Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace. Good movie. I love the song. It almost doesn’t matter who sings it. Even me, although people have left the room when I try. I especially love the line about “who saved a wretch like me.” John Newton must have felt like a wretch after being a slaveship owner and then writing this hymn. Which is my way of letting any certain liberal clergy who change “wretch” to “soul” (so people don’t have to lose self-esteem over feeling wretchedness) that, if you sing at my funeral, DO NOT change the words.

Amazing Grace is a beautiful movie about Wilbur Wilberforce, the eponymic ancestor of Bill Williams and John Johnson. Funny, though, I thought it was going to be about the song. It’s almost like reading the book and being disappointed in the movie. But a more appropriate title would have been too long, something like The Once Azygous Recusant Who Mistook His Uxorial Mate for a Modiste but Wound Up Having a Serotinus Experience.

If you understood that then thank Cindy and her Free Rice Internet game. Of course in the website game you get multiple choices so here’s a matching game:

Azygous noncomformist

Uxorial late-blooming

Serotinus hatmaker

Recusant single

Modiste wifely

Seriously, though, this was not a movie in which I could be found in an oscitant state. My prosencephalon was directed towards the screen at all times. Not bad for a PG movie. Which may have been the problem with why the movie did not do well in this country. All-English movies are hard enough for young, American men to sit through (not as bad as German comedies), but a little more violence and more than one heaving bosom might have made it more marketable. The movie was supposed to be more about Wilberforce than about slavery and slave ships didn’t carry slaves to England, anyway, but still it could have used a little less countryside if for nothing else than to get more younger people to see it. Which is my main point, not that I need to see blood or see more than one heaving bosom.

It deserves to be seen. I really don’t know what makes a great movie, but I do know what moves me. While though there are many controversies about Wilberforce’s role in abolishing slavery and about the underlying motive of the abolitionists, he still had a significant impact. The movie does mention that the West Indian slave uprisings were partly successful because the slaves thought there was support in England which makes an interesting historical note to present-day protests in our country. Some of the controversies seem to be very similar to the one between Booker Washington and W.E.B. DuBois about which direction the campaign for racial equality should move. Slow and gradual or more radical.

The movie also has a fascinating take on fair trade issues as well as a scene of a poster in a shop window stating that it sold only sugar from free men. It gives our present day effort to buy fair trade products a nice historical perspective. The woman he ends up marrying (a lot quicker in real life than the movie implies) lets him know that she stopped using sugar for her tea long ago. Remember eating California table grapes in the ‘60’s? I hope not.

The reviews said it was historically accurate with only a few errors: the tune Wilberforce uses to sing Amazing Grace wasn’t used until 50 years later and the breed of dog they used in the movie hadn’t come to England yet.

There’s a scene at the dinner table which I loved. Wilberforce has invited a group of abolitionists to his house. One says to him that he understands that Wilberforce is trying to decide between being a man of God or being someone who can change the world. A woman to his left turns to him and says, “We would like to suggest that you can do both.”

Another part of the movie that interested me was the issue of over-crowding of the slave ships which led to many deaths of slaves at sea. There’s a mark on the sides of all American merchant ships called the Plimsoll Mark. It’s the safe load line that indicates what level the ship can carry a load. Samuel Plimsoll started his campaign from the House of Commons just a few decades after Wilberforce started his in the same place. Reaction to Plimsoll by shipowners may have been more violent than the reaction to Wiberforce by sugar plantation owners. There was an effort a few years ago to repeal or weaken the Plimsoll Mark. It was unsuccessful at the time. The ship owners will probably try to bring it back. A movie about Plimsoll and his campaign to save the lives of merchant seaman would be a welcome event. Maybe Michael Apted would be interested. It wouldn’t be hard to make it PG-13

The Unrepentant Marxist website has a very different perspective on the movie and one well worth reading. Especially for his discovery of who bankrolled the movie.

Here’s his website address as well as a poem he includes.

http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2007/02/18/amazing-grace

Sonnet, To Thomas Clarkson,
On the final passing of the Bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, March, 1807.

Clarkson! it was an obstinate Hill to climb:
How toilsome, nay how dire it was, by Thee
Is known,—by none, perhaps, so feelingly;
But Thou, who, starting in thy fervent prime,
Didst first lead forth this pilgrimage sublime,
Hast heard the constant Voice its charge repeat,
Which, out of thy young heart’s oracular seat,
First roused thee.—O true yoke-fellow of Time
With unabating effort, see, the palm
Is won, and by all Nations shall be worn!
The bloody Writing is for ever torn,
And Thou henceforth wilt have a good Man’s calm,
A great Man’s happiness; thy zeal shall find
Repose at length, firm Friend of human kind!

