Photo of the day

Children listening radio programme "Toddlers listen" (1946-1975)

In the broadcast, which lasted 10 minutes, stories were told and songs were sung with children.

Lily Petersen's famous opening line was: "Hello children from all over the country".

"Georgetown" by Christoph Waltz (2019)

 

A glorious little psychological thriller that somehow escaped my attention in 2019 (or was probably lost in a chaos of 2020) and it brings the wondrous talents of villainous Christoph Waltz (who also directs it) and  Vanessa Redgrave. of course, I remember Waltz from his spectacular turn in "Inglourious Basterds" where he eclipsed everybody else as a Jew hating Gestapo officer and it seems that from than on he is typecast as a sociopathic antagonist. To my knowledge, this is the first time that he directs a movie and apparently this role fascinated him enough to put all his energy into creating it - obviously he found the role fitting his abilities. 

The script is based on a real-life story of elderly journalist Elsa Breht (Redgrave) who somehow got seduced by much younger, ambitious Ulrich Mott (Waltz) who correctly assumes that she might be his connection to influential political circles of Washington. Once he slither in her house, she helps him to get acquainted with people who matter - diplomats, political advisers, ex-presidents, etc. To dismay of Breht's daughter (Annette Bening) the relationship apparently flourishes until Breht has been found dead at the staircase and the police eventually decides to have a closer look at it - initially they are not suspicious because of Breht's age but they found documented her previous complaint about the physical abuse and this makes them to have a closer look at her much younger husband who is all about bravado and boasting.

Its easy to see what did Christoph Waltz found in this role because its almost as made for him - he is supposed to be earnest charmer who swindles everybody around him and somehow wiggles his way into high society. There is a constant shadow of malice underneath his smiles and charm that no one is aware of (except Benning, of course but she is too one-dimensional herself). Redgrave is supernatural joy to behold, she is hundred years old and still beautiful in her own way, camera absolutely adores her and she glows in a new found love for her young suitor. If there is one weak link, its the very underdeveloped role of her daughter who really has nothing else to do but just be angry all the time - for this you don't need a Oscar winning actress and I am left with suspicion that Annette Bening was pulled in simply as a famous name bait - it does nothing for her career or for the movie itself. The most fascinating character is Waltz who turns out such a maniac that is completely lost in his own delusions.

"Society of the Snow (La sociedad de la nieve)" by J. A. Bayona (2023)

 

I was vaguely aware of famous 1972 plane crash where survivors ended up eating their dead, but never saw a 1993 movie or read any of the subsequent books written about the accident. Still, the trailer looked good and pretty exciting so I decided to give it a try. It turned into very gripping movie with one of the most terrifying plane crash scenes in a move ever (right up next to the one in "Cast away") - the best of all, it left such a strong impression on me that I thought about it even this morning as I woke up. 

What is it that makes this story still so powerful?

First, the whole improbability of the plane crash itself - we don't enter the rinky dinky planes expecting something bad will happen, in fact as much as I don't enjoy them, I just want to get over the whole journey and get to my destination as soon as possible. I flew a lot, I flew across Atlantic, across Asia all the way to Australia and it was never the big planes that gave me troubles but the small ones where somehow you feel unsafe. This was one of the small planes, with only 45 people onboard. Than we have adventure story without special heroes - these were just ordinary people, literary young rugby players traveling to their next match. Well maybe not so ordinary than, because these young guys were still fitter and braver than most of ordinary people - I could not help but noticing that my own 54 self would probably die immediately one way or another. 

And than of course - the most gruesome part, eating of the dead. Movie makes it clear that it wasn't done without previous long agonising and finally only accepted when they heard on the radio that search was being cancelled and no other help was coming. I think that the most of us will agree that no matter how ugly and impossible this seems, it might be at least understand from the perspective of survivors - alone in a snow covered mountains, there is literary nothing else to eat except the corpses. And its up to you, do you want to live or are you ready to die because of some previous preconceptions. After all, different things are accepted in different parts of the world. Ancient warriors would eat the brains & hearts of their victims, believing it would make them braver. (In a somehow lesser gruesome manner, I am still cooking the chicken soup the way every household in Croatia has always done, with chitterlings, apparently its not done here and everybody is disgusted with me) What makes this really bad is that there was no cooking or boiling or somehow camouflaging the whole thing, they could not cover it with herbs and spices and pretend its something else - there was no pots and pans, not even fire, only several volunteers who went out in the snow and cut the frozen corpses with some sharp piece of glass. 

