He's probably familiar with a movie I've wanted to see again for a long time, The King of Comedy with Robert De Niro, Sandra Bernhardt and Jerry Lewis. All of the acting is terrific, especially getting to see Jerry Lewis in a serious role. De Niro plays a fan obsessed with Lewis's talk show host character. Bernhardt is even more scary as a crazy, rich Jew who also stalks Lewis' character. Her line about waiting until "Shavous" kind of pegs her if she didn't stand out before.
It's a Martin Scorsese movie which makes it fun to wait for his customary crucifixion scene. Like trying to spot Alfred Hitchcock in his movies. De Niro gets the crucifixion scene in this one. Great shot. Probably deeply symbolic. Maybe not. We went to hear a friend sing Christmas carols in the huge Catholic cathedral in Minneapolis last month. We sat right in front of the equally huge and gory crucifix. Linda wanted me to sing along but I didn't want to draw attention to myself. I pointed up to the crucifix and said, "Look what happened to the last Jew they let in here." Peter laughed so hard that we were immediately checked for foreskin status and to see if we had stolen any blood from the crucifix.
Yesterday was the birthday of Richard Brautigan. One of my favorite writers from the '60's who I never read again. Apparently not too many other people did either after that era was over. I only know it was his birthday because I listened to Garrison Keillor last night on his Writer's Almanac. Brautigan had a much sadder life than I had imagined.
But speaking of poems and Scorsese, we watched a beautiful movie the other night, The Golden Door, or Nuovomondo in Italian. There's another Golden Door movie that hasn't been released yet but it has Snoop Dogg in it to distinguish it from the Italian Golden Door about 1900 era dirt-poor Sicilian farmers. The Snoop Dogg movie is directed by David Rosenthal who has a Master's degree from Sarah Lawrence in ... poetry. The Italian Golden Door was described as a tone poem so maybe there was a synchronistic meaning to it all.
Brautigan, Snoop Dogg, and Sicilian dreamers. Wow, makes me want to add a poem to this. I wonder if Snoop Dogg has one?
Nuovomondo would be worth watching just for the scene of the ship leaving the dock. Also for the two beautiful Nina Simone songs, especially Sinnerman at the end. Everything else works, too, if the idea of dream weaving entrances you. It did me. Beautiful. Especially the character of Lucy or Luce in Italian which means "light" and is explained a little bit more in the special feature about how the movie was made. Also worth watching.
For those of us for whom Ellis Island has meaning (isn't that all of us? Did Alexander and Harry come through there?) this movie will have special significance. The background I could find says that the scenes and details were all authentic although some people have different recollections or interpretations of the arranged marriage procedures. The main idea was that someone had to be able to vouch for you and for single women it usually meant an arranged marriage. If someone had to vouch for you, how did our grandfathers get in? Who was already here to meet them?
There's a very small part by a favorite character actor, Vincent Schiavelli, who was the subway ghost in Ghost and was one of the inmates in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. He died halfway through making the movie. He's the rich character with the really baggy eyes.
Speaking of bloody crucifixion scenes, there's a movie I love called Maldonado Miracle. It's directed by Selma Hayek and has a good role for Peter Fonda. We last encountered him as the disturbed bounty hunter in 3:10 to Yuma but some of us first remember him from Easy Rider. Now that's going back to the beginning of the end of Brautigan time. Some of us might also remember Selma Hayek from a newspaper review of a movie she did with Pierce Bronson. In the accompanying picture, she's laying (lying?) on the beach with Bronson and the caption says, "Here's a picture of Pierce Bronson lying (laying?) on the beach with Selma Hayek's breasts."
Her directing work is great. Great movie, too. Miracle's really do happen in different ways. I once heard an interpretation of the Loaves and Fishes story in the Gospels. The miracle wasn't that Jesus made the food appear but that his compassion made people share what they had.
Speaking of directors, Scorsese does the introduction to Nuovomondo but I don't think there was a crucifixion scene in the movie. We did see The King of Comedy the other night. It's hard to find movies that teenage boys will sit still for which explains why we saw Balls of Fury. It is nice to see movies together as a family. But every now and then Linda and I want to feel like we're on a date. Nuovomondo was just the ticket.
There's plenty of poetry I could add here but instead I'll mention two of my favorite children's books about immigration, both illustrated by a good friend, Beth Peck.
Grandmother's Runaway Shadow by Liz Rosenberg and How Many Days to America by Eve Bunting.
Alright. Here's Emma Lazurus:
The New Colossus
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