Sometimes I think it is marvellous to step back into a film noir universe, and when I do I think of “Laura“. It wasn’t the best, but it was a smoky, decadent black and white romance.
Tonight, watched TRAVAUX, ON SAIT QUAND ÇA COMMENCE at the Alliance Francaise theatre. So zany and absurd, makes me want to dance to Spanish music, paint my walls bright pink, and hide a chicken in the wall. Let me spoil the plot for you that at the end of the movie, Hugh Grant walks in holding a bag of goldfish.
Chantal Letellier is a “wonderful woman.” She’s a lawyer. She always wins her cases. In her professional life she’s a heavyweight, but in her private life she’s a pushover. She’s divorced – and didn’t even litigate – and is saddled with two teenage kids who are very well brought up in a bad kind of way. When it comes to love, think “desert” – she’s got no time. But flesh is weak and one night she lets loose with a client. Undoes a few buttons and then a few buttons more. He falls madly in love with her and settles in. To get rid of him, she undertakes major renovations with the intention of making the house unlivable.
I am not very sure on how I feel about french movies. But then I watch one and I watch the next one again and again. I suppose it means I like them, the way I would see someone I like again and again. Sometimes there are terrifically bad moments, so bad that they remain in your mind like a octopus monster in a french ballet dancer’s room in a queer movie. Sometimes the moments are tender, sexy, delicate. I remember the days in jc of eating cheese and watching french movies without subtitles which I didn’t understand. But laughter, spirit on screen is contagious. It is something like that.
Its a bit like looking through the lenses of someone else, certain french movies. You nibble a little on a piece of someone’s mind.
The models used in that famous American Gothic painting.
Met E and J for dinner again…sashimi and gelato…so much like old times.
J’s an ENTJ like me! Looking back at the old photo….somehow it is just surreal how all the years have passed…And soon E will be married soon!
I think the world turns while I still remain very much a child… being happy with my little cup of matcha gelato.
I walk in a line
I see where I’m going
I turn inside out
The days that I’ve known
I face to myself
And give up the ghost
I turn in my mind
What time already knows
In the Time Of The Assassins
They say hallelujah
It doesn’t take a miracle to raise a
Heart from the dead
I sift through the ash
I look for a sign
I open the wound
That keeps me in line
The shoulder that turns
The flame that goes out
The chapter I close
In the Time Of The Assassins
They say hallelujah
It doesn’t take a miracle to raise a
Heart from the dead
G and I had a retro evening two weeks ago at the Air Supply concert, and we had so much fun running to catch gray-haired tiddly winks guy and singing to old -school favourites like All Out of Love!
I grew up to Air Supply, really, and though never that obsessive a fan, it was so fun joining the old crowd (I think we were the only young people besides the kids that the old folks bring) but it was so corny and old school, it was good fun! And it was great seeing G again and hearing of his near death adventures in Philippines (which led to his finding the love of his life – congrats, G!)
I realize the best part of love is the thinnest lace And it don’t count for much but I’m not letting go I believe there’s still much to believe in
So lift your eyes if you feel you can Reach for a star and I’ll show you a plan I figured it out What I needed was someone to show me
You know you can’t fool me I’ve been loving you too long It started so easy You want to carry on
Chorus: Lost in love and I don’t know much Was I thinking about Fell out of touch But I’m back on my feet Eager to be what you wanted
So lift your eyes if you feel you can Reach for a star and I’ll show you a plan I figured it out What I needed was someone to show me
You know you can’t fool me I’ve been loving you too long It started so easy You want to carry on
A captivating re-invention of Irving’s favourite girl, Scarlett Johansson.
As fashionforlunch notes, “Recognising the names of legendary performers from the past (including sullen silent film actor Buster Keaten and the ‘female Chaplin’ Giulietta Masina), it’s seeing Johansson mocked up as Marlene Dietrich and Sarah Bernhardt so eerily well that most does justice to the effort of the shoot.”