The movie turned out to be excellent - it stayed with me for a long time. I am now ready to watch some more documentaries and find some books about it, because there is much more to know. For example, the fact that cannibalism was first hidden from the public but when it became known, it created such a worldwide sensation that eventually even church got involved and accepted that this is not a sin because it was extreme survival situation. 

"My Name Is Barbra" by Barbra Streisand (2023)

 

Streisand vibrates on her own frequency and to read her own life story as told in her own words comes  still as surprise (even though I followed her for decades and enjoyed her work forever) - for the start, her attention to details is so obsessive that it often comes as exasperating. This might work well on creating album covers or movie scenes and such, but when it comes to storytelling, it leaves you as a reader in a bit of confusion - does it really matter was the price for the cinema ticket back in the day $ 1.89 or $ 1.98? She is describing her teenage years and zooms into such odd little informations that it eventually distracts from the big picture. But than you come at the chapter where she describes how "Funny Girl" was created and you simply have to stop in awe and say to yourself "This is Streisand herself describing how Funny Girl was made". 

The book itself is huge - my hard cover counts almost 1 000 pages and at the moment I am on page 443 so there is still a lot to go - but my initial impression is that this is strictly for fans: it is too detailed for casual readers who might not be interested in every little technical detail of camera, lightning and concert settings from 1968. The sheer size of the story is occasionally exhausting and I find myself wandering away and losing focus (than again, it might be because I am terribly sick with cold) but it feels as this might be book to return later and perhaps enjoy reading simply a random chapter. 

Some observations:

We all know that people were not nice to her in the beginning, in fact, it is stuff of the legends now. But Streisand herself did not forget and she names every agent, every producer, every director who rejected, abused or laughed at her. You would think that after all that success she would simply leave it behind, but she is not that kind of person - although she does not linger too much on it, she wants you to know that she never forgot. 

When success finally came, it was not given: she worked hard for it. I just realised that her legendary TV specials were filmed at the same time when she performed 8 shows a week in "Funny Girl" and than would go to TV studio and film TV shows after midnight. And made it look so sensational like she is enjoying herself and every minute of it. 

Streisand might be a strong personality and she was certainly always aware that her movies were built around her but she also needed a strong collaborators. She describes filming of "On a clear day you can see forever" and how it distracted her to see the fear in the eyes of one of her co-actors. 

For all her talk about acting, Lee Strasberg and "the method", she is still first and foremost a musical comedienne who happened to break into movies. I don't have impression that she takes her music talent seriously as much as she thinks of herself as Sarah Bernhardt reincarnated. 

I am not even halfway yet, so there is more to come. 

25/01

I have finished the book last night. It started very exciting but at 966 pages its definitely too long & detailed and I could not help but think that a proper editor would probably cut this brick in half and simply eliminate all the maddening details. My impression is that publishers were too excited to get a book out of her and would not dare to edit anything in case she changes her mind. But this is essentially who Streisand is - an extremely fussy, fastidious artist who needs the excitement of constantly pushing herself and her collaborators into over-thinking, over-analysing and second-guessing until some agreement is finalised. It is strange why she functions like this, since she has constantly been mega-successful trough decades, its almost as she don't understand that work can be done spontaneously and joyously. I found an article where Frank Pierson (the director of "A Star Is Born") actually tells her: "All you have to do is offer to sing and they'll fall all over you to do a picture. Why are you trying to panic yourself this way?"