William Wordsworth

Thomas Clarkson is the long-haired abolitionist in the movie who recruits Wilberforce for the cause.

I had never heard of the actor or any of the cast except for Albert Finney. But then I never saw Pride and Prejudice and slept through the Fantastic Four at the drive-in when I took Peter and Alan last summer. Finney is John Newton and has a great line in the movie about only being a monk on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Drive-ins are great fun. Unless it’s the middle of summer and the first show isn’t until almost 10 which means the second show isn’t over until 2 and if the third show is the one you really wanted to see then it’s 5 a.m. before you get home. The boys and I go alone. Linda has better sense.

Has anyone seen the Pete Seeger movie? I didn’t get to it in time when it breezed through the Twin Cities and it’s not in video yet.

Marty

Ernest Borgnine, in case any eight year-olds are interested, is the voice of Mermaid Man in SpongeBob SquarePants. He’s also the main actor in Marty, a 1955 movie I’ve wanted to see for a long time.

We watched it last night and thoroughly enjoyed it although the more cynical teenage child called it quits soon after it started. The less cynical teenager stayed with it but kept saying, “This is stupid.”

Marty is 34 and never married. Clara is 29 and never married. It’s a great love story as well as a sad look into how single men spent their time in 1955. It might be sadder if a remake was done now. Interestingly, the actress who played Clara, Betsy Blair, was married to Gene Kelly at the time. According to her bio, she had been on the blacklist and couldn’t find work. Gene Kelly threatened to stop making movies unless she got the part of Clara.

There were some strange parts. If you see it, let me know how believable Aunt Catherine’s age is when she tells her (hopefully) older sister. Also, a scene in the bar with three grandmotherly-aged (I hope) women sitting at the bar drinking beer. Not that I would know (anymore) but isn’t that strange?

Marty is a lovely movie. It won several Oscars in 1955, although I have little faith in the Oscars ever since Frances McDormand won Best Actress for Fargo and didn’t come on-screen until half-way through the movie. I thought she was good but strange. I thought Kristin Scott Thomas in the English Patient should have won, not only for superb acting, but also for the amount of work she had to do like stay on-screen the entire time. I’m not sure why that matters to me. It just struck me at the time as odd.

Speaking of the Oscars, the screenwriter of Marty, Paddy Chayefsky, is the one who told Vanessa Redgrave in the 1978 Oscars in response to her Zionist remark, "I would like to suggest to Miss Redgrave that her winning an Academy Award is not a pivotal moment in history, does not require a proclamation and a simple 'Thank you' would have sufficed." (thank you, Wikipedia) Regardless of my feelings about what she said, I love a good comeback. Mine always come a day late.

But the best part? Ernest Borgnine looks an awful lot like Dad in his younger years.

Also, it was nice to see a movie from the ‘50’s where the main characters weren’t smoking the entire time. Clara never smoked and Marty was only shown smoking once or twice, although there were an awful lot of butts in the plate when they went to the coffee shop.

If you ever saw Back To the Future then you’ll remember that the main character’s name is Marty and he travels back to 1955. The speed he has to travel is 88mph which is how old Mickey Spillane was when he died last year. Now you have to watch Marty to see where Mickey Spillane comes in. Using Spillane in the movie was a great way to underscore how lonely the men were. When I sailed in the merchant marines many of us always had a copy of one of his books in our back pocket. We were lonely men. Desperate seamen. Les Miserable. Professors of pain.

Hey, Marty!

Favorite movies and thoughts

Email response from Debbie

The Namesake is an incredibly good book, one I loved so much that I decided
not to see the movie.... love to all, Debbie

Reply from me:

I'm always amazed when I see a movie and don't even think where the story came from. I'll have to look for the Namesake book.

Which brings up the question of seeing a movie first versus reading the book first or not seeing the movie. I would have thought reading the book would always be an option until I tried reading Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. I loved the movie and tried to read the book several weeks later. I could not make sense of it. Maybe save it for a summer book like I do for Faulkner books.

Coincidentally, the movie was directed by Liev Scribner who I loved in the Painted Veil. He must be a nice Jewish boy who happened to have been raised on the Lower East Side.

Jonathan Safran Foer's wife is Nicole Krauss who wrote the most beautiful book I've ever read, The History of Love. Linda and I read it in turn. I was most of the way done and on a hike in Zion National Park last spring break. The book was in the car and I could barely wait to get back to it. It's been optioned for a movie but no developments recently. Maybe for the best. I've reread it twice since and only recently found out the meaning of the girl's name. Now I'll read it again with that in mind.

How about a list from people of books they would not want to see a movie of and movies they wish they had not seen after reading the book?

I loved Beloved by Toni Morrison and was enthralled with the movie. I've been listening to the soundtrack lately and want to see the movie again. Maybe I'll read the book again first.

