The Third Man

Completed Graham Greene's The Third Man. Story of racketeering and murder in post war Vienna. The real story is about heroes and disillusionment. Very interesting how Greene's main character (a writer) is made to see things through the distorted lens of his hero worship -- and later, while speaking to fans of his own, the misunderstandings that occur because they worship him. A very funny moment in this otherwise dark story. Greene is masterful at painting with darks and shadows.

Journal note, Dec. 21, 1993

Greene is one of the great writers of our century. His works deserve to be read, ought to be required reading for any literate person. His autobiography (A Sort Of Life, I believe it called) reveals a brooding man with intense inner conflicts. A frequent event in his life is a game of solitary Russian Roulette with a loaded pistol. It is not a pretty portrait, but out of this tortured dungeon of self comes a world class writer whose works have tremendous power and dignity.

His characters themselves are usually complicated, world weary travellers on life's road, hard pressed by their circumstances, thus brought into situations that explore the deeper depths of the soul. What do we find at the heart of a man when we strip everything else away? When we pick at the scabs, what do we see? What is here worth preserving? His perceptive probing and vivid prose at times create amazing and memorable epiphanies.

Recommended readings: The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter, A Burnt-Out Case, The Tenth Man, The Quiet American, The End of the Affair, Orient Express, The Comedians and of course The Third Man. (I have read all these and more.) You will not regret reading this writer, wherever you begin.

Paths of Glory

This afternoon I decided to revisit Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, co-written and directed by Stanely Kubrick. This cold war classic was remarkable for its originality and dark comedy. "After all, we don't want to start a nuclear war unless we have to now, do we?" (Peter Sellers as Officer Mandrake)

It's hard to pinpoint the film that put Kubrick on the map as a director, but certainly all of his works demonstrate the power of his vision and unique genius. His films are both distinctive and daring.

One of my current top ten films of all time is Kubrick's Paths of Glory. It may have been the first film I wrote a review for on the Internet Movie Database. The following review is posted there, and at the end of this blog entry you may link to my reviews of several other films.

Early Kubrick film displays his profound skills of storytelling in film in remarkable and poignant World War One film.

I have placed this early Kubrick anti-war statement on my top ten list both for its originality, great acting, compelling story line, plot twists, and surprisingly beautiful and inspired ending. This one is a heart-breaker account of a moment in history that repeated itself endlessly in that horrific bloodfest called the trenches of World War I. To some extent Kubrick returned to the theme in various ways with Full Metal Jacket, but Kirk Douglas as Colonel Dax is perfect here, demonstrating the challenge of maintaining honor within a system that has turned values on its head. It is a crisis in the life and career of Colonel Dax, who has lived by the watchword of Duty with a capital D throughout his career, but has remained idealistic and faithful to his men. The army's absurd effort to capture "the Anthill" results in a tear in the fabric of his idealism. The ugliness he sees is an eye opener for both Dax and the audience, who sees the truth with tragic clarity.

Colonel Dax, identifying with his men, is an inspiration in contrast to an empty culture of power and prestige with no ethical base.

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Definition of a Classic

"A book that never finishes what it has to say." ~ Italo Calvino

There are two ways a book can keep speaking. One is to be so dense with meaning that it keeps adding to our understanding with each new reading because we ourselves have aged and keep seeing it with new eyes. A second way is for the book to never cease from continuing.

Isn't that what blogging is to some extent? A personal living expression in words and images, ongoing and ever continuing. When you cease to be enriched, you're free to turn away. The best books, and best blogs, keep us coming back for more, knowing that we will get a satisfying return on the investment of our time.

His Music Lives On

Watching “Immortal Beloved” about the life of Beethoven. It is easy to understand how a man could become so troubled. His great love was music, and he went deaf. To think that he wrote/composed several great symphonies after losing his hearing is one of the wonders of the world. His Ninth Symphony would be an achievement for any living person with all their capacities. But for a totally deaf man… it is astonishing!
Feb 10, 2000

Not yet finished with Immortal Beloved but have reached several of the “Ahas” in the latter part of the movie. The scene of young Beethoven lying in the lake, floating on the water beneath the stars, was wonderfully conceived… the Ode to Joy playing as he reveled in the freedom & music of the spheres, at one with the Universe.

The great “Aha” in the film is learning of his passionate love for a woman who married his brother. His tortured life was filled with rejection, misunderstanding and the difficulties due to his deafness… but this was an especially stinging wound.
Feb 12, 2000

Re-discovering Beethoven. What a wonder this music, squeezed through pores of pain, to enrich the world. It is said that he was possibly the first to create music intended to have an immortal life of its own beyond the life of its composer and first listeners.
Feb 13, 2000

He began going deaf early in his life, suffering from the disease of tinnitus (ringing in the ear) which interfered with his ability to enjoy music and eventually left him completely deaf the last nine years of his life.

When I was about eight years old I began taking piano lessons. I had a piano teacher who early introduced me to the masters. Like so many young piano students I was early drawn to Beethoven and Chopin for their romantic lyricism.

This film, like many tragic films is filled with heartbreakingly beautiful moments. I think here of the scene of anguish with Oldman as Beethoven failing to make it to a pre-arranged tryst because his carriage it stuck in the mud. All throughout we hear the agony of the scene expressed through the music from his Seventh Symphony, second movement. Though the Seventh has always been a favorite, that section will never be the same.

A more recent film on the troubled life of the Maestro is Copying Beethoven. In this film Ed Harris plays the role of revealing new facets of Beethoven’s life that we might not have known about. Though I find Harris a compelling performer in many if not most of his other films, I did not find myself emotionally bonding with this portrayal. Yes, he did his best with the material he had to work with. The supreme wonderment of the Ninth was given ample screen time, but could not entirely save the film for me. I was constantly aware that I was watching men and women playing roles.

Both movies show a man of complex emotions, conflicting drives, a somewhat brutish and impulsive, crude and difficult, yet reflective and humble man of genius with pain in his heart and turmoil in his soul. And yet the music he has created lives on. To what extent did his temporal suffering produce such effervescent and profoundly inspiring compositions? We who would desire to produce similarly great art, in any medium, how deeply are we willing to embrace those sorrows that plow the heart so that the seeds of great achievement might find good soil?