by Dean | Jun 12, 2018 | General
After the release of Antonioni’s Eclipse, some of Truffaut’s stuff and, Heaven help us, Godard’s movies, Ingmar Bergman decided to make a film that was weird. He made the soporific Persona (1967) with its weird opening montage and its weird bits and pieces. A complete failure, the film has very little significant meaning.
A Passion (U.S. title: The Passion of Anna, 1969) was better—at least it wasn’t dull—but, sadly, it was never enough to be weird (or unusual). It is quite evident that after the making of such films as Wild Strawberries and Winter Light, Bergman’s intellectual development became stunted; he was no thinker. Cries and Whispers (1972) was a candid intellectual fraud. Well did it depict human agony, but there were no real brains behind it. Face to Face (1976) was just as weak, and, for all its power, Scenes from a Marriage (1973) was unchallenging enough to have the Jan Malmsjo character, Peter, question superciliously the meaning of an old Christian hymn. This is because Bergman questions it. But it doesn’t much matter what the Swedish director questions since he mainly provides only emotional depth. He fashions art, to be sure, but so far (I haven’t yet seen Thirst or To Joy) it is only in Winter Light and My Summer with Monica that I can enjoy this art in full measure. I’ll be leaving Persona on the shelf.
by Dean | Jun 10, 2018 | General
Hendrick Ibsen‘s play The Lady from the Sea is about alienation from the self—in a woman named Ellida. Her own mind is resisting her marriage to her husband, Dr. Wangel, because she did not have “free will” upon accepting his years-ago proposal. But Wangel is a good man, and the home he has built for Ellida can be considered a home of love.
Alas, this may not be the kind of home in which Arnholm and Bolette, Ellida’s stepdaughter, live after they get married, for Bolette glorifies, to the exclusion of everything else, experiencing the world. Certainly she does not glorify Arnhom (her former teacher) because she does not yet love him. But in the future . . .? Ibsen’s play is heartening without being wholly happy. It is a small-scale work filmed, with impeccable acting, by the BBC in 1974. I greatly appreciate the production.
These days the plot of The Lady from the Sea is rather stale. Still, the play is interesting and probing. Eileen Atkins is histrionically authoritative, and beautifully sensitive, as Ellida. Denholm Elliott always knew how to enact a good man; he is masterly and never boring. Never false is the way to describe Michael Feast as an enthusiastic would-be artist. Carole Nimmons is a strikingly authentic Bolette. All the actors are great in this respectable TV mounting.
by Dean | Jun 7, 2018 | General
A British comedian and an atheist, Ricky Gervais remarked to a TV talk show host that if all the sacred books such as the Bible were to disappear, to perish, they would never be written again. By contrast, if all the science books that have been penned were to disappear, they would be written again since the facts contained in them would be re-discovered and re-established. But Mr. Gervais is wrong. He’s right about the Book of Mormon, wrong about the Bible. Biblical doctrine would emerge again because God would still be doing His salvific work. People would still find out about the Atonement and justification by faith, etc.—palpably they would find out—and the news would be rapidly written down, as it was in Paul’s epistles. Revelation would still exist. It would not be withheld.
by Dean | Jun 4, 2018 | General
“We locked eyes for a moment and felt the bond of sisterhood between two Christians who had hopes and dreams that seemed to have stalled right over the Bermuda Triangle.”
Not a bad descriptive sentence, this, from a born-again—and also talented—writer, Sandra Byrd, author of Don’t Kiss Him Good-bye (2010), the source of the sentence. The hopes and dreams are those of the narrator, Savvy Smith, an American high school exchange student living in London. They are the usual hopes and dreams, even for a Christian: the “him” in the novel’s title is a British crush called Tommy, a non-boyfriend for Savvy but not a non-Christian. Tommy, however, is involved with Chloe. Will Savvy even be able to attend the May Day Ball as something other a photojournalist for the school paper, London Confidential?
Er, when I picked Good-bye up, I thought it was the first book in Byrd’s series for young people, also called London Confidential; but it’s the third. Oh, well. At least the item enables me to see, when the subject of being “unequally yoked” with an unbeliever comes up, how nicely subtle a writer Byrd can be. And its being #3 in the series hardly left me lost.
by Dean | May 31, 2018 | General
It is said that our wretched national debt will lead to a crisis for Social Security Disability by 2021. It is said that it will lead to a crisis for Social Security in general by 2030. If this is true, what will U.S. politicians do about it? I don’t know. Probably something morally questionable (or wrong).
Are they still disinclined to radically reform the welfare state? Have they considered issuing vouchers to the poor and middle class for nursing-home costs—after abolishing problematic Medicaid, I mean? Is there any interest in providing the so-called “universal basic income”—say, $13,000 a year—to every adult citizen?
Don’t think crises won’t come. We all know, for example, they are coming apropos of people with dementia and their families.
