Silken, sad, uncertain

Real men resign in chess and real men read poetry.

There's almost something Jaws-like about reading "The Raven" out loud. Go now and do it. I'll wait.

First, Poe uses trochaic meter. That's not the dumDUM iamb we all loved so dearly in high school, but the DUMdum trochee nobody ever told us about. Then, he puts together eight of those dang trochees in a row. No matter how you slice it, octameter is always kind of awkwardly long in English. I always try to read it as two separate, bite-size lines. But Poe doesn't let you do that by using a combination of alliteration, drawn-out thoughts, and off-center breaks. For example:

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me--filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

The fourth trochee of the first line is "-certain." That should be the natural break. But we slip on the alliteration--"silken, sad, uncertain"--and slide right into the end of the thought. We dig in our heels after the fourth trochee, but the alliterative momentum and our own curiosity knocks us over into the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth trochees.

The second line has the off-center break I was talking about. Instead of giving us a nice comma after the fourth trochee ("-tastic"), Poe makes us take a breath after the first trochee: "Thrilled me." Even though the second line doesn't have the alliterative momentum, it has the thought momentum that pulls us forward into the second half of the line.

Finally, Poe uses an analog to the old idea of comic relief. After five lines of trochaic octameter, he gives us a bite-size trochaic tetrameter at the end of each stanza. For me, these serve as a sort of breather, but the bad kind, the kind of breather you take when you're swimming in from too far out in the water. You don't think you're moving, but you're slipping farther and farther out to sea. Only here, it's the hypnotic sea of The Raven.

Finally, the salt on the watermelon are the sprinkled in lines that are nearly comedic:

"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore--

That is, lattice, and thereat is. The man was a rhyming genius.

PS--I just learned the ravens can talk. This poem just went from fantastical to dadgum.

Wright and Haiku

Good poetry involves the synergy of sound, rhythm, and connotation:

Standing in the field,
I hear the whispering of
     Snowflake to snowflake.

- Richard Wright (1968).

Out of all the photographs I've ever taken, this is one of my favorites:



There's just something beautiful about winter.

There's always next year

Baseball is a tough game. Especially on its fans.

The first math I remember learning was how to figure batting average and ERA on a calculator. I learned my colors from baseball cards. ("Give your mother all the red teams."*) I learned to never give up from baseball.

*My mom's favorite color at the time was red. Ironically, her favorite team was the Royals, but she had a hundred cards of Reds and Red Sox and some other team that won't be named.

I also learned how to lose from baseball.

And the worst part about it is that I can't do anything about it.

I'm not going to say the better team won. I'm not going to say the more deserving team won. I'm definitely not going to say the more deserving fan base won. I don't really believe any of those things. All I can say is that baseball is a game uniquely influenced by luck, and I have never had good luck.

Oh, I do want to say one other thing. I can't think of a single player on this team that I don't like. I'm glad I'm not Jon Daniels. I don't want to try to figure out how to make this team better.

My Weekend at the Movies

Or, I guess, at home, really.

This weekend, we watched two movies: Helen Hunt's directorial debut Then She Found Me and David Fincher's second attempt at defining a generation through film, The Social Network.

SPOILERALERTSPOILERALERTSPOILERALERTSPOILERALERT

Then She Found Me: 3/5


I really liked Helen Hunt's directorial debut.  She cast herself as April, a late-30s urban school teacher, recently married to her long-time best friend and coworker, Ben (Matthew Broderick).  One day, she comes home from work ready to make a baby, and Ben is sitting at the kitchen table wearing a tee-shirt and sneakers.  They have a brief argument over who should stand up or sit down and who should take her coat off, and the argument ends with breakup sex.  The next day, she meets Frank (Colin Firth), a recently single father of one of her students.  They have instant chemistry, but they are both trying to get a handle on their new stations in life.  Add April's heretofore unknown birth mother, Bernice (Bette Midler), and you have a recipe for interesting drama with some spice of real world comedy.

I've already said it once, but I'll say it again.  I really liked TSFM.  You have four likable actors playing three likable roles, and you instantly have characters I care about.  This is one of those movies where I lost track of time and just enjoyed being with April and Frank as they tried to figure out how to be who they've become.  The characters are the strong point of this movie, and Director Hunt did well to avoid distracting us with stunning visuals or swelling orchestral numbers or lampshaded plot metaphors.  Instead, everything takes a backseat to the characters.  And that's OK.

