Does The Job

When I was sixteen I read The Great Gatsby, and oh - Oh! I said, how it flows, how does this gorgeous iambic pentameter work its way through the valves of my arteries? ‘Within and without’ runs in my blood. Everything sounds like money to me. I wandered lonely as a cloud, only, no, old sport, I don’t wander, I plan. I lift weights like Benjamin Franklin. I gaze out, out, out, I am the poet. I am the huntsman. I lie in wait. I have for years. Sometimes I forget about The Bell Jar, but I remember The Iron Giant. Let me tell you, I’ve watched that movie every year of my life since I was seven years old, and I fell in love with the robot from a children’s story book to the big screen. I have since studied Metamorphoses and watched the hawk fly through the rain, but choking to death on my own breath? A touchy subject. What does F. Scott Fitzgerald have to say for himself when his wife’s journals lay strewn across his back catalogue? Where was Ted Hughes when Sylvia Plath collapsed in the kitchen? Boasting about his own work, or belittling hers? In 2008 The Times ranked Hughes fourth on their list of ‘The 50 greatest British writers since 1945’. Where is Sylvia Plath? Where is Zelda Fitzgerald? Where are the women? Where are the gentle hands, the voices that clink like coins, where are the dangerous curves, where is the soaring fire of our generation? Show me your nails, filed to claws. Give me your ragged hearts, give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, give me your words. I want to hear your voices, louder and more insistent than ever before. I want The Times to write a new list. I need to hear the murmurs of agreement of every lecturer in the Arts and Humanities department of each university as they turn it over in their hands. To see a split between every gender so even that no one remembers where the line is, where the line ever was. This wave’s classic writers are gone, so bare your teeth and show me your fighting stance.

we are still behind the yellow wallpaper | ishani jasmin (via ishanijasmin)

So beautiful, so complicated, so problematic...

Others' fears are suspiciously often irrational, while ours are, suspiciously again, always justified.

When am I ready?

We work very hard for things we want and for others that we don't. But it's about all right. However, mostly our efforts turn out to be fruitless. Why is this? Why isn't my book published yet? Why am I not married?

Most often we question the methods and the degree of our commitment but other times simply accept failure. None of this and at the same time all of this is right. How can that be?

Firstly, we can never work too hard. There's always a bit more we could do. Yes, even when we feel we've done our best. It is constantly possible to push a little harder, to get somewhat better. And there are times, when our work needs polishing. It's extremely hard to admit, when what we think we've worked for with all our might, cries out for being corrected. It's truly damn difficult to say, that it isn't that good after all.

Secondly, we easily get obsessed with a wide range of variety of things, from what we ought to keep ourselves far. And then it's inevitable, that we lay down our weapons and armours, and whisper lowly: I give up. Then we become free to do what can work for us.

But no matter what we do and how we do it. Sometimes we are destined to achieve success at certain fields, still, we struggle and yet get nowhere. That's because we might not be quite ready. The Oracle tells Neo in the Matrix: Sorry, kid. You got the gift, but it looks like you're waiting for something. And sometimes, very rarely, it looks like we're all waiting for something, just don't know what. We think we'll know when we see it. But it's not something we can see or something that's basically external. No. Just like in Neo's case, we've got to start believing. Faith is the last barrier, that separates us from entering the promise land.

that’s about humanity’s dignity

He stretched his arms to the crystalline, radiant sky. “I know myself,” he cried, “but that is all — “

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Side of Paradise (via introspectivepoet)

There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

An Essay on Café Society

Woody Allen’s most recent film, Café Society, has been probably the season’s most anticipated piece in a few circles, as the old writer-director has unceasingly uphold his reputation in the past several years. He had many exceedingly and a few hardly memorable movies in his line of annual releases. This year’s film is simultaneously a worthy continuation and a surprising departure from the latest trend in the Woody Allen factory.

In numerous respects it’s a classical piece with all the usual themes: urban life, particularly the praise of New York; disillusionment; the overall pointlessness of life; being a Jew in America; neurosis and neurotics; unfulfilled love, and jazz. In some ways these were easily identifiable and fresh but at the same time they seemed to be somewhat rushed and stale--it is almost impossible to describe it without contradictions.

In this period piece we get to follow the life of a Jewish New York family and their several exploits. In the focal point there is a young, neurotic Jessie Eisenberg, who looks and acts quite similarly to the young Woody Allen. He falls in love with an unsuccessful, unspoiled Hollywood debutante, even has a chance at a short romance with her but his influential, wealthy and well-loved uncle takes the girl. As the protagonist returns to his hometown, he finds solace in high social life and a nicely growing success as a bar manager. The movie ends without many great twists and turns, with a few bitter moments of the once-lover couple meeting but never chancing at starting again together. 

