Masahiro Shinoda: 'Pale Flower' / 'Kawaita hana' / 乾いた花 (1964)

Masahiro Shinoda's Pale Flower / Kawaita hana / 乾いた花 (1964). 

Whereas Seijun Suzuki's 1964 Gate of Flesh / Nikutai no mon / 肉体の門  is set in the immediate wake of the Second World War and shot in garish colors, Shinoda's 1964 film is set in the early 1960s and shot in black and white. Japan has begun to rebuild and we can recognize it as contemporary modern. But the code of gangsters (yakuza) is key to both films, and to both periods in Japanese society. So is the underground scene in general -- dangerous and alluring. 

'“There was a strong influence of [Charles] Baudelaire’s Fleurs du mal throughout this film,” director Masahiro Shinoda would later remember of his 1964 squid-ink noir Pale Flower.'" -- Chuck Stephens, "Pale Flower: Loser Take All" (2011), The Criterion Collection. Link here.

"Bewitchingly shot and edited . . ." The Criterion Collection has special features, all nifty. 

Who will pay the Piper? But first, who is the Piper? 

"A sumptuous sonnet to unrequited amour fou, Pale Flower remains Shinoda’s most enduring creation." -- Chuck Stephens, "Pale Flower: Loser Take All" (2011), The Criterion Collection. 

Today's Rune: Strength. 

Seijun Suzuki: Gate of Flesh / Nikutai no mon / 肉体の門 (1964)

Seijun Suzuki's Nikutai no mon / 肉体の門 / Gate of Flesh (1964): set in the post-World War II devastation of Tokyo, a dazzling look at how people struggled to survive. Part pulp, part Surrealism and part everything but the kitchen sink, Gate of Flesh has a fresh, crazy feel even now. 

Destruction is everywhere. Much of the population suffers from some variation of post-traumatic stress, shell shock and "nostalgia" -- psychic damage from firebombings and other forms of mass violence, both dealt out and received. 

The "returnees," as veterans from the various battlefronts were called, are warily received, while organized gangs (yakuza) run rampant, black markets flourish, and prostitution is pervasive and brutally competitive. American occupiers, including Military Police (MPs) roam through the urban tangle with weapons at the ready, half suppressing and half participating. It's a sort of massively scaled industrialized version of Deadwood.    

Gate of Flesh is based on a 1947 novel by Taijiro Tamura (1911-1983). What's striking about the Seijun Sazuki (1923-2017) adaptation is how much wilder it is than Japanese films made during the actual American occupation. Why? Because immediately after the war, American authorities censored everything in occupied Japan with a heavy hand, but by 1964, that was gone. 

The Criterion Collection DVD set has lots of extra goodies. It's also worth noting that there are five adaptations of the Tamura novel, three of them made after Sazuki's version. 

Today's Rune: Partnership. 

'A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album' (2002)

In the last post, we considered the merits of Russell Martin's Picasso's War: The Destruction of Guernica, and the Masterpiece That Changed the World. New York: Dutton, 2002.  In this one, let's consider the similarly structured A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album by Ashley Kahn (New York: Viking, 2002). 

Kahn's study provides the backstory, big and little, of A Love Supreme (1965) -- John Coltrane's life, the jazz scene specifically and the greater scene in general; how the album came to be recorded on December 9, 1964 with experimental follow-up on the next night; its release and immediate impact; Coltrane's career until his death in 1967; and the album's enduring, long-term impact, including re-release in CD format and beyond. A wonderful read.

Over the years, I've acquired multiple copies of A Love Supreme. Here, images of the verso of two of my CD copies.

From Coltrane's liner notes, quoted on page 123: '"Words, sounds, speech, men, memory, thoughts, fears and emotions -- time -- all related . . . all made from one."'

The impact of Trane and A Love Supreme is far-reaching, especially among musicians, writers and other artists. 

Carlos Santana: '"The first time I heard A Love Supreme, it really was an assault. It could've been from Mars as far as I was concerned, or another galaxy . . . It was like trying to tell a monkey about spirituality or computers, you know . . .'" (page xviii). 