If there's one thing I didn't like about the movie, it would be that the relationship between April and Ben wasn't developed enough.  At one point, April tells Bernice that Ben is the kind of guy that she knows she'll do whatever he asks.  That point becomes painfully obvious twice.  What confuses me is that I don't understand why she'll do whatever he asks.  What does he bring to the table?  I guess I just would have liked to have seen more pre-split development.

The Social Network: 3/5

David Fincher, once again, tries to define a generation.  He did it the first time (very successfully, I think) with Fight Club.  Now, he's taking a generation-defining technology and talking about it.  I think he makes a subtle point about greed and loneliness and technology that might get lost without some post-viewing thinking.

The Social Network tells the tale of the founding of Facebook.  We watch it mainly as it revolves around Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), and we see what happens.  It's hard to say who really did who wrong, but that's not really the point.  The plot goes something like this: Zuckerberg is a brilliant computer scientist-in-training.  He gains notoriety by developing a website overnight that allows users to vote on the various girls of Harvard in one-on-one competitions.  The Winklevoss twins (played simultaneously by Armie Hammer) and their crony Divya (Max Minghella) call him up to see if he can put together a website they've dreamed up.  They call it "Harvard Connection."  He takes the idea, pitches it to his best friend, financial wizard Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), and Eduardo and he take the world by storm, making a million friends and a few enemies along the way.

My favorite thing about SN is that it tells the story through some type of legal proceeding several years down the road.  Fincher cuts in interesting ways between the legal proceeding and the events as they happen, lending an air of credibility to the speaker at the legal proceeding (usually Eduardo).  But---and this is what I like---he lampshades their incentive to lie.  After Zuckerberg accuses somebody of lying, one of the lawyers points out that she was under oath.  "Oh," he says, "then it's the first time anybody's ever lied under oath."  It's a subtler version of the Rashomon effect, and it hearkens back to Fincher's Fight Club days.  Where Kurosawa had four narrators tell the same story four times, Fincher has two narrators tell different parts of the same story.  It all vaguely fits together, but we still don't really know what happened.

[Apostrophe: I saw Passengers at Safeway today for $6.99.  Talk about untrustworthy narrators.  I thought about buying it.  And you thought you'd only get spoilers for Then She Found Me and The Social Network.  Bah.  I spoil it all.]

What did I dislike?  Well, mainly, Mark Zuckerberg.  And that's a problem.  When you have a movie revolve around a guy, he has to be sympathetic in some way.  Otherwise, you can't watch the movie.  Thankfully, Eduardo hangs around long enough to make Zuckerberg palatable.  (At least until Zuckerberg royally screws Eduardo.)  Don't tell me that that's the point of the movie.  It's not.  Fincher bookends the movie (and throws in two lines at about the 1/3 and 2/3 marks) with references to Erica Albright.  She is the only one he doesn't screw.  Tell me what you think about that.

Conclusions


Rent them both.

The Kids Are All Right: 3/5

The Kids Are All Right is the third feature film by Lisa Cholodenko.  The basic plot is simple.  Nic and Jules (played by Annette Bening and Julianne Moore, respectively) are a middle-aged lesbian couple about to bid their daughter Joni (played by Mia Wasikowska) adieu as she goes off to college.  Now that she's 18, she can get in touch with her sperm-donor father Paul (played by Mark Ruffalo), which she does, and he knocks all their preciously balanced lives off kilter.  I liked the first two-thirds of this movie, then it kinda ran off track.  I wouldn't mind watching it again, but I don't really need to.

Three Up

1. The acting - The five main actors in TKAAR do well.  Four of the five are charming and sympathetic.  These are people that I might want to get to know.  For the first two thirds of the movie, I was content getting to know these characters.
2. The setting - Maybe I'm just coming out of my winter hibernation, but I really enjoyed looking at all the sunny, warm, green lusciousness of Los Angeles.  If movies are about making us wish we were somewhere else, then this movie accomplished that for me.
3. I liked the normality and banality of Nic and Jules's relationship.  The sooner we realize that other people are, in fact, other people, the sooner we will get over our foolish hangups and hatred.