I think it’s unnecessary to go into details concerning the family, the why’s and how’s, as the real treasure that this film is is hidden somewhere else.

In the context of the last twenty years of Woody Allen movies he has arguably been creating more of essays than solid works. The characteristics of his films have been changing, from the surreal reality to more subtle ways. The incomplete list of his themes above is very well-known among the people who have seen at least three or four of his works and there seems to be a will to find a perfect body for a Woody Allen film. Evidently experimentation with tone, color, period, narrative tools and much more have been defining the writer-director’s approach to his work.

Firstly, the tone is now balanced and masterful. With Match Point, and Irrational Man he has gone down the path paved by Dostoevsky. The dark brutality that he has tried to grasp in humanity has been so refined now that he probably felt it burdensome to emphasize its graveness and made it as frivolous as is fit to someone, who grew up on classical film noires. But also the romantic and neurotic air, so typical, has been refined into a cynical calmness, beyond even the point of “I can only laugh”. We have all seen the disillusionment of Woody Allen but it seems the energetic overtone is now smoothing out, which is a good thing, since the things to replace it are subtlety, mastery and unpretended grandeur.

As regards the color and period of this film I must say this is the closest I have seen to perfection. Obviously these work as great reassurances to the subject matter of the movie but there is also an important subtle depth to them. His most successful attempts at these two have been Irrational Man and Midnight in Paris. The former with its rosy color foreshadowing violence, the latter being half-set in the most resonant period of American history. In some respect Café Society is an adaptation of The Great Gatsby, dwarfing Baz Luhrman’s--in comparison--cheap attempt. In the titular film several moments are highlighted and tainted with a golden shade--something not similar but identical to Fitzgerald’s work. At first it seems to underline the high hopes and dreams of the likable protagonist and it then gradually flowers into the color of death and decay, more and more disappearing from Jessie Eisenberg’s scenes and more and more coloring death around him. In the beginning he is hopeful, he is made golden but what it symbolizes loses meaning and moves into external things, for example originally he feels this golden color and loves a brunette, then in the end feels nothing close to that but his wife has golden hair. The period of the film is also evocative of The Great Gatsby: one will feel both a romantic feeling for that specific time and a detachment because of the overhanging horror.

In To Rome with Love we have seen a contemporary, yet clear narrative with multiple storielines to follow, hardly ever intersecting each other, connected mainly by the place but not limited by anything. Now Café Society is far more conservative but clearly shows the understanding that the creator has obtained through a daring project. It is subtle, it is a lot but it is enough--according to this blogger. Here it is the family members that create multiple dimensions, although they are pointing toward a final intersection inside our protagonist. To me it’s these simultaneously running stories that create the oh-so-familiar feeling of neurosis in Café Society.

A nowadays often looked-down-upon tool has been utilized in the film: voice-over. However there is nothing to be despised about it, since it is no more than semblance that it served the function of exposition--in fact it is subtle but continuous cynicism, magnified only by the past experiences with Woody Allen films. It speaks a language known only to the adepts but to them it speaks it quite comprehensibly.

Even the casting of this film is subtly outstanding. We have several savvy choices of returning actors from past Woody Allen movies, like our old Hemingway as the brute of the family, or pseudo-neurotic Jessie Eisenberg. What I think is the greatest decision with regards to the actors is Steve Carell, who is Italian enough to play a Jew--a joke a little too much on the nose...

Overall this film is one more step in the direction of at least my ideal of a Woody Allen film. It has so numerous merits, it looks so subtle, expensive, real and beautiful that I won’t stop praising it in a reasonable space of time.

How I Met the Most Terrible Woman

The famous sit-com, How I Met Your Mother, reached its end finally. It's been greatly anticipated by many and is currently being hated and scorned by even more. I've heard countless negative comments on it but as most people aren't philosophers, nor particularly good at deeply analyzing films, this popular negative attitude toward the finale of the show rests on feeble limbs.

Two main groups of degrading opinions come to my mind that I've heard:

#1: It's a letdown because we've been driven to believe that Ted would finally arrive at a point when all his misery ends and his life magically becomes complete. This state could be transient but in the final episode it lasted for only a couple minutes and it served the sole purpose of building drama, which is truly not an elegant act.

#2: We've been lied to because Robin and Barney were meant to stay together. They would have been the true success-story of the show and now it's gone to smoke.