Ravi Shankar: "'I have been so moved by this record . . . It's beautiful . . .'" (page xxiii).

Patti Smith in high school: "'. . . Coltrane spoke to my soul and my developing intellect.'" (page 73).

Branford Marsalis: "'You know Led Zeppelin's 'Whole Lotta Love?' . . . That's the bass line in the first section of A Love Supreme . . .'" (page 99)

Rick James: "'Most of the white boys I was hanging out with in Toronto in 1965 were down with Coltrane . . . Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Young. That's one of the good things about the musical experience there . . . everybody had A Love Supreme.'" (page 160).

Patti Smith (again): "'I can't say why it's so popular, but perhaps it fulfills people's need for prayer . . . A Love Supreme has a feeling of moral authority in the most humble and spiritual way.'" (page 212).  

"Four decades on, A Love Supreme continues to be felt and to matter . . . [i]n sound, spirit, and name, its arc of influence and inspiration remains unbroken and, like the transitory elements that helped create it, poignantly unrepeatable." (page 213).

An added bonus for me is that A Love Supreme was recorded on December 9 -- my birthday!

Today's Rune: Initiation. 

'Tokyo: A Biography' (2016). From the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake to Fukushima

Stephen Mansfield, Tokyo: A Biography. Disasters, Destruction and Renewal: The Story of an Indomitable City (Tokyo: Tuttle, 2016).

Imperial Japan took control of all of Korea in 1910, exploiting its resources. After the 1923 earthquake and its resultant fires, Korean workers in Japan became targets of Japanese nationalists (Japan First types). "Koreans were convenient scapegoats, and were easily sought out in slums where they lived by members of the police force, the notorious Black Dragon Society, military sports clubs, or anyone with a personal grudge or score to settle . . . lacking rational judgement or orderly deportment, [they] dragged Koreans from their homes and workplaces and hacked them to death. Others were strung up on telegraph poles or boiled alive in drums. Those who failed impromptu linguistic tests in Japanese were sentenced in mock trials and beheaded."  (Tokyo, pages 107-108). Also targeted were socialists, feminists, and other social reformers. 

By the 1930s, with dissenting voices suppressed or crushed, Japan as a whole became increasingly militaristic and jingoistic; its leadership became increasingly reckless. 

When Japanese forces seized Nanjing/Nanking, China, in December, 1937, they began a wholesale slaughter of its inhabitants -- killing as many as 300,000 civilians. 

The writer Iris Shun-Ru Chang (1968-2004), committed suicide seven years after completing The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (1997) and other works. She had been severely depressed, and no wonder why.

When the Japanese and Anglo-American Empires violently collided into each other, the scope of the Asia-Pacific War widened and deepened. More and more people were consumed, by the millions. 

Yet there was still a flicker of dissent among some Japanese. "Not everyone was keen to make the sacrifice and go to the front line. Prohibitions on tattooing were introduced during the war as a response to an increasing number of young men seeking ways to avoid conscription. People wearing tattoos were considered noncomformists who might spread dissent among the military ranks." (Tokyo, pages 126-127).  

Naturally, many writers and artists were dubious of the war and Japanese militarization, too. Nagai Kafu wrote: "However cruel and arbitrary the methods of the government may be, they cannot restrain the imagination, While there is life, there will be freedom." (Quoted in Tokyo, page 127). 

But like the Japanese military, the American military, too, became increasingly vicious. By early 1945, "the Americans [were] now bent on causing mass casualties to civilian populations as they later would with Hiroshima and Nagasaki," exploding napalm to "extract a maximum death toll. . . the first of America's high-tech massacres" and "slaughter bombings." (Tokyo, page 130).

After Japan's surrender, the American Occupation began. In immediate response, the Relaxation and Amusement Association (RAA) was formed to "entertain" American military personnel with "comfort stations" and brothels, which were also given euphemisms such as "Tea Shop Sanitation" and "Café Associations." These were large-scale operations with some 70,000 organized "comfort women" and tens of thousands of freelancing or yakuza-(gangster)-run "panpan girls." For the many gay servicemen, there were dansho and a quick blooming of gay bars. (Tokyo, pages 140-141). Very little of this seems to have made its way into celebrations of "America's Greatest Generation" -- or family histories. For most, apparently, what happened in Tokyo stayed in Tokyo.

