Yeah, not a lot of digesting or bloggy consistency lately. We are very busy, ramping up the homeschool and prepping for college departure. So here we go:
Watching: Main thing was the 1995 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. I’d wanted to read it together over the summer, but somehow, shockingly, that didn’t happen. So this would have to do. Quite delightful, but then you already knew that.
Last night was Marty – the 1956 film starring Ernest Borgnine as a mid-30’s, lonely Bronx butcher who finally might have found a lady-friend. The film’s origins were in television – it was originally an episode of The Philco Television Playhouse, starring Rod Steiger. The movie version isn’t padded very much – it runs less than ninety minutes. I’d seen it years ago. It’s still an affecting little film, but one might still be tempted to wonder…Best Picture? Really? But looking at the other nominees, it makes more sense, with Mister Roberts the closest logical competitor.
A couple couple of points about Marty:
- It’s less depressing than I remembered. I’d thought it ended on a down note, with Marty ultimately discouraged/prevented from getting back in contact with the girl he’d met, and somehow, I thought that iconic bit of dialogue Waddya wanna do tonight Marty? I dunno – waddya wanna do Angie? ended it. Why did I think that? Just shows you how our personalities (in my case – dark, I suppose) impact memory.
- It was nice to experience a world on film where Catholic things were just taken for granted as part of that world – with an understanding of how it works. The events of the film take place over the course of little more than twenty-four hours – from a Saturday through a Sunday night, and the main time marker for everyone is going to Mass. I’ll talk to you after Mass tomorrow. Can I call you after I go to Mass at ten? Well, I go to the 11:30, so wait until then. Come on, Ma, we’ve got to get to Mass. Are you going to go to Mass with us? No, I went two hours ago.
Between Pride and Prejudice and Marty, you have an interesting survey of constraints on male-female relations – by society, culture, economics, family and law, informal and formal. It all can seem silly and even unjust, and much of it certainly was, and indeed, what would literature be without the story of love determined to defy those constraints? But we’re fooling ourselves, it seems to me, if we think that the 2019 Western model is any less defined by boundaries and constraints that are limiting, in their own ironic way.
Oh, one more watching: I introduced them to Fawlty Towers, which was a hit.
Listening: Same as always – Prokofiev, Brahms, Haydn, Bach.
Reading: Not enough. I’m just having a hard time focusing. Read a couple of short stories, that’s all.
Writing: Had an essay accepted by an online publication, but I don’t know when it will appear. Still waiting on a couple of other things. Film writer/fiction writer son wrote about Dumbo here. He has an interesting take.