British Bluegrass

So, now that Tom Hiddleston plays guitar, sings and yodels (per the Hank Williams biopic), and Benedict Cumberbatch plays a little banjo (per The Power of the Dog), when are they starting their bluegrass band? & what will it be called? & where do I get tickets?

Let's start a rumor they will be debuting at SXSW.

Name ideas:

• Hiddlebatch
• Sherloki
• Thames River Pastie Boys
• Lonesome Bluegrass Brits
• Foggy City Bluegrass Blokes
• British Biscuit Boys
• Front Porch Crumpet-Stuffers
• The Hiddlebatch Boys

First two and the last one are other people's ideas. I think the last one wins.

another blog about Gone with the Wind

Do I love the movie Gone With the Wind? Yes.
Do I think it's racist and can really be upsetting? ABSOLUTELY!

I love old movies. I watch at least a snippet of a movie on TCM on almost every day. I have watched old movies since I discovered them on what was then something oh-so-new - cable TV - back in 1975 or so. As a child, then a teen, then an adult, I watched the same movies over and over. I wrote an essay on Clark Gable when I was in the 10th grade.

I love old movies. I love the stories they tell, the pictures they present, the time capsules they present, the places they take me, and the history they present - and misrepresent.

I also admit that there are some classic movies I don't love. In fact, there are a few I hate. I can't watch anything where animals are portrayed as being harmed - or are actually harmed. I have a lot of problems with certain portrayals of violence that are just too real to me. And while I can get through most classic movies despite their racism and sexism, I loathe The Philadelphia Story, with its message to women: men fool around, put up with it, shut up, let them come home when their "finished." For whatever reason, it's my limit. And I've had friends get mad at me for not liking The Philadelphia Story - they see it as a personal indictment. Look, if you like it, that's your thing. But please respect that it makes my blood boil.

I blogged a while back about watching Birth of a Nation. Yup, the whole, long thing. And in that blog, I noted:

Birth of a Nation has NO OTHER PURPOSE than inspiring hate and feelings of superiority by white Americans, and to say that the USA should give states the right to subjugate black Americans. It wasn't made primarily to tell a love story, or a survival story, or a horror story, or any kind of story: it was made solely to say horrific things about one race of people, and to claim it was best for the people of that race to be enslaved by another race of people, who the movie says are superior intellectually, emotionally, culturally and spiritually. It promotes a passionate, irrational hatred of black Americans - and it makes the Ku Klux Klan the heroes. That's its message, first and foremost.

I'm glad I watched it, but I won't be watching it again. And I know that it pioneered also sorts of film techniques. So did Triumph of the Will. In praising the technique, the horror of the product has to be acknowledged EVERY time for movies like those.

Gone With the Wind was written by a racist. Yes, I know Margaret Mitchell sent money regularly to Morehouse College and her donations enabled perhaps 70 to 80 black men to become physicians. That's nice. But she did it in secret: it did not become public knowledge until many decades after her death. And I don't at all take it as a sign that she wasn't a racist - I know plenty of people back in Kentucky who donate to the college funds of black students, or voted for President Obama, and also have racist beliefs. The book Gone With the Wind itself should be enough to say Margaret Mitchell was a racist - even if you don't think the portrayals of black characters are racist (I do), you have to admit that the characters are little more than scenery, and in a book about life before, during and after the Civil War, that's absolutely RACIST, to think those stories can be entirely ignored. But let me go farther in proving the point: according to several sources, when Margaret Mitchell discovered that she was in a history class at Smith College in the 1910s with a black student, the story is that Mitchell demanded to change classes, or have the student change classes. The teacher refused, and Mitchell said she would go to the dean, or even the institution's president, if necessary, to get it changed. The black student was moved. Mitchell's mother later argued that professor Dorothy Ware flunked her even though the dean approved the transfer. According to the book Southern Women at the Seven Sister Colleges: Feminist Values and Social Activism, 1875-1915 by Joan Marie Johnson (University of Georgia Press, 2010):

Margaret called Ware a hypocrite, asking if Ware "had ever undressed and nursed a Negro woman or sat on a drunk Negro man's head to keep him from being shot by the police." Mitchell's mother blamed the incident on the fact that Ware's family had been to the South to teach blacks and had not been well received by white southerners. Margaret grounder her refusal to take a class with an African American - an act that suggested social equality - in her familiarity with blacks, an ease she believed was only possible whiten a white supremacist society. 