Even though I am a lifelong fan of her music, her movies were too sporadic to take her seriously as an actress. After reading this book its obvious that she did her best movie work while she was under legal obligations to producer Ray Stark who twisted her arm into doing "Funny Girl", "The Owl and the Pussycat", "The Way We Were" and "Funny Lady" - once she was free from the contract, her movies became more laboured and extremely rare. And what really strikes me interesting again and again is how little she thinks of her music talent (it comes too easily to her so she does not analyse it at all) but goes on and on about her movies to the point of coming across as overbearing: she writes not one but three chapters about "Yentl" and at the end I just had to skip this part. But that is essentially who she is. 

There was one interesting moment when I had the feeling that she really opened her heart. She mentions a passionate love affair with one of her collaborators and admits that it eventually fizzled away. "Although there were moments, especially when the jacaranda trees were in bloom again, when I would be reminded of Peter and that singular summer." 

Another eye-opening thought was that even someone so enormously successful as Streisand can be blocked and prevented when it comes to creating a new work. There were enormous obstacles thrown at her almost each time she wanted to do another movie or album project, to the point where one can almost see her crying out in frustration: "I had been with Columbia for twenty-three years. I had made twenty-three albums (and ten soundtrack or compilation albums) for them. And now, after five number 1 albums and seven Grammy awards and millions of dollars in record sales, I basically had to sell myself again. It was actually kind of humiliating."  Towards the end of the book you get the impression that she is too exhausted and heartbroken over so many cancelled projects, that she probably won't work in the movies again. It would really be sad if the new generations will know her only from something as "Meet the Fockers". 

Homer

 

As I am very slowly going trough a bad case of the cold, I wanted to start writing something cheerful and positive - to get my mind off this never-ending curse of sneezing, coughing and wheezing around - so let's mention my figurine of Homer.

When I was a kid, there were two very elegant and sophisticated ladies in my childhood, lets say a distant relatives - they raised my stepfather and were his widowed grandmother and aunt. They were always very nice to me and if after all these years I remember anything about them is that for me they were embodiment of culture - impeccable manners, nice clothes, lots of patience with little me and always very well spoken. (Curiously, they would spoken Hungarian to each other, when they didn't want me to understand - they were not Hungarian themselves but belonged to a certain pre-WW2 generation that was educated and bilingual, probably spoke German as well.) I did not receive much affection during my childhood, so their careful treatment of me was always highly appreciated.

I still remember some beautiful black & white family photo portraits that were framed on the wall - apparently it used to be almost intimidatingly large family and everybody looked super chic, with moustachioed men with their slick hair, ladies with fashionable 1920s bobs and pearls. Sadly, I was too young to ask any questions so I have no idea who these people were, but I do remember that my stepfather's mother died in a childbirth from sepsis and it must have been heartbreaking, since the medicine for that was discovered soon afterwards. (I think her name was Margot, strange that I remember that). It was her sister and mother who took care of raising the little boy, since his father was in the army and absent. There was also an occasional mention of cousin Eugen who left behind him a beautiful collection of 1920s books and I always felt a warm connection to this gentleman who had passed long ago but must had same love for reading as me - it was a connection trough time. His inherited collection of books was carelessly stored somewhere just so it could be sold to antiquarian bookseller, there was absolutely no love or understanding what it is. 

Back to the two ladies - we would occasionally visit them on Sundays and they were always very nice to me, giving me occasional books and talking to me gently. They also had a little figurine of Homer on top of their old fashioned TV that for some reason left a big impression on me. As soon as I started reading, I was fascinated with Greek mythology and all my life I wanted to have little figurine of Homer, just like they had. When they passed away, I was very sad that I couldn't get my hands on it, it was the only thing I wanted to keep as a memory of them. Well, guess what, many years later I went on vacation in Athens and found exactly same little Homer - to my biggest surprise, I realised that it was actually nothing sophisticated or elegant at all, it was just a cheap souvenir sold in any kiosk around (and as such it was probably bought for them) so the whole idea of this being something very chic was just in my head. Strange how we keep some ideas in our heads for many years and than eventually we see it differently. However, I am still very pleased that I own it and in a way it means different things to me now - it is my own souvenir from Athens + it reminds me on them.