Currently very much my inspiration for the moment:
French couturier Madame Carmen de Tommaso established Carven in 1945 with an atelier on the Champs-Élysées, and her clientele quickly grew to include screen stars and royals alike. Now, with former Givenchy designer Guillaume Henry at the creative helm, the fashion house is opening an exciting new chapter in ready-to-wear. Look out for statement cocktail dresses, perfectly cropped pants and heavy-weight wool coats.
“We did this collection in two months with the idea of a really charming girl who doesn’t know how charming she is. In terms of proportion, everything is all too long or too short,” he said of his spring line. Carven’s current season is about new combinations–a man’s jacket with pyjama pants, or a little lavender dress with a cashmere tank underneath—focusing on what an outfit appears to show and what it appears to hide. Henry then pointed to a white and black zigzag print dress displayed on a mannequin in the corner of the room. It’s his favourite piece from the collection, he explained, because the dress, like a scarf, hangs loosely from the body and is tied around the waist with no zipper to fasten. The dress defines the cool style and effortless appeal Henry has hoped to capture in this collection.
For autumn/winter, Guillaume Henry has taken a more sophisticated approach. Like many of the lines shown at fashion week, Henry has a few lovely camel-coloured coats up his sleeve for Carven. The line also includes second-skin dresses with a lot of draping to break up the silhouette and beautiful stretchy dresses done in a “smoke” technique, which makes the silk muslin look like it has little ruched pockets throughout the fabric. “I like the idea that you can just put it in your bag, and you’re ready to party,” Henry says of these skin-tight frocks.
So I have not been writing, but I have not been reading anything substantial either, besides a lovely biography of Kate Hepburn and her vivacious, startling life and the claim that she was lesbian with all these beautiful women around her. My thoughts are now flying to new outlets with the Whatsapp application and my new data plan has been excitedly downloading similarly irreverent and useless things. I don’t know why I have not thought of this before!
The mentor has been promoted to partner, I have new weddings to attend, my new favourite colour is bright orange, I re-met E and J and had a whale of a time on fond old group memories. I have oyster cravings. I am going to watch this french film with an absurd plot on Tuesday, and I am still waiting on Jules et Jim, French New Wave is my new thing and I am crazy over Taschen photobooks at Books Actually and wish I could buy them all! Even work is getting better and the legal research is getting more substantial. H sent me macchiato lip gloss and reminded me of the time we shopped for chocolate lip balm at Oxford Street when I was 15 (at that age, every street in London dazzled and we were running everywhere and life was exciting and better than those 14-age dreams). I’m wearing lucite heels and embracing new evenings and learning time variations.
I also watched Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere which I had been longing to watch on promises that it was a Lost in Translation mood, but it was a little too Ulysses and lol on the guy who falls asleep while watching two striptease poledancers. Supposedly the twin fantasy.
But everything was so modern this week and I feel like George Cukor faced with the possibility of going alternate and the new world of doing things. It is June and the summer and everyone’s falling in love or in love and my cat hides in dark corners. Etto is coming to visit for dinner (Etto claims I live in the boondocks and I can only say that I introduce people to Singaporean cows). All weekend I’ve been working on regression again but I’ll soon move on to economics and foreign trade theories. Etto says I should read French Women Don’t Sleep Alone, just to improve my love life.
But I miss you Irving, and wherever you are in China or Shangri La or some sort of Casablanca, do drop me a note and tell me who stole your water bottle in German.
The law girls and I went to watch Macbeth in the Park last week! We had so much fun and the picnic concept is fabulous, all sitting and waiting in the dark and the critiqing of Lady Macbeth’s awful acting and the strange modern elements and Pang’s nice sword-mangling. We really enjoyed ourselves when all is said and done and though not the best version of Shakespeare, was rather enjoyable watching live theatre in such a context!
WN made little white wine jellies with grapes, and potato pies. I made beef ghoulash and brought the salad. We had moscato and tea, and Carolyn brought the bread. We sat on a polka dotted TABLECLOTH from Daiso and it was all so random and fun haha.
My picnic gear ^-^
Beef ghoulash preparation involved – onions, garlic, beef, pepper, red capsicums, potatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, paprika…so much fun cooking again! ^-^ I love making tomato-based dishes…This beef ghoulash was to be eaten with baguettes.