Terms of Endearment was a deeply emotional read (a long time ago) but I hated the movie mainly because Jack Nicholson (before he became big enough to play Al Gore) goes to New York. In the book his character goes to Los Angeles. That just made me give up.

There's a classic children's book called Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbit. Deeply loved by most teachers and children who can put aside the dislike towards thinking about meaning. A movie came out a few years ago with Winona Ryder. The opening scene made me stand up and scream "There's no motorcycle in the book!" Then I sat down and hated the rest of it.

Why do I get so upset about what I think are unnecessary trivial inconsistencies between the movie and the book? Am I making too much of it? Or should I come to expect it? Or not see the movie? I usually like to see how a director interprets the book. There's often only part of the book that's emphasized which can make it another way to experience the book.

Linda and I just finished Atonement by Ian McKellen. Mainly because it was on the basement shelf after we had picked it up months ago on the half-price bin at Half-Price Books. When the movie came out with rave reviews we started reading it. It was a good read but didn't leave any great emotional mark on me. We'll probably see the movie.
It's a story of Jewish guilt on a grand scale. If you know the book you're laughing at me. But look at the title and the last name of the family. It's gotta to be a conspiracy. Askenazkic guilt at that.

I realize I probably made a bad joke in my last e-mail using Daniel Pearl's last words in a joking way. I am sorry.

Mighty Heart and Namesake

We finally saw A Mighty Heart last night. Powerful, well-done. R-rated but mainly for the tension and explosive use of the f-word. Particularly by Angelina. I thought she played the part very well. All the controversy about her being "white" and having to darken her skin to pay a real-life woman who is bi-racial may have its point but then how do we find the exact match in any film? Brad Pitt was one of the producers which may have made a difference in casting.

We all know the outcome of the story and it isn't shown. The emphasis seemed to be on Jolie's role as Marianne Pearl. I remember reading that the two worked together on the film. The special features are worth seeing. Good background into the movie. I did read some criticism of the movie that it didn't show the radical Muslims radical enough. It did show what I thought was an amazing amount of cooperation from the Pakistani police in investigating the kidnapping, after a period of non-cooperation. In the follow-up features the Pearls make the point that we have to keep an open dialogue. Maybe that was the purpose in downplaying the radical in favor of showing the positive. Or I could just be terribly naive.

The man who plays the Pakistani captain (and is listed as Captain in the credits) is Irfan Kahn who played the father in a beautiful Indian movie called Namesake. We saw it in the theaters last year and it just came out in video. I almost enjoyed watching him in the Mighty Heart more than Angelina since he played such a loving character in Namesake. It was good to see him again and in another good role.

Namesake is about a newly-wed Indian couple who move from India to New York and have a child. Their son grows up and the movie gives us his story and his parents and some insight into Indian culture. We loved it. Female director and the actress who plays the mother is named Tabu.


Just as a side point, the end of the Daniel Pearl tragedy takes place around the Muslim holiday of Eid Al Adha which, this year, is next Thursday. I know because I actually looked on our school calendar. This is a milestone for me. Anyway, I have tried to teach something about it in class. Especially since half of my class is Muslim. I just made sure I didn't use any teddy bears to help tell the story.

Eid Al Adha is a commemoration of the sacrifice Abraham had to make. In case you're confused, too, remember in Islam it's Ishmael who gets taken up the mountain and has nightmares the rest of his life about his father and a knife.

Unfortunately, we had our school carnival last week and another teacher and I helped out at the duck pond. We give out cheap trinkets that we get donated and have a huge carbon footprint. We also have a fair-sized Muslim student population. After the carnival, I happened to turn over one of the cheap donated trinkets. In small letters it said, "Jesus loves you."

My last words were, "I am a Jew." "But it's the goyim's fault."

Painted Veil

We finally saw The Painted Veil the other night. Beautiful movie, scenery and acting.
I had tried to avoid it when it first came out in the theaters. Linda had gotten free tickets and wanted to go but I said, "It's a movie about two unhappy people who move to a village in China where everyone is dying of cholera. Why would I want to go?" But of course it's about much more and really is much more uplifting than it sounds.

The scenery almost upstages the acting especially if your TV screen is big enough. But the acting is good, too.
Edward Norton is great and looks like Stan Laurel with a straight face. This is a compliment since I always thought Laurel was the redeeming feature of his Hardy partner with the persistent Hitler mustache. If you're ever in Augusta, you might want to see what a once-major shopping mall looks like when it's been vacant for 20 years (Regency Mall, amazingly dreary history), or visit a museum focusing on Oliver Hardy in his birthplace of Harlem, Georgia, about 20 miles out of Augusta.

Naomi Watts is wonderful and almost made me forget she took Fay Wray's place in a movie I've tried to forget. Even our boys, 10 and 12 at the time didn't care for it.