Gone With the Wind was part of Mitchell's determination to repaint the South as lovingly paternalistic to enslaved people, and you just can't call that anything but racist.

So, how can I love the movie Gone With the Wind? Because while I see the racism and the desperate effort in the movie to reinforce a romantic view of a world where people were enslaved, I also see a movie about a woman who goes from a flighty, vindictive girl with no depth to a fierce woman determined not just to survive war, but to thrive in its aftermath. I'm astounded by the idea of how she uses the only thing she has - her charm and wits - to get what she wants for herself and her family. I also identify with putting all of your energy into something that, you ultimately realize, is a really bad idea. And, yeah, I love the actors and the film techniques. And Butterfly McQueen (read her story, if you haven't ever).

In short, I am able to "stand" the racism in Gone with the Wind the same way so many, many men I know are able to "stand" the horrific sexism of The Godfather and The Godfather II.

If you don't want to hear me talk about how strong, resilient and strategic Scarlett is as a heroine, fine - 'cause I sure as hell don't want to hear you talk about how sexy and virile you find violent rapist Stanley Kowalski is in Streetcar Names Desire, mmmkay?

Do I think HBO Max is right to stop showing Gone With the Wind? I don't know. It's a private company and its senior staff made a business decision not to be associated with that movie anymore. I admit that I would love to see what other movies they have chosen not to show. But it's their decision, they make money, they don't want to show this movie anymore, okay. 

I would be upset if TCM stopped showing it. I would, in fact, be outraged. That's what TCM is for - to show old movies, many of them full of painful stereotypes but all of them worth viewing, at least once. TCM shows a number of movies I find deeply disturbing, including Gabriel Over the White House, a 1933 pro-fascist political fantasy. And most Woody Allen movies, which imagine New York City spaces with no black Americans at all and whose women characters are, for the most part, nothing but cringe-worthy. And, of course, Birth of a Nation and The Philadelphia Story. But I want them to keep showing those. I even want them to keep showing Streetcar Named Desire, despite that I cannot watch it anymore. I really enjoy their introductions that put such films in context and make it clear, "Yeah, there are big problems with some portrayals/themes in this movie..." Keep doing that. Even if I don't aways agree with what's said - keep doing that.

And as I noted in that earlier blog I referenced: I was on the light rail coming home from Portland in 2013, and was eavesdropping on a group of African women, I think from Tanzania, and a group of Indian women (from India) talking about movies they love, including Gone With the Wind. They went on and on about why. They loved it like I do. No mention of its racism was ever made - I kept listening for it, but it never happened. Sometimes I wonder if people in other countries, even Africans, understand the horrors of slavery in the Americas... but I kind of loved that they loved the film without experiencing any racist subtext. The way women are expected to enjoy so many films without getting upset about the sexism.

Anyway, see you at the movies. 

Let's talk about Burt Reynolds instead of politics

I cried when Burt Reynolds died. I did. Movies and TV shows were my safe place growing up, and watching Reynolds host The Tonight Show was a happy time in my dysfunctional family. Going to the Starlight Drive-in in Henderson, Kentucky to see a Burt Reynolds movie was always a great time. I couldn't say that about Christmas with my family, but I could say that about any time a get together with my family and Burt Reynolds was involved.

Unless you were alive in the 1970s, you have NO IDEA how huge of a star he was in that decade. No idea. There is no celebrity I can compare his popularity to, before or since.