Three Down

1. The title
   1. Option A: I read that the title borrows from a song by The Who of the same a similar name.  If so, that suggests that the titular "kids" are really the parents.  But are the parents all right?  One parent is inattentive, controlling, and struggling with alcohol; the other is (apparently) irresponsible, cheating, and perhaps sexually confused.  The second mother may also be going through a mid-life crisis.  If the titular kids are the actual parents, then they don't seem to be all right. 
   2. Option B: If the titular "kids" are, in fact, the kids, then the title answers a question nobody asked.  Are the kids all right?  Why is that even a question?  Is this a comment on same-sex couples raising children?  As in, Don't worry - the kids are just fine without having a male father figure, and if he ever shows up, he'll only mess things up.  And if the titular kids are the actual kids, why don't they have character arcs?  
   3. Sidenote: Maybe it's a generational thing, but would the kind of people who name their children after Joni Mitchell also listen to The Who?  They seem sort of like opposities to me.
2. Character development - I just have some questions.
   1. Was there any real indication that Jules is irresponsible?  The work history I remember is that she went to school to be an architect, but stopped pursuing that career path when they had children.  (I would be hard-pressed to call stay-at-home mothers irresponsible.)  Then, at some point later, she opened a furniture store that didn't quite work out.  (Like Paul said, "Businesses are hard.")  And now she is pursuing a third business, as part of which she fires a guy she thinks has a drug problem.  Maybe you can say that sleeping with your client is irresponsible, but it seems like two different senses of the word.
   2. Why does Nic get to act like the innocent victim of Jules's infidelity?  Nic was inattentive, controlling, judgmental, and possibly alcoholic.  Nobody deserves to be cheated on, but it's not like Nic's hands were clean.
   3. Why do we care that Joni and Laser (really?  Am I supposed to believe that someone who would name their child after Joni Mitchell would name another child Laser?) have their unique talents?  
   4. Why does Nic call Paul "self-satisfied"?  Paul seems like a decent guy living a decent life before he met Jules.  
3. Fridge Logic - If I presented to you two character portraits, one of Nic and one of Jules, who do you think would be more likely to have a child first?

TAOJJBTCRF*: 4/5

*The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, written and directed by Andrew Dominik, based on the 1983 novel by Ron Hansen, starring Casey Affleck and Brad Pitt, featuring a bazillion other crazy talented actors, scored by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, and shot by the renowned Roger Deakins.

Three Up:

1.  The Cinematography--Movies ought to be a synergistic explosion of compelling characters saying interesting things in a beautiful-to-watch way.  This movie was beautiful.  I loved the vistas, I loved the coloring, I loved the costuming.  BONUS.  This is one of the few recent movies that realizes that movies are less about plot than they are about characters and visuals.  A certain director of increasingly bad movies could learn a lesson.

2.  The Acting--Casey Affleck, I think we all know, is an amazing actor.  Brad Pitt is surprisingly underrated, despite creating great characters in a lot of movies lately.  (Did you see him in Interview with the Vampire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, or Mr. and Mrs. Smith?)  Sam Rockwell, Jeremy Renner, and Paul Schneider support the leading duo like professional actors.  Mary-Louise Parker turns her 6 lines in 24 minutes into a brilliant study of the devoted wife of a larger-than-life man, and Zooey Deschanel turns her 6 lines in 2 minutes into a fascinating study of the supporting girl of a crumpled man.  There are too many brilliant actors doing too many brilliant things to list it all.  When you watch it, pay close attention to the scene when Jesse James comes over for dinner.  Brilliance on cellophane.

3. The Score--Long story short, I haven't enjoyed a score this much since Moon.

Three Down

1. The Running Time--First, a caveat.  This movie is terribly long at 160 minutes.  Second, an admission.  I cannot think of 2 minutes that could be cut without taking away from the movie.  Still, I can't see myself popping it in on a Tuesday night when there's nothing on TV.

2.  The Mumbling--Being from the quasi-South (Is Texas Southern?  Is Maryland?  I never know.), I can appreciate a good Southern accent.  Mumbling is part of it.  But interesting dialog is only interesting if it is understood.  I think I missed out on half of the great lines.

3.  The Long Title--I dread telling my friends at work, "Have you seen The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford?  It's great!"  And, since I have a Texas mumbling drawl, they'll be all like "Wha--???" and I'll have to repeat it.  And I can't shorten it because I despise shortening titles.  Sigh.