One of the best scenes, for me, was when Liev Schrieber enters. He played the very evil son in the remake of The Manchurian Candidate with Denzel Washington. A great movie. I hadn't seen him since that movie and when he comes on in The Painted Veil I got a wonderful sense that something very complicated was going to develop. He's also the real-life partner of Naomi Watts if that makes any difference in what happens next.

There's a scene with Norton and Watts after they've been in the cholera village for a while and Watts has started helping the Catholic nuns at their orphanage. She tells Norton how inspired she is by the nuns' work with the orphans. Norton says yes but they aren't all orphans and that the nuns take them from families or pay them in order to raise them as Catholic. Very meaningful in light of the recent uproar in Sudan when the French charity tried to airlift the children that they said were orphans. The last I heard was that no one could document whether or not they were orphans and that they looked too well-fed to have been mistreated. Then an African leader was quoted as saying that there aren't any orphans in Africa since all children are raised by the village.

This movie is a remake of a 1930's film with Greta Garbo which I'm anxious to see. Also, a 1950's movie, The Seventh Sin, is the same story. Also with good reviews but no Garbo.

The title of the movie comes from this poem by Percy Shelley and helped me appreciate the movie much more after I read it about 20 times.


" Lift not the painted veil . . ."

Percy Shelley, 1818

Lift not the painted veil which those who live

Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,

And it but mimic all we would believe

With colours idly spread, --- behind, lurk Fear

And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave

Their shadows, o'er the chasm, sightless and drear.

I knew one who had lifted it --- he sought,

For his lost heart was tender, things to love,

But found them not, alas ! nor was there aught

The world contains, the which he could approve.

Through the unheeding many he did move,

A splendour among shadows, a bright blot

Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove

For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.

If you listen closely, towards the end, you'll hear Edward Norton refer to the dog that died. This is the poem he was referring to.

An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog

Good people all, of every sort,
Give ear unto my song;
And if you find it wondrous short,
It cannot hold you long.

In Islington there was a man,
Of whom the world might say
That still a godly race he ran,
Whene'er he went to pray.

A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes;
The naked every day he clad,
When he put on his clothes.

And in that town a dog was found,
As many dogs there be,
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound,
And curs of low degree.

This dog and man at first were friends;
But when a pique began,
The dog, to gain some private ends,
Went mad and bit the man.

Around from all the neighbouring streets
The wondering neighbours ran,
And swore the dog had lost his wits,
To bite so good a man.

The wound it seemed both sore and sad
To every Christian eye;
And while they swore the dog was mad,
They swore the man would die.

But soon a wonder came to light,
That showed the rogues they lied:
The man recovered of the bite,
The dog it was that died.

Oliver Goldsmith
d. April 4, 1774, London

Enchanted

Friday night we went to the movies. It’s great having a soon-to-be eight year-old along as it lessens the discussion time over what movie to see.

Enchanted

Funny, sweet, subtle sex (if a gorgeous woman has just gotten out of the shower and wraps herself in a towel then it's unlikely she’s wearing anything else, so when she lands on top of Patrick Dempsey and straddles him on the floor there is something going on or up). Which means that if Disney can dumb down Cinderella then it can dumb down sex.

Political spoiler: The New York Times published an article several days later describing the terrible conditions in India where many of New York’s UTILITY-hole covers are made. It’s unlikely that Disney used fair trade UTILITY–hole covers in the movie. Although it was not unnoticed by concerned and observant movie-going liberals that Susan Sarandon’s UTILITY-hole cover blew off and smashed the giant Times Square Coke sign Edward Abbey-style. Yeah for Disney’s anti-corporate message. Whoop, whoop. If only the NYT knew what those round things are called in these times.

Enchanted sure tried to hit most of the cliched characters: one very excited, very butch gay guy, a Jew as evidenced by the mezuzah on the apartment door and seen only by the truly observant (and played by Judy Kuhn who may well be Jewish and who was one of the Disney princesses to have cameos -- she sang the Pochohantas role), and some ethnic characters (although I think they were the animated creatures). Also, John Travalto's sister was in it but she's not a cliche although he might be by now.

Good movie for girls, boys, less-cynical adults. Even our 13 year-old Alan liked it when Linda took him.

We just rented a a fairy tale more for adults:

Celestial Clockwork

A Venezuelan, French, Spanish movie that uses the Cinderella story in a cute, funny way and tries to be in the Magical Realism genre of 100 Years of Solitude. It's unrated and the review said it had no sex or violence but that's by Venezuelan standards. Plenty of drug use and gay camaraderie. It starts off in Caracas and then moves to Paris which I only know because I looked it up on IMBD. We ordered it from the Blockbuster DVD-by-mail service.