Galloping through the Cold War, Godzilla movies came out amid understandable atomic jitters (Hiroshima and Nagasaki being very close in the rear-view mirror); and Japan's economy took off, thanks in part to servicing American military efforts in Korea and Vietnam in the 1950s and 1960s respectively, and while showcasing the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. By the 1980s, Japan's economy was swaggering, at least until the next bust. Though Americans back in the USA feared the pointed competition from Japanese companies, they were all the while buying more Japanese cars and electronics.  

In 1995, Tokyo was again traumatized, this time by the Doomsday Cult Aum Shinrikyo / "Supreme Truth," which used sarin nerve gas to attack the subway system. This was the same kind of gas recently used in Syria to attack Syrian villagers. In the Tokyo attack, 5,000 people were sickened and twelve died outright. (Tokyo, page 181).

Jumping to March 11, 2011, the catastrophic Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami caused an accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility, a horrendous and toxic radiation event still ongoing in 2017. Fukushima is situated about 150 miles (200+ kilometers) from Tokyo. (Tokyo, page 183).

Arriving at today, May 5, 2017, Fukushima is still a dangerous and daunting problem, but Tokyo is also under threat from a possible North Korean missile attack. For Tokyo, the fun never stops! 

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story (2015)

David Maraniss, Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story (Simon & Schuster, 2015). Highly readable book focusing on Detroit as microcosm from 1962 to 1964. Interesting angles include Detroit's enthusiastic bid for the 1968 Summer Olympics, development of the Ford Mustang and Detroit's role at the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair. Plenty of thought and space is devoted to race relations, economics, civil rights, music, architecture and dreams of a more holistic society.  

On May 1, 1992, Rodney King (1965-2012) asked during the '92 LA Riots, "Can we all get along? Can we get along? Can we stop making it, making it horrible for the older people and the kids?" Short answer then, before and since: "No." Easier to factionalize and fight or take flight than to harmonize and build cooperatively and peacefully. The dream lives on, though. At the bottom of Pandora's jar one thing remains: hope. 

Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story (2015) includes lots of big personalities, diverse people ranging from JFK to MLK, LBJ to Malcolm X, Lee Iacocca to the Fords, Walter Reuther and the Gordy family, C.L. and Aretha Franklin, Little Stevie Wonder, Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman, Jerry Cavanaugh, George Romney, Alex Karras, and so on.

Above all that is now lost, I would have loved to have experienced the Flame Show Bar -- but there is still Baker's Keyboard Lounge, thank God. 

Today's Rune: Warrior. 

The Week of Three Thursdays

I came across several Ford dealer booklets today, and hereby present two scanned covers from the bunch. Here: Ford Falcon '61: "The World's Most Successful New Car" (complete with racing Snoopy). Robert Strange McNamara (1916-2009), whose heavy hand would shortly be felt in Vietnam, had his fingers on the Falcon first. Some elements of the Falcon went into the Mustang, which hit the big time in 1964. 

The Falcon helped Ford recover from the disaster that was the Edsel. Here: "1960 EDSEL: new ~ nifty ~ thrifty." Fewer than 3,000 of the 1960 model were actually rolled off the assembly line.

Farewell, 2015!

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

A Reading of Proust: Take III

Wallace Fowlie (1908-1998), A Reading of Proust (London: Dennis Dobson, 1967; originally published in 1964).

Let's bring this show to a close, for now, with a few more observations:

"No one knows exactly what anyone else is thinking or plotting. Every one knows only partially, or suspects, or believes he [or she] knows. Such approximations of knowledge and ignorance account for the human comedy and . . . tragedy. These two terms have to be used simultaneously, because in Proust comedy is always tragic." (p. 128).

"According to Proust's canon, only the artist, when functioning as artist, is fully conscious." (p. 147).

"A work of art is the life of the artist. Marcel has just made the momentous discovery that a record of this life resides in the deepest part of himself . . . And he is the only one able to read this book, or to decipher it." (p. 262)

"The milieu, the world described by the novelist, is not important. What is important is the reflective power of the novelist, his [or her] ultimate value as a mirror." (p. 265). 