Stargazing in the Wee Hours of December 21, 2010

The moon in the sky is a peach
That dropped in and bounced out of the bleach.
I'd go if I could.
I hope that you would.
So let's gaze at the stars and let's dream.

We lay on our backs and we stare
Past the trees and the dust in the air
What's up with the moon?
It's orange, not blue.
It's the end of the world--I'm scared.

The moon hides behind its big brother
To get out of the glare of its mother
It'd rather be seen
In a faint orange gleam
Than to be drowned in her kisses and smother

A sign of the end of the times:
The moon is a fat copper dime.
So turn back to God
You ignorant sod
And don't be the one left behind.

I hope you enjoyed these weak rhymes,
That they feel on your lips like cheap wine.
Now, I know the truth--
So don't disabuse
By complaining I've wasted your time.

The Inverted Pyramid

According to Wikipedia:

The inverted pyramid is a metaphor used by journalists and other writers to illustrate the placing of the most important information first within a text. It is a common method for writing news stories and is widely taught to journalism students.

I guess nobody taught the AP staff covering the Baylor-Bethune-Cookman game that.  This little nugget of trivia is stuck down in the very last paragraph of Yahoo!'s version of the copy:

Baylor’s [school record] 12 wins in a row at the Ferrell Center isn’t even the longest active winning streak by a Big 12 men’s team in the building. Oklahoma has won 14 in a row there.

Come on.  How is that not lede material?

Philadelphia Heat

Wow.

Cliff Lee has signed with the Phillies.  No Rangers, no Yankees, just Phillies.  That makes him (apparently) the second starter after Roy Halladay and before Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels.  I don't want to say anything rude, but I hope that the Phillies flop and die.

I hope the Giants go 7-155 next year.

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang: 4/5

SPOILER ALERT

Basically, Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.) accidentally lands a role in some movie, gets shipped out west to L.A., meets Gay Perry (Val Kilmer), learns how to be a P.I., and reunites with his first love (Michelle Monaghan).  Oh, Shane Black (Predator) writes and directs.

THREE UP

1.  The Characters - A post is brewing in my head about how characters are the real meat of any story, be it written, spoken, or shown.  The characters in a story are what brings people back to it years and years down the road.  Harry, Gay Perry, and Harmony are the kind of people I want to hang out with for a couple of hours.  (I don't know how long this movie was, sorta like losing track of time while hanging out with friends.)  I can't say much about the characters that will explain why I like them, but I'll try.  Harry is a lovable Every Man who walks the fine (in the movies) line between irrelevant brilliance and hopeless incompetence.  Gay Perry has the competence and confidence that makes you want to be his friend, as well as the social resistance that makes him irresistible (especially when he agrees to be your friend).  And Harmony has the brains, the body, and the face of the girl you hope you marry.  Why wouldn't you want to hang out with these people?

2.  The Opening Sequence - It reminded me of my favorite opening sequence of all time.

3.  The Depth - I am POSITIVE that there is more to this than one viewing can reveal.  For example, the title comes from an Italian movie poster which, translated, said simply, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang."  According to a famous reviewer, those four words are "perhaps the briefest statement imaginable of the basic appeal of movies."  That is, we watch movies to imagine ourselves living a life full of sex and violence.  A lot of bad movies will use sex or violence (usually both) to pump up a dead scene or draw in crowds that wouldn't otherwise watch the movie.  I like to call that "gratuitous sex or violence (usually both)."  Ironically, almost all the sex and violence in this movie serves some purpose within the movie, beyond mere gratuity.  (The lone exception I can think of is itself an allusion to how Hollywood exploits young actresses, which, some say, is Shane Black's theme.)  So, all that to say, a movie promising sex and violence from the title card that limits itself to meaningful sex and violence?  There must be more here than meets the first viewing.

Three Down

1.  End Credits - First, this was quite possibly the most disappointing end credits I've ever seen.  Please note my use of the word "disappointing" rather than bad.  The end credits were fine, but even bad movies usually get that part right.  Happy (bad) movies end with happy music; sappy (bad) movies end with some sappy song.  You want triumphant or introspective or celebratory music that resounds with the ending of the movie, not some random, disconnected song.  Maybe these end credits can be explained by 3-Up, but this fan-of-end-credits-music was not happy.