So many people at the place! I also saw this cute crowd at the front which had brought black Chanel paper bags for their food, silk picnic blankets, crystal champagne glasses and Thai silk pillows *lol
“Breakfast at Tiffany’s was on TCM last week, and so I watched it for the bazillionth time, as usual. However, during this particular viewing I realized something that I hadn’t before. I could care less if Audrey and George Peppard end up together at the end. To me, the film reaches its emotional climax not because George and Audrey embrace, but because they have Cat between them.
From the moment that the cab scene starts, my stomach is filled with wasps. I know that any moment she’ll be tossing Cat out into the rain. When Cat grabs onto the car, trying desperately and hopelessly to stay in the warm dry cab, the tears start to flow. I don’t think I’ve ever really paid attention to any dialogue that occurs after Cat is thrown out, because I’m screaming at my tv “STOP THE CAR! YOU NEED TO SAVE CAT!” If I could, I’d jump into my tv and look for him myself.
If I have one of my cats nearby whilst watching, they are at this point being hugged tightly while I anxiously await the moment when Cat is found.
Normal people are relieved when Audrey shows up in the alley calling for her cat — but not for the same reasons I am. They believe she’s seen the error of her ways; she’s going to let George love her; a happy ending is on the horizon for our newly minted couple. But for me, and crazy cat ladies across the globe, it’s ALL ABOUT THE CAT.
Honestly, this is the whole movie. Holly’s husband, brother, fiance? All totally inconsequential to Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It’s about the cat. Sally Tomato, the 5 and dime robbery, Patricia Neal? They mean squat. It’s all about the cat. It’s all just leading up to that one super-charged emotional moment when Audrey scoops Cat up in her arms and gives her a “I should never have tossed you out of the cab, you wonderful feline” gigantic smooshy hug.
And THAT makes it a happy ending. George could have slipped and fell in the rain, got hit by a cab and ended up in the ER right before the credits rolled. As long as Cat is out of the rain, and reunited with Audrey Hepburn, I’m a happy camper.”
I watched a startingly good film with Etto yesterday and discovered the sparkling brilliance of Jean Luc Godard’s ‘French New Wave’ for the cinema! It is now one of my favourite films and I am so intrigued by the director and the style of directing-very fresh, chic and playful. The comedy, the actors, the asides and the continuation of a music and tone, all these were captured with a refined merriment and the energy never let down. With the themes and the stark confidence of characters, it could have been camp, but instead the director gently steers it to brilliance.
The plot is actually very simple. Angela,a striptease artist, wants to have a baby and tries to persuade her boyfriend Emile to go along with the idea. Emile will have none of it so she goes after Emile’s friend Alfred.
Can you do what a woman does, Irving? We shall try when you come (note above for reference).
I am also SMITTENED by this song from the movie soundtrack:
Tu t’laisses aller by Charles Aznavour.
C’est drôle ce que t’es drôle à regarder / It’s funny how funny you are to look at T’es là, t’attends, tu fais la tête / You’re there, you wait, you’re sulking Et moi j’ai envie d’rigoler / And I feel like sneering C’est l’alcool qui monte en ma tête / It’s the alcohol that gets to my head Tout l’alcool que j’ai pris ce soir / All the alcohol that I took this evening Afin d’y puiser le courage / So that I could draw the courage De t’avouer que j’en ai marr’ / To admit that I have had it De toi et de tes commérages / with you and your old wives’ tales De ton corps qui me laisse sage / with your body that leaves me virtuous Et qui m’enlève tout espoir / and takes away all of my hopesJ’en ai assez faut bien qu’j’te l’dise / I’ve had enough I have to tell you Tu m’exaspèr’s, tu m’tyrannises / You irritate me, you tyrannize me Je subis ton sal’caractèr / I endure your dirty character Sans oser dir’ que t’exagèr’s / I don’t dare to tell you you exaggerate Oui t’exagèr’s, tu l’sais maint’nant / Yes, you exaggerate, you know it now Parfois je voudrais t’étrangler / At times, I would strangle you Dieu que t’as changé en cinq ans / God you have changed in five years Tu l’laisses aller, Tu l’laisses aller / You let yourself go, you let yourself goAh ! tu es belle à regarder / Ah! you’re beautiful to look at Tes bas tombant sur tes chaussures / your sagged stockings on your shoes Et ton vieux peignoir mal fermé / With your old nightgown badly closed Et tes bigoudis quelle allure / And your curling pins what an elegance Je me demande chaque jour / I ask myself every day Comment as-tu fait pour me plaire / How did you do to please me Comment ai-j’ pu te faire la cour / How could I ever court you Et t’aliéner ma vie entière / Give up my whole life for you Comm’ ça tu ressembles à ta mère / That way you look like your mother Qu’a rien pour inspirer l’amour / Who has nothing to inspire love