I think what he means by this is that choice of setting, world, genre, etc., can be anything, if it's done well. Whatever works. 

Finally: "An individual life is so bound up with the lives of the men [and women] of his [or her] time, and with the very existence of the world, that there is no end to his [or her] mystery, no clue to his [or her] absolute reality. Analogy is the only principle by which we begin to understand the mystery of human life." (p. 268). 

Today's Rune: Harvest. 

A Reading of Proust: Take II

Wallace Fowlie (1908-1998), A Reading of Proust (London: Dennis Dobson, 1967; originally published in 1964).

There's so much to cover here that I'll compress these ideas into three snippets, with brief responses.

"[W]hat is communicated between two individuals is at best fragmentary and usually susceptible of radical misunderstanding." (p. 100). 

This reality is both comic and tragic. Anyone can know -- even from social media alone -- how often glancing is our actual communication, usually coming down to Iggy Pop's cartoon news watcher, reducing most responses to either "Approval" or "Frown." (Social media time is like a roadrunner). One's immediate circle will understood much more, but such deeper understanding will still be incomplete -- while our self-understanding will probably also remain incomplete and subject to change. 

“[W]riting is not a transcription but a reordering of life . . . [O]bjective reality is never fully knowable. All that we can hope to have from it is illusions, and the artist’s work is the record of these illusions.” (p. 109).

This is true regardless of genre, format, or intention. We simply cannot transcribe real (or fictional) lives -- even our own -- or events -- with anything close to full accuracy in the sense of chronicle or diary. If we tried, we'd be spending more time writing about one day than in having lived it in the first place. (See James Joyce, Ulysses, 1918-1920). 

“The artist looks at the world freshly and does not see it in the same way as others, trained by habit and custom, see it. . .”  (p. 109).

This is the best part of artistic impulse, no doubt. Even if there may very well be a lag time (if ever, except for the sporadic and blessed peregrine) before this freshness is understood by anyone else beyond a small coterie, it's worth the effort of trying.

Today's Rune: Signals.   

A Reading of Proust: Take I

Wallace Fowlie, A Reading of Proust (London: Dennis Dobson, 1967; originally published in 1964).

I originally read this in the late 1980s after meeting Wallace Fowlie (1908-1998) in North Carolina, and still find it interesting and helpful, not only about Marcel Proust -- one of the great and enduring global authors -- but also in its observations about art and writing. Some brief samples follow.

"A literary work is not a copy of life, but the development and . . . deepening of an original intuition. The permanent law of all art is the necessity of choosing . . ." (p. 7).

"If a novel is looked upon as a creation . . . it will inevitably call to mind the analogy with the Creation of the world." (p. 8).

"The artist does not rival the universe, he [or she] is a universe unto himself [or herself] . . . The creation of the novelist, according to one of Marcel Proust's most cherished beliefs, is more 'real' than life . . ." (p. 15). 

"An artist expresses not only himself [or herself], but hundreds of ancestors, the dead who find their spokesman in him [or her]." Because of this, the conscious, psychically aware artist will oftentimes be creating with a certain gravitas.

"The Book ends by becoming, in the language of the poet [Mallarmé], an instrument of the spirit . . . in which the smallest detail has some meaning." (pp. 35-36).

"[Henri] Bergson's distinction between two egos, the social ego (le moi social) with its discursive knowledge, and the real ego (le moi profound) which is intuitive and and continuous, residing below the social self, will be brilliantly illustrated in Proustian psychology." (p. 37).

"[The poet Charles] Baudelaire and Proust were both deeply and persistently conscious of the vanity of man's ambitions, of most . . . achievements and even of . . . existence, and yet their work retains and consecrates the poetry, the magic  and the beauty of certain moments of life." (p. 40).

In Proust, "the  principle becomes clear to the narrator that the past which seems lost because it is time elapsed is not lost. It is within us, and ready, under the appropriate circumstances and the appropriate stimuli to return as the present . . . Time is constantly destroying the present. But memory is able to restore the past . . ." (p. 55).