When I saw on Facebook soon after Reynolds died that a movie theater in Portland, Oregon was going to show Smokey and the Bandit, I immediately bought tickets for the showing, more than a month away. When am I ever going to get to see Smokey and the Bandit again on a big screen?! The showing was almost sold out and the audience laughed at all the right moments - except one, the one in which mocks Sheriff Buford T. Justice of Portague County for being a racist. I always appreciate that scene - the movie would have been disingenuous about the South without it. Regardless, I was in heaven watching that movie in a real theater, on the big screen. I could feel tears in my eyes when "Eastbound and Down" played the first time. A friend of mine tweeted after Burt died, "I was eight years old and my bike was, alternately, the Millennium Falcon and the Bandit’s black Trans-Am." And rewatching the movie reminded me of why that was.

Ever since that night in Portland, I've been hungry for more Burt Reynolds movies.

I'm thrilled to learn today that Turner Classic Movies will show six of his movies on December 26, including Smokey and the Bandit and The Longest Yard. But in October, TCM showed White Lightning, and I recorded it to watch when I had time. And I just watched it. Heaven.

White Lightning was a critical bomb, but an audience smash. If you are thinking of watching it, be forewarned: this is not the romantic, genteel South or the fun-loving good ole boy hick flick you may be expecting. This is not Smokey and the Bandit, though car chases abound. There are some beautiful, atmospheric moments and some hilariously-witty one-liners from Burt and, yes, he takes his shirt off a lot - which is FINE - but this a dark, gritty, at times brutal look at the rural South. If you can ignore the painfully stupid instrumental background music at times, and if you experienced any of the South in the 1970s, or if you wanted to, you'll dig this movie. I wore the clothes in this movie, women in my family had the hair of oh-so-many of the women in this movie... I swear, I could smell the grass, the cars, the food, the gasoline, the pigs, the sweat, the water - even the moonshine. I loved how all the women in this movie had normal, real bodies - no boob jobs, no botox, real hips. And when Burt says "The Poe-lease," I melt... that's how we talked growing up. I've been saying "The Poe-lease" frequently these days, much to the confusion of my German husband.

But White Lightning is more than just a movie that looks so nostalgic and atmospheric and has great car chases: I heard so many of the things said by the sheriff and some others in this movie when I was growing up by family members, neighbors, even teachers - about "hippies" and young college students daring to challenge the status quo, asking questions and asking, "Why?" I feel like the movie has a subversive, subtle message: the old ways are going away, and young people everywhere, all over the USA, including the South, are going to demand something much better: racial justice, women's equality, education for all. And you can't just kill them all or dismiss them as communists - they are going to just keep coming, and really, are they any better or worse than anyone else? The scene with Reynolds walking around the students in the diner, listening to them as they talk about justice, him obviously thinking of his brother and his ideals, really got me. I believe there are a lot of people like that in rural America, who may not be eloquent, who may be more focused on having a good time than trying to help the oppressed, but who admire those people we mock now as "social justice warriors."

I do wonder how modern audiences who don't know the VERY restrictive laws regarding alcohol in the USA once upon a time will understand the secondary plot of the movie, centering around the illegal production and transportation of whiskey, the massive amounts of money people made off such and the dogged attempts of the federal government to collect taxes on it.

It's not a movie for everyone. But if you have the right mindset, this is a good, thoughtful flick.

And on a side note, I found this interesting note from another reviewer:

Every character in this film hates the system! Sheriff Connors hates the Commies infiltrating Washington, the moonshiners hate the IRS, and those damn long-haired, pot smoking hippies are always protesting. This is because screenwriter William W. Norton was a rebel in his own right; a card-carrying member of the Communist Party since the paranoid 50’s, Norton’s life is as interesting as the story. After a career in Hollywood, penning THE SCALPHUNTERS, I DISMEMBER MAMA, BIG BAD MAMA, and this film’s sequel GATOR, he moved to Ireland in the 1980’s and became a gunrunner for the INLA (Irish National Liberation Army), until he and his wife Eleanor were busted in France, and sentenced to prison. After doing his time, and learning a warrant was issued in America, he sought asylum in Nicaragua, where he killed a man who broke into his house. Then he moved to Cuba, but found living under a Communist regime was a lot different from just carrying a card, so he fled to Mexico, eventually being smuggled back into the USA by friends, where he lived out his life.  