D’vant mes amis quell’ catastroph’ / In front of my friends what a disaster Tu m’contredis, tu m’apostrophes / You contradict me, cut me short Avec ton venin et ta hargne / With your venom and your petulance Tu ferais battre des montagnes / You’d make the mountains fight Ah ! j’ai décroché le gros lot / Ah! I drew the first prize Le jour où je t’ai rencontrée / The day that I met you Si tu t’taisais, ce s’rait trop beau / If you kept quiet, ‘t would be too nice Tu l’laisses aller, Tu l’laisses aller / You let yourself go, you let yourself go
Tu es un’brute et un tyran / You are a brute and a tyrant Tu n’as pas de cœur et pas d’âme / You have no heart and no soul Pourtant je pense bien souvent / Nevertheless I often think Que malgré tout tu es ma femme / That in spite of everything you’re still my wife Si tu voulais faire un effort / If you would make an effort Tout pourrait reprendre sa place / Everything could fall back into place Pour maigrir fais un peu de sport / To slim down practice some sport arranges-toi devant ta glace / Make yourself up in the mirror Accroche un sourire à ta face / Put a smile on your face Maquille ton cœur et ton corps / Make up your heart and your body
Au lieu d’penser que j’te déteste / Instead of thinking how I detest you Et de me fuir comme la peste / And avoiding me like the plague Essaie de te montrer gentille / Try to be nice Redeviens la petite fille / Become that little girl again Qui m’a donné tant de bonheur / Who gave me so much happiness Et parfois comm’ par le passé / And sometimes like in the past J’aim’rais que tout contre mon cœur / I would love that close to my heart Tu l’laisses aller, Tu l’laisses aller / You let yourself go, you let yourself go
Wiki: Jean-Luc Godard; born 3 December 1930) is a French-Swiss film director, screen writer and critic. He is often identified with the group of filmmakers known as the Nouvelle Vague, or “New Wave”.
Many of Godard’s films challenge the conventions of traditional Hollywood cinema as well as the French equivalent, namely the “tradition of quality”.[1] He is often considered the most extreme or radical of the New Wave filmmakers. His films express his political ideologies as well as his knowledge of film history. In addition, Godard’s films often cite existentialism as he was an avid reader of existential and Marxist philosophy.
After attending school in Nyon, Godard returned to Paris in 1948. It was there, in the Latin Quarter just prior to 1950, that Paris ciné-clubs were gaining prominence. Godard began attending these clubs, where he soon met the man who was perhaps most responsible for the birth of the New Wave, André Bazin, as well as those who would become his contemporaries, including Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, François Truffaut, Jacques Rozier, and Jacques Demy. Godard was part of a generation for whom cinema took on a special importance. He has said; “In the 1950s cinema was as important as bread — but it isn’t the case any more. We thought cinema would assert itself as an instrument of knowledge, a microscope … a telescope. … At the Cinémathèque I discovered a world which nobody had spoken to me about. They’d told us about Goethe, but not Dreyer. … We watched silent films in the era of talkies. We dreamed about film. We were like Christians in the catacombs.”
Despite its intricate manifesto, the guiding principle behind the movement was that “Realism is the essence of cinema.” According to Bazin and other members of the New Wave, cinematic realism could be achieved through various aesthetic and contextual media. They favored long shots that embodied a more complete scene, where visual information could be transmitted consistently, and avoided “unnecessary editing”; they did not want to disrupt the illusion of reality by constant cuts. This technique can be seen in some of Godard’s most celebrated sequences, though there are equally famous sequences in his films featuring fastcutting, especially those where jump cuts proliferate.