And: "A lifetime is required to understand life" (p. 84) -- or even a substantial part of it. In a strange sense, life's past moments become more important in the act of remembering them, funding them with deeper meaning than could have been understood the first time around.

D'accord. Today's Rune: Signals. 

Françoise Gilot's 'Life with Picasso' (1964): Take Two

An ideal French conversation will aim to consider many interesting topics without beating any one to death. And so it is with Françoise Gilot and Carlton Lake's Life with Picasso (1964). Throughout the book, much is observed about Picasso, but from multiple vantage points. Two specific examples follow.

Gilot was, during her early meetings with Picasso -- the artist and man -- amused by the situation. Picasso quickly became "interested" in her, certainly, and wanted to "let her in on things," show off a little. "But whatever the pretext, it was quite clear that he was trying to discover to what degree I might be receptive to his attentions. I had no desire to give him grounds to make up his mind. I was having too much fun watching him try to figure it out" (page 22).

As an artist, Picasso keenly explained his philosophies and craft as they went along. One idea they discussed was the challenge of voluntary restraint in creating something (anything) new: ". . . we need one tool to do one thing," Picasso asserted, "and we should limit ourselves to that tool . . . [F]orcing yourself to use restricted means is the sort of restraint that liberates invention" (page 57). Working within a convention or genre, for instance, frees one to try fresh approaches within an already popular framework. Such was one small bit of Picasso's advice to Gilot as an artist developing in her own right. 

Life with Picasso also treats the avid reader to many other characters -- always with sharp description and reflection. Gilot's take on Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein, for one, is observant and downright playful. Her powers of observation range over many people, not to mention ideas, places and events. Fabulous book -- one might even say, ideal. 

Today's Rune: Protection. 

Françoise Gilot's 'Life with Picasso' (1964): Take One

Françoise Gilot and Carlton Lake's Life with Picasso (1964), a thoroughly fascinating, well-written and entertaining memoir, serves as a sort of gold standard for this kind of book. Reading it inspires quick resort to the internet for further research about the characters and artworks discussed within. 

Life with Picasso also serves as an inspiring "classroom" and "studio" for further reflection, possibly even action, as in the James Brown song, "Get Up Offa That Thing!"

At the time of this posting, Françoise Gilot is ninety-three years old. Pablo Picasso, who was in his sixties when they became paramours in 1944, died in 1973.

Today's Rune:  Breakthrough.  

Behold a Pale Horse: Take II

I. Fred Zinnemann's Behold a Pale Horse (1964) -- continued.

There are aspects of this obliquely plotted film that remind me of the Coen Brothers (compare 2007's No Country for Old Men, for instance).

At one point in the movie, I expected the main protagonist to swoop in like James Bond or a Clint Eastwood character, having everything figured out - but no! 

At another point, I projected an easy ending like that of Martin Scorsese's The Departed (2006) -- but no! 

II. Lourdes. Insert Catholicism and "magical thinking." 

Not only is this a key element in Behold a Pale Horse, but here, too, an important aspect of the Spanish Civil War is evoked. The unwieldy coalition fighting against Franco's Nationalists to preserve the Republic included anarchist elements that turned violently on people of the cloth. The number of priests and nuns murdered during the war came to about 7,000, if memory serves. A blot on the Republican side that might have been avoided through more skillful efforts at winning over priests and nuns rather than killing them.

III. Civil Wars and Memory.

The inclusion of a padre as a major character in the midst of fratricidal conflict reminds me very much of The Fratricides, a novel about the Greek Civil War (1946-1949) by Nikos Kazantzakis published in English in 1964 (translated by Athena Gianakas Dallas). Kazantzakis, better known perhaps for Zorba the  Greek and The Last Temptation of Christ, covers some of the same issues as seen in Behold a Pale Horse -- a film which is itself based on Emeric Pressburger's 1961 novel, Killing a Mouse on Sunday.

The thing about civil wars is -- every inhabited place seems to have to endure at least one of them, they are vicious, and most notably -- they never seem to come to complete resolution or reckoning in memory or history. Civil wars go on and on for decades and centuries, morphing into other outlets that oftentimes include renewed flashes of violence.