2.  The Plot - I know it's a parody, but I would have liked a little more sense.  At least, something a little clearer about what the plot was supposed to be.  I will admit, though, that using the telegraphed "hint" about the two deaths being connected (as in, a double murder) as a red herring was alright.  After a week's thinking, I'll also admit that the plot falls clearly within 3-Up as well.

3.  The Finger - I am really confused about (a) how a slamming apartment door could cut a finger off so cleanly and (b) how exactly he lost his right ring finger.  I can't figure it out.  Is Shane Black making fun of me?  Try it and let me know what happens.

Do the Paul Morphy

The joy in a battle of chess
Is fighting your damnable best.
But I like to win
Again and again:
Losing's a pain in the neck.

Teleology

They tell me that one death is fine
As long as at least two survive.
But what if my two
Go blow up a nuke?
Equations go weak late at night.

To a Confused Friend

The girl is a keeper, I say,
Agreeable most of the way.
But if she turns mean,
Remember she's been
Wearing those heels every day.

Game 1 of the Most Exciting World Series Ever

So that didn't quite go according to plan.  For the Rangers: Cliff Lee gave up 7 runs (6 earned) got chased in the 5th and suffered his first postseason loss ever; Vladimir Guerrero had trouble in right field; Michael Young and Josh Hamilton combined to go 0-for-8; Young and Elvis Andrus bobbled plays they normally make.  For the Giants: Tim Lincecum gave up 4 runs and got chased in the 6th; the Giants' bullpen gave up 3 runs (all with Brian Wilson on the mound).  The stat book: 10 doubles in the game (4 by the Rangers, 6 by the Giants).

Three Up

1.  The Rangers' lineup - Numbers 2 through 5 in the lineup (Young, Hamilton, Guerrero, and Nelson Cruz) combined for an awful 2-for-17, but the Rangers still scored 7 runs?  Clearly, this lineup knows how to hit.  (Bonus points to Elvis: his leadoff single extended his start-of-his-postseason-career hitting streak to 12 games.)

2.  The Rangers' resilience - (a) Down 8-2 against Lincecum with 2 outs in the 6th, the Rangers refused to give up.  Ian Kinsler walked; Bengie "The Vacuum" Molina doubled him in (8-3); Mitch Moreland singled off Lincecum's leg to put runners on the corners; and David Murphy singled to right, scoring Molina (8-4) and chasing Lincecum.  (b) Down 11-4 against the Giants' reputedly lights-out bullpen in the 9th, Julio Borbon led off with a single.  Elvis Andrus walked.  Josh Hamilton drew a walk after Michael Young's flyout.  Hamilton's walk loaded the bases with only 1 out for Vlad.  The Giants brought in their version of Mariano Rivera.  (Brian Wilson entered the game with 12 strikeouts in 9 innings pitched, having given up only 1 run on 4 hits this October.)  Wilson's third pitch to Vlad went deep into right, scoring Borbon from third.  Two pitches later, Nelson Cruz dropped one near the wall for a 2-run double.  Faint praise indeed: "Wilson got the Giants out of a bases-loaded, 1-out jam and limited the Rangers to only 3 runs."  No, the runs won't be held against him, but he is clearly not invincible.

3.  The Rangers' bullpen - Take out Mark Lowe (who made his postseason debut), and the Rangers' bullpen gave up only 1 run on 3 hits with 0 walks and 5 strikeouts in 2-2/3 innings.  (That one run came off the bullpen's third pitch, the one Juan Uribe deposited in the left field stands.)  Alexi Ogando got his 6 outs from Freddy Sanchez, Buster Posey, Pat Burrell, Cody Ross, Aubrey Huff, and Juan Uribe (a/k/a, the heart and soul of the Giants' lineup).  In other words, take away Cliff Lee's unrecognizable 5th inning, and the Rangers win 7-5.  (Of course, take away Tim Lincecum's unrecognizable 1st, 2d, and 6th, and the Rangers lose 5-3.)  After the first batter went deep on this young bullpen, you probably thought they would fold.  They didn't.