An interesting aspect of Godard’s philosophy on filmmaking was his inherent and deliberate embrace of contradiction. In short, Godard used “mass-market” aesthetics in his film to make a statement about capitalism and consequent societal decline.
Running through the Louvre…An animation excerpted from Jean-Luc Godard’s 1964 movie Bande a Part (Band of Outsiders). The three main characters cross Le Louvre Museum by running. In 2003, Bertolucci’s Dreamers (Louis Garrel, Eva Green and Michael Pitt) defeated their record.
As I was watching, I kept telling Etto, Anna Karina looks like Maria Callas!!
After seeing Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil at the Expo 58, Godard was influenced to make his first major feature film, Breathless (À bout de souffle, 1960), starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg. The film distinctly expressed the French New Wave’s style, and incorporated quotations from several elements of popular culture — specifically American cinema. The film employed various innovative techniques such as jump cuts, character asides and breaking the eyeline match rule in Continuity editing. François Truffaut, who co-wrote Breathless with Godard, suggested its concept and introduced Godard to the producer who ultimately funded the film, Georges de Beauregard.
From the beginning of his career, Godard crammed more film references into his movies than any of his New Wave colleagues. In Breathless, his citations include a movie poster showing Humphrey Bogart (whose expression the lead actor Jean-Paul Belmondo tries reverently to imitate); visual quotations from films of Ingmar Bergman, Samuel Fuller, Fritz Lang, and others; and an onscreen dedication to Monogram Pictures, an American B-movie studio. Most of all, the choice of Jean Seberg as the lead actress was an overarching reference to Otto Preminger, who had discovered her for his Saint Joan, and then cast her in his acidulous 1958 adaptation of Bonjour Tristesse. If, in Rohmer’s words, “life was the cinema”, then a film filled with movie references was supremely autobiographical.
The following year, Godard made Le Petit Soldat, which dealt with the Algerian War of Independence. Most notably, it was the first collaboration between Godard and Danish-born actress Anna Karina, whom he later married in 1961 (and divorced in 1967). The film, due to its political nature, was banned by the French government until January 1963. Karina appeared again, along with Belmondo, in A Woman Is a Woman (1961), intended as a homage to the American musical. Angela (Karina) desires a child, prompting her to pretend to leave her boyfriend (Jean-Claude Brialy) and make him jealous by pursuing his best friend (Belmondo) as a substitute.
Godard’s next film, Vivre sa vie (1962), was one of his most popular among critics. Karina starred as Nana, an errant mother and aspiring actress whose financially straitened circumstances lead her to the life of a streetwalker. It is an episodic account of her rationalizations to prove she is free, even though she is tethered at the end of her pimp’s short leash. In one touching scene in a cafe, she spreads her arms out and announces she is free to raise or lower them as she wishes. The film’s style, much like that of Breathless, boasted the type of camera-liberated experimentation that made the French New Wave so influential.
Godard’s engagement with German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht stems primarily from his attempt to transpose Brecht’s theory of epic theatre and its prospect of alienating the viewer (Verfremdungseffekt) through a radical separation of the elements of the medium (in Brecht’s case theater, but in Godard’s, film). Brecht’s influence is keenly felt through much of Godard’s work, particularly before 1980, when Godard used filmic expression for specific political ends.
For example, Breathless’ elliptical editing, which denies the viewer a fluid narrative typical of mainstream cinema, forces the viewers to take on more critical roles, connecting the pieces themselves and coming away with more investment in the work’s content.[citation needed] Godard also employs other devices, including asynchronous sound and alarming title frames, with perhaps his favorite being the character aside. In many of his most political pieces, specifically Week End, Pierrot le fou, and La Chinoise, characters address the audience with thoughts, feelings, and instructions.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."
![[une+femme+est+une+femme.jpg]](https://aleaftothebean.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/une2bfemme2best2bune2bfemme.jpg?w=300)
Penny Sparkle 