These arguments wouldn't stand the ground against strong reasoning because they aren't based on reason but on emotions and taste; and we all know the Latin proverb: "Taste is undebatable." They aren't satisfying arguments to the opposition because they are not smart ones. On the contrary, nobody can argue against them rationally because they are built upon expectations and what we expect is our own--there are no right or wrong expectations, only fulfilled and failed ones.

Shortly after watching it I was hesitant as to what it was meant to be: an ever-hopeful romantic or a disillusioned realist piece. A friend of mine said quite cleverly that it was a disillusioned romantic one. At first I thought it was a brilliant phrase but then I remembered Fitzgerald's Amory Blaine:

<"I'm a cynical idealist." He paused and wondered if that meant anything.>

There are terms that just don't make sense, even though the young egotist feels as though he's said something utterly sharp. This friend of mine is actually a lot smarter than me but in regards of this he made a mistake. A romantic, by definition, has his/her illusions.

Of course I'm not Immanuel Kant and I'm not trying to build an argument on semantics. My point with this is actually that I understand how this ending seems like something smarter than what the great contemporary romantics could dream up and yet with a stronger emotional core than what any realist could invent. It truly creates the illusion that it's a smart ending. But I find it at best average.

Smart people, who've mostly responded positively to HIMYM's finale, often argue that:

#1: It touches on the perfect imperfection of life, how nothing good lasts and yet how Good is omnipresent.

#2: It's the only way that the whole franchise makes sense, since the conclusion explains why this story had to be told in the first place.

#3: It gives us hope that something waits for everybody to make life worthwhile, even in the most surprising forms and even multiple times.

These seem pretty logical arguments to me, however, they are marred by a certain intellectual leniency--that what's smart and realistic, always promotes valuable concepts. But that's not true.

The fatal flaw of HIMYM is that it limits life to a race, where no one actually wins.

Think of Robin and Barney. They had a successful marriage that only lasted three years, what cannot be a successful marriage by definition. Success in marriage isn't depleting a cup of joys and experiences: people vow to keep together to the end of their lives, not to the end of their happiness. Of course, I understand divorces and I don't deny anyone the right to get a divorce, but they exist because sometimes the married couple fails at their promises and that means the failure of their entire marriage and failure is the antonym of success. It's impossible to say that it's a successful marriage but also a failed one. It may have had some success but not a fullness of success.

Think of Ted and Tracey. They were soulmates, destined to be together, and they had their time and they were happy. Then the story contradicts itself and Tracey dies and the concept of the one dies with her. Why does Ted go back to Robin after his marriage? It's not that I'd reject a story where two, who are not perfectly fitting, but loving and caring and willing get together and struggle to live out their love, which naturally has a number of difficulties. That's actually a good love story. But how did a perfect marriage not change Ted essentially? How come does he go back to a failed relationship?

In summary, in the finale there are 2 important points that I find problematic:

#1: Ted arrived at the point where everything started. Maybe things would work out now--maybe not. What is for sure though is that a relatively lasting romantic relationship (a marriage) and parenthood did not alter his concept of where to turn for love. He goes to the same person with the same gift as in the very beginning of the series. What it means is that Ted takes an escapist standpoint and views lived-out love as the primary value in life. Actually not the primary value but much rather he finds everything else pointless because nothing added to or took away from his life: tragedy and great happiness. Ted did not gather true wisdom--he gained nothing but a big number of memories, which hardly correlate, as they eventually take no effect.

#2: Barney's been emotionally crippled by Robin. All the characters point out that he should move on and move forward because even though divorce is a tough issue, one must be able to not become the Barnicle afterwards. What isn't recognized is that divorce is beyond human capacity. It's very nice that Barney becomes emotionally capable through finally becoming a father but the weight of him being emotionally crippled can't be put on the shoulders of a baby girl. It's not that a young girl can't be very strong and do wonders but that it's not normal and natural--it's tragic. There's not a normal way of getting past a marriage but marriages are to be saved. The story runs into a wrong moral that looks very pretty but is actually misleading.

I write this post at about two in the morning so some of my points and arguments are missing and the remaining few is also mixed up and confusing but I felt it important to write this post. Life can't be a cruel balance of happiness and grief. Life isn't a pointless circle. I say these not only because I am a christian but also because philosophically they are great and painful simplifications.

I don’t want you to die. Roy. Don’t kill him. Let him live. Let him live. Don’t kill him. Roy? Promise? And don’t cross your fingers.

I think the original poster is a great piece, very artistic and can't be equaled. All that said, these pictures are beautiful mementos and give back a lot with much grace.