Take the American Civil War (1861-1865) -- there are people living in the USA today who say they would join the Confederacy even now. Why? Because slavery was abolished? Because they claim the right of individual states to decide whether something like slavery -- or anything else at all -- should be abolished or changed, rather than a national government? That's what they say in the 21st century.

Take the Greek Civil War. The average Greek (if there is such a person) seems to wonder now, what was it about? What was the point of all that viciousness in the late 1940s, even after WWII? "I don't know. It's confusing." 

And finally for now, take the Spanish Civil War. What if, instead of bloody violence, calmer people had worked out a compromise, helped foster the working classes and living conditions for most people in general rather than prop up mostly the rich and powerful, what if Spanish society had evolved a rational separation of Church and State, offered something hopeful to all elements of that society? What might have happened over time is what is happening over time, despite the civil war, and despite economic setbacks. And so, what was the point of all the death and destruction?  Ask Spanish people today, see what they say. 

What do you say?

Today's Rune: Harvest/Signals. 

Behold a Pale Horse: Take I

Now that fifty years have passed since it was first lost in the shuffle of the Cold War, let's consider Fred Zinnemann's Behold a Pale Horse (1964).

It's in black and white.

It's based on a novel that is in turn based on historical events.

Zinnemann (1907-1997) is better known by the arc of his entire movie career, with films such as High Noon (1952), From Here to Eternity (1953), A Man for All Seasons (1966) and The Day of the Jackal (1973).  

Anthony Quinn plays Captain Viñolas -- "the villain" -- but with Zorba the Greek (1964) in the pipeline, he seems to enjoy the part with his usual gusto. Gregory Peck, fresh off his role as the strong, saintly Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird (1962), here plays a much more ambiguous "anti-hero," a Spanish anarchist named Artíguez. Omar Sharif plays the youngest of the trio, Padre Francisco-- sandwiched between his epic roles in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Dr. Zhivago (1965).   

Behold a Pale Horse is even-handed and raises several questions about morality and ethics on all sides, but was banned outright in Spain by the regime of Generalissimo Francisco Franco (1892-1975), el Caudillo de la Guerra de Liberación contra el Comunismo y sus Cómplices. Since the governments of Spain and the USA had signed the Pact of Madrid in 1953, Franco had enough leverage to throw cultural roadblocks against Behold a Pale Horse, even in North America. And so it has largely been forgotten. Fifty years later -- no longer! Lest we forget, the First Amendment is #1 for a reason.

Today's Rune: Separation (Reversed). 

Facing Ali

Pete McCormack's Facing Ali (2009) is fantastic! Tonight, the fiftieth anniversary of the first Cassius Clay (soon thereafter to become Muhammad Ali) vs. Sonny Liston heavyweight fight in Miami, seems like a fitting time to cover it. 

This fascinating documentary looks at Ali from the perspective of ten of his major rivals in the ring. It serves spotlight cultural history, personal and sports history and riveting real life drama, woven together in a very cool, absorbing way (music and intertitles included).

Four of the ten participant boxers have since died, making Facing Ali all the more poignant and powerful. 

The ten, each of whom has something major to say -- underscored by brief discussions of their backgrounds and aspirations -- respond to Muhammad Ali (b. January 17, 1942) in complicated ways, even as they go over their together time in the ring. In alphabetical order, they are:

George Chuvalo (b. 1937)
Sir Henry Cooper (1934-2011) 
George Foreman (b. 1949)
Joe Frazier (1944-2011)
Larry Holmes (b. 1949)
Sonny Liston (ca. 1929-1970 -- archival footage)
Ron Lyle (1941-2011)
Ken Norton (1943-2013)
Earnie Shavers (b. 1945)
Leon Spinks (b. 1953)
Ernie Terrell (b. 1939)

I tell you, even if you have no interest in boxing, even if you hate boxing and think it's barbaric, this is an astonishing documentary. In fact, I just bought a copy on sale so I can see it again and spread the word.

Today's Rune: Fertility.   