Three Down

1.  The Rangers lost.

2.  Cliff Lee proved himself human.

3.  All the professional writers will make this sound like a blowout.  Anybody who watched it and cares enough to think their own thoughts will realize it was just a sloppy game on both sides.  Both teams proved themselves vincible.

The Rangers Win the Pennant

"No more words." - Javert, Les Miserables.

When Neftali Feliz's slider slid past Alex Rodriguez to make the Rangers the 2010 American League Champions, I had no words.

I remember the day I "became" a Rangers fan.  I was walking around, thinking really hard about which team was my favorite baseball team.  I kept going back and forth between the Rangers, the Athletics, the Blue Jays, and the Mets.  The Rangers were the home team; the A's had Rickey Henderson; the Jays were the best team in baseball; and the Mets were just plain exciting (little did I know that they frequently engage in buying up established stars who promptly forget how to play).  I thought to myself, "I always come back to the Rangers."  Then they traded for Jose Canseco, Kevin Brown won 21 games, and "they" became "we."

That was 1992.  This is 2010.  Eighteen years in the making, I am finally rooting for the American League champions.

Game 5

Dear Rangers fans, both fair-weather and die-hard,

Fear not.  Tonight's loss was expected.  The Yankees are great because (a) they have more money than God, (b) they play in a weak division, and (c) they understand that baseball is about endurance, and they endure.  They won Game 5.  They will lose Game 6 or Game 7.  CC Sabathia is an excellent pitcher.  Phil Hughes and Andy Pettitte are not (any more).

Dear Yankees fans, mostly fair-weather since you don't know what a rain storm looks like,

Be afraid.  Tonight's win was expected.  CC needed to avenge himself.  He has.  Sorta.  Now you rest your hopes on Phil Hughes and Andy Pettitte.  I wish you luck, only not really.  You need to know what a rainstorm feels like.  Losing in the ALCS won't teach you that, but it's a start.

Trust the Hitch

Alfred Hitchcock said:

The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.

 He was looking at you, James Cameron.

Psycho: 4 or 5/5

SPOILER ALERT

Psycho is probably my favorite Hitchcock.  I've read that he directed it in the aftermath of North by Northwest (not my favorite Hitchcock) and wanted to do something cheap and fun.  He secured an itty bitty budget, borrowed a production crew from his TV show, and headed out to Arizona (maybe it was California).  Next thing you know, we have one of the best horror films ever made.

Three Up

1.  Starting small, there's a great scene with Arbogast that is full of Hitchcock's dry wit.  Arbogast is visiting the Bates Hotel for the second time.  You'll remember that, during the first visit, Arbogast had really pushed Norman's buttons.  This time, he bypasses Norman and goes straight for the house.  He opens the door without knocking, but takes his hat off before entering.  Yes: Arbogast has enough manners to take his hat off inside, not enough to knock.

2.  Another piece of dry humor: The movie starts off with Marion stealing $40,000.  She can't make it all the way to Fairvale, so she takes a nap on the road side.  She sleeps all night and gets awakened by a cop.  He is pretty clearly (to us) trying to make sure she's OK, but she obviously thinks he knows about the money.  Later, after Norman kills her and Arbogast comes by, Norman thinks that Arbogast knows about the murder when Arbogast is really only investigating the missing money.  A little comment about how we're always a step behind real life, perhaps?

3.  I've always wondered how Psycho survives so well without any real protaganist.  First, we have Marion Crane, but she dies only halfway through.  Then, we sorta have Norman, but his major screen time doesn't last long.  Then, we get Arbogast, but he gets killed.  Next, we switch to Sam and Lila hunting down Arbogast, but in the last scene, they give way to the psychiatrist explaining Norman's condition.  And in the final scene, Mrs. Bates takes the stage and chills us to the bone with that look of hers.  This parade of 6 characters--or, shall we say, "personalities"--shuffle onto the stage and fight for control of the movie.  Sorta like how Norman and Mrs. Bates fought for control of his psyche, eh?

I don't have three down.  That's how much I like this movie.  They say it's not his best, but I'm really having trouble finding something I don't like about it.

A little too Byronic

Poetry is more than rhyming words. That's why I love these three lines by the master of Byronic poetry

This is the patent age of new inventionsFor killing bodies, and for saving souls,All propagated with the best intentions.

That stop?  That line break after "inventions"?  The expectation that builds up (and the next line ironically knocks down)--and the good sense to write it down--is why he will be remembered as long as people speak English and you and I probably won't be.