And checking IMDB, I found out Norton's son directed an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of my all-time favorite shows, and FreakyLinks, a show created by a friend of mine...

Mind. Blown.

Clark Gable & Greer Garson in Adventure (1945)

I've been watching classic movies since before I was in double digits, and just when I think I've seen every great movie before 1950, I get a surprise. This time, it's Adventure, from 1945, with Clark Gable and Greer Garson.

I have actively avoided watching this movie for decades because it was always described as a horrible flop and painful to watch. I knew that it was Gable's first studio movie after World War II, and the ad campaign was "Gable's Back and Garson's Got Him," making me think this was some kind of screwball comedy, which seemed so inappropriate for Gable's first film after the war, and after losing Carole Lombard.

So I watched it at last, on TCM, of course, and I was stunned. It's a poetic, complex, dark drama always flirting with great tragedy. There's no way a 1945 audience would have been ready for these characters, this story or the dialogue, which is often presented more as verse than scripted lines. Watch Gable when he argues with Garson's character, almost to the point of physical blows - I've never seen him not be Clark Gable until this character, until that moment, and I cannot imagine we aren't seeing his grief at his loss of Lombard and what he witnessed during World War II. It's overdue for this film to get the recognition it deserves. Joan Blondell and Thomas Mitchell (you remember him as Uncle Billy in It's A Wonderful Life and Scarlett's father in Gone With the Wind) are outstanding in their supporting characters.

The biggest problem with this movie is its ridiculous title (the book on which it is based is called The Annointed - a much better title).

Here’s how I imagine the marketing meeting for this movie went:

Director: Hey, I made this complex drama about a seafaring man searching for purpose in life, who clashes with a sophisticated, quiet librarian, and they don’t get together until halfway through the movie because they are having heated philosophical arguments about the meaning of life, and by the time they do get together romantically, you’re stunned and also feel like this relationship is completely doomed, and the whole thing almost ends in utter tragedy, and the script is, at times, more poetry than dialogue.

Louis B Mayer: “Gable’s back and Garson’s got him!”

This would be a terrific film on a double bill with The Razor's Edge.

#describeyourselfin3fictionalcharacters

Three movie characters that I think represent me?

Just three?

Impossible!!

I’m:

• Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal) in A Face in the Crowd
• Ann Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck) in Meet John Doe
• Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) in His Girl Friday
• Jane Craig (Holly Hunter) in Broadcast News
• Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) in Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper) in The Mary Tyler Moore 
• Molly Hooper (Louise Brealey) in Sherlock
• Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) in Parks and Rec (yes, the dude)
• often, I’m both Thelma AND Louise….
• and lately, I’ve been feeling a lot like Norma Desmond and Blanche DuBois…

I debated over Katie Morosky (Barbra Streisand) in The Way We Were. Much of it I so identify with - but not where she date rapes Hubbell. I hope I'm not that creepy.

I'm not Princess Leia nor Annie Savoy in Bull Durham, but I aspire to be.

Alan Rickman

I knew who Alan Rickman was before I had ever seen his face or heard his voice.

It was Spring 1987, I was a junior at Western Kentucky University, and the theater and dance students were all abuzz about the shows on far away Broadway - productions we would very likely never see, because we had no money for the trip, let alone for the tickets. We had no Internet, yet we knew about so many of the shows - who was in them, who directed them, why they were successful or why they wouldn't last long, and on and on. We knew people who had seen the shows. Or knew people that knew people.