Sœur Sourir: The Singing Nun

Back in Saxapahaw, North Carolina, at my parents' place while looking through books, I came across a small sheaf of facsimile watercolors created by Sœur Sourir.  The images, sort of like pen and ink drawings with a light wash of color, triggered a rush of memories from early childhood, starting with the echo of Sœur Sourir's super-mega-radio-hit "Dominique" and proceeding through my Aunt Denise's recounting of her student exchange experiences in Argentina; my two sisters singing and playing; and closely related matters like acoustic guitars, AM radio, small portable record players and reel-to-reel tapes.  

The Singing Nun, the Flying Nun, Patty Duke, all sorts of things are now floating back into the mind's eye.




Eventually I was curious to ask: what ever happened to Sœur Sourir / Sister Smile?  

That strange tale, my friends, will be the subject of another post soon to come. 

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.    
  

In the Mix: World's Fair 1965 (Round B)

More images derived from 8mm frames, New York 1964/1965 World's Fair.

The Big Tire ferris wheel, now located off I-94 between Detroit Metro Airport and Detroit proper. It's the world's largest Uniroyal and, indeed, the world's largest tire. From the World's Fair (where it included 24 little gondolas) to Allen Park, Michigan.

NASA booster rocket!

T-Rex -- now relocated to Glen Rose, Texas.

Today's Rune: Signals.

In the Mix: World's Fair 1965 (Round A)

The 1964/1965 New York World's Fair. Here are a handful of frames pulled from 8mm film.

Hellas / Greece Pavilion. This angle is from one side off the front entrance. 

Hellas / Greece Pavilion. This is looking at the front entrance.

 The dinosaurs.

Today's Rune: Fertility.  

Not Fade Away

Not Fade Away (2012), David Chase's theatrical film debut, has strong elements -- the historical backdrop of the 1960s, both locally (New Jersey) and broadly; James Gandolfini as the father of a nuclear family; three sisters from two families, all interesting; extended family and friends; ditch-digging workers; and period music, with visual footage -- but all in all, it can't surpass any single episode of Chase's The Sopranos on HBO, nor Mad Men on AMC. The problem is point of view. We hear narration from one of the sisters, which is fine, but the main focus is on a dingbat brother who lacks charisma, charm, drive or courage as he becomes part of a fledgling garage band.* Much better results would come from a closer, sustained look at life from the perspective of the James Gandolfini character -- he is put upon, he becomes physically sick, he has epiphanies -- or either of the Dietz sisters (Joy and Grace, played respectively by Dominique McElligott and Bella Heathcote), both Bohemians, one mentally unstable and the other rock steady.

I enjoyed the period feel and details of Not Fade Away, brief scenes of and banter about the Rolling Stones, blues and the times, and quips about Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup / Blow-Up (1966). About Antonioni's film, Grace Dietz suggests that the rustling of trees serves as musical soundtrack during a key scene, rather than a more heavy-handed signaling of how specifically to respond as film audience. Small victories for Not Fade Away, but better than a total wash.

Today's Rune: Warrior. *Of the band members, only Gene (Jack Huston) shows any spark.   

Monte Hellman: Back Door to Hell

Monte Hellman's Back Door to Hell (1964) delivers an incisive and exciting tale set in the Philippines during World War II.  This black and white "B movie" is thoughtful and interesting, punctuated with bursts of war-related violence. Thank God for B movies like Back Door to Hell and for everyone involved in this particular low-budget project, shot on location.

The battle episodes are on a par with the assault on the airbase scenes in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), with an almost documentary-style feel to them (with both shot in black and white).

Hellman's observing eye is neutral enough that we can perceive what it's like to be on all sides of the fighting, whether Filipino guerillas or other villagers, Japanese or American soldiers or even bandits. The matters brought up are questions that we still grapple with -- how to treat POWs, whether to use torture to gain information, deliberately targeting civilian adults and children, and collateral damage. Back Door to Hell is remarkably nuanced for such a concise film.

I love the cast, ranging from Jack Nicholson and Jimmie Rodgers (the Elvis-like singer) to Conrad Maga and Annabelle Huggins, John Hackett to Joe Sison.

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.