The Third Man: 3/5

SPOILER ALERT

The Third Man (1949) is my first exposure to Carol Reed and my second to the Joseph Cotten/Orson Welles duo.  Graham Greene wrote the screenplay (and simultaneously released novelette).  The basic premise is that Holly Martins (Cotten) reports to work in post-war Vienna only to find that his best friend and employer, Harry Lime (Welles), has been run over by a truck in front of his house.  But something is amiss in Vienna, and Holly, a penniless Western pulp writer, tries to play sleuth and figure it out.  Along the way, he kills his best friend and tries to steal his girl.  He fails, so he ends up penniless and friendless.  But he has the esteem of the British government, so that's nice.

Three Up

1.  The best part of the movie is its ending.  Holly lures Harry into a trap, helps chase him into the sewers, and eventually fires the shot that kills him.  After Harry's second funeral (a nice bookend), Holly and Major Calloway drive past Harry's girl Anna (Alida Valli) walking back to the city.  Holly gets out and waits for Anna.  He's ready to inherit Harry's girl, but she walks right past him without even a sideways glance.

Why is that so awesome?  Well, it suggests an answer to the film's central question: whether it is OK to kill one person so thousands may live.  Reed doesn't tell us.  Instead, he reminds us that, either way, there are consequences.  Society's anonymous and short-lived appreciation but the condemnation of your friends and loved ones, or the opposite.

And second, it suggests a difference between men and women, Americans and Eastern Europeans.  Men and Americans stereotypically view the world romantically, while women and Eastern Europeans stereotypically view the world pragmatically.  Anna doesn't embrace Holly as the hero who saved countless children's lives; she rejects him as the bastard who trapped and killed the love of her life.  And it is beautiful.

2.  The unusual soundtrack is great.  Anton Karas composed and performed the soundtrack on a zither, a native Austrian instrument.  Sometimes, the jangly upbeat music jars with the noirish atmosphere, but it belongs to the scene.  I also liked all the untranslated speaking in German.  Not only do we see weird visuals, but we hear unfamiliar sounds.  The cumulative effect is to help put us in Holly's shoes: we, too, are strangers in a strange land who (literally) don't know where to turn.

3.  Major Calloway (Trevor Howard) is a great, great character.  I know that Harry Lime is probably the most famous character from this movie (and even had his own radio show spin-off), but I preferred Major Calloway.  He personifies the romantic pragmatism of the British so perfectly.  Most movies that deal with the conflict of romanticism and pragmatism present one side as obviously right and the other as obviously wrong.  Without Howard's suave performance as the British major trying to make Vienna safe for children, this movie would fall into the same trap.

Three Down

1.  Meaningless name mix-ups.  Holly kept calling Calloway "Callahan."  Anna kept calling Holly "Harry."  And Holly kept pronouncing Dr. Winkel's name wrong (with an American W instead of an Austrian V).  As far as I can tell, these three don't do anything more than (a) show Holly's disregard for Calloway, (b) show that Anna still loves Harry, and (c) show Holly's stereotypical American ignorance.  Faux symbolism annoys me, but accidental symbolism is even worse.  Graham Greene and Carol Reed are professionals.  They should have known the value of names and done something with it.  They should have known that doing it three times makes me think it's worth something.

2.  Some people love the almost constant Dutch angle.  I don't.  I get the artistic choice, but I don't dig it.  That's all I got on that one.

3.  I realize this is a classic film noir, but there was a little too much noir for my taste.  I dig the deep blacks of film as much as anybody, but it annoys me when I can't figure out what's going on (not metaphysically; I mean I literally couldn't tell what was on my screen at some points).  Blame it on my TV, blame it on Netflix Instant Queue, blame it on the bossanova, but I don't like it.

Closing Statement


The Third Man is regarded as a film noir classic.  It's # 65 on IMDb and # 534 on FlickChart.  The AFI ranked Harry Lime # 37 in its list of the top 100 villains in cinema, the movie # 57 on its first list of top 100 movies, # 75 on its list of top 100 thrills, and the # 5 mystery in its 10 Top 10 list.  The BFI called it the greatest British film of all time (at least through 1999).  There are probably other accolades to recommend it; you don't need mine.