And the non-musical play I heard about most of all was Les Liaisons Dangereuses, starring Alan Rickman. Yes, even in Bowling Green, Kentucky, people were abuzz about Alan Rickman on Broadway, someone none of us had ever seen or heard - but, oh, the stories we'd heard about his performance. He was the primary reason I watched the Tony Awards that year - to see and hear him, at last, even for just a few seconds. When I got the opportunity to go to London in the Fall of 1988 for two weeks with the WKU theater and dance department, getting to see nine theatre productions, including Les Liaisons Dangereuses, I was beside myself - I knew Alan Rickman was long gone from the production but, hey, he had been on THAT stage, speaking THOSE lines. Good enough for me. Jonathan Hyde was excellent in the role of Valmont - no disrespect. But when I re-read the play - and I do, every other year or so - its Rickman I hear and see in my head.

In the summers, I'd go to the Henderson Public Library and look through a book that had photos and summaries of Broadway productions for the previous season. It was the closest I could get to Broadway. I would stare at the photos and try to imagine the live performances. I did it with Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and there was Alan Rickman. In Henderson. At least on paper.

I may never have said I was a fan of David Bowie, even though I was, but anyone who really knows me knows that I am a HUGE fan of Alan Rickman. Massive. That his brilliance could translate to film was what all us oh-so-deprived Kentucky theater fans were dying for. He was so obviously, overwhelmingly awesome in the first shot scenes of Die Hard that an extra scene with his character and Bruce Willis' meeting face-to-face was written in while shooting was still happening. Watching him steal Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was hysterical. Years after they were released in theaters in the USA, I finally tracked down Truly Madly Deeply, which is the role he's known most for among his most diehard fans, and Bob Roberts, which gave me a hint of his political leanings. Sense and Sensibility, Dogma and Galaxy Quest are my favorites of his films - I own all of them. In fact, I have more movies in my own library featuring Alan Rickman than any other actor - even Harrison Ford. By far.

I'll never forget watching Sense and Sensibility yet again, this time with my dear Spanish / Catalan / Swedish / global tribal friend, Alexandra. She was tired through most of the movie, and almost dozed a few times. But when Colonel Brandon came out at the end of the movie in his British uniform after his wedding, she almost flew off the couch. "Stop it, stop it now, rewind the movie, look at him, oh, so handsome, why didn't you tell me he would wear this?!?" We rewatched that scene three times, and the next day, she found a photo from that scene and made it the background of her computer screen at work.

Part of the reason I became so endeared to Benedict Cumberbatch was because his imitations of Alan Rickman are absolutely hysterical. I loved that Stephen Colbert took a few moments out of one of his show to acknowledge Rickman's death and contributions to film - it's not like Rickman was a household name, but Colbert is so obviously a fan. How could anyone not be?!? I'm so sorry I didn't hear what Jimmy Fallon said during his show - I'm sure he said something, because he was absolutely giddy whenever he was around him and about him.

Oh, the missed opportunities to see him live... when I moved to Germany in February 2001, I didn't know he was in the London West End in a revival of Private Lives, and didn't hear about the production until it had moved to Broadway. When I would go to London, I would always be on the lookout - is that him over there? Or there? Or there?!? And when he did Seminar on Broadway in 2012, I didn't fly to New York City - Stefan and I were hoping to buy a house (and we did!), and I was trying to be a grownup. BTW, my biggest regrets in life are over what I didn't do, when I chose being a grown up over doing something crazy and wonderful and expensive... I thought my time would come, another, better opportunity would happen, and I would somehow see Alan Rickman live, in-person, on stage. Somehow. It would happen.

It didn't happen. And now, it never will.

Alan Rickman died the day before my 50th birthday. My sister was with me when it was announced, and she knew before she turned and saw the look of horror on my face what the news would do to me. She's probably never seen an Alan Rickman movie in her life, but she knows me. And oh how I cried. I had a wonderful time celebrating my birthday, but, honestly - every now and again, amid all the joy, I would remember: Alan Rickman is gone. And it would hold me back just a little, just a bit.

The Voice is silent. Too soon.

NPR remembers.