final scenes with her riding off on a train with her English manager, she'd much rather be there, talking business, than with her daughters - but there's a sense in which Bergman (Ingmar) is actually on her side: Yes she's a horrible parent and an unfaithful spouse (like the two Bergmans?) but she gives all for her art. The scene in which she plays the Chopin prelude, showing Eva how it's done and totally showing her up, says it all: the art is brilliant, and the artist steps over everyone, even (especially?) her daughter to get there. Eva is the more sympathetic character by far - and Bergman emphasizes the sympathy for her - just as Ingrid B is playing part of her life in this role, so is L Ullmann, w/ her then preteen daughter silently portraying the young Eva in a # of flashbacks, emphasizing on the literal level the bond she - unlike Ingrid B - feels w/ her daughter) - but Eva is also rather dull and bland, only opening up after a night of drinking, and then closing everything down again with a cringing letter of apology to her mothers. It's as if Bergman is saying: that's the wrong path, the wrong decision, at least if you have talent and genius. It's the romantic idea of the artist for sure, but it's an idea he lived: suffer, and give up everything else, for your art. On re-viewing the film, other haunting moments emerge, esp Lena's calling out for her mother at the end: Mama, come!, bleating it, while lying on the floor at the head of the stairs. And the silence and absence of Eva's minister husband - completely uninvolved in, even unaware of, the drama and struggle going on all around him - like God.

A late chamber film from Bergman still worth watching: Autumn Sonata

Ingmar Bergman's 1978 film, Autumn Sonata, is another one of his "chamber" films, involving only 4 actors (save for a near-silent role toward the end), and w/ almost all of airspace taken up to 2 of the greats, Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullmann as mother daughter in a life-long love-hate struggle: Ullmann is married to a minister, quite a bit older than she, living a quiet and contemplative life in rural southern Sweden (or Norway?), Ullmann psychologically very frial, a hint that she'd suffered some kind of breakdown, that she married to get away from a difficult relationship. Mother Ingrid comes to visit - they had not seen each other for 7 years, mothers is a famous and completely self-absorbed concert pianist. At first mother and daughter embrace in happiness, but in moments they're picking apart their relationship the damage the mother has inflicted over a lifetime: abandoning her husband and, later, her 2 daughters (one of whom is near death from what seems to be MS, now living w/ Liv U., to the mother's chagrin), humiliating her daughter (a terrific scene in which the mother puts a knife in the wound, showing the timid and solicitous Ullmann all that's wrong with her piano playing), and on it goes. Ullmann's character builds in strength as toward the end she really lets rip and tells her mother all that she'd done wrong - but of course this changes nothing, and the disengaged, feckless husband watches from afar - like a distant and silent god? This film isn't as well known as Bergman's great b/w chamber films from the 60s - his reputation was beginning to ebb at this time, when he seemed so removed from the political and social uprisings that were shaking the world in the late 70s, but it's still powerful and beautifully filmed by the great Sven Nyquist.

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.