Critiquing the Critics of the Immigration Movie Crossing Over
Crossing Over received an incredibly low 13% approval from the internet movie-rating site Rotten Tomatoes, and another dismal 38% from Metacritic – both sites post an aggregate of mainstream media movie critics’ reviews. This truly baffled me at first, since I thought the movie captured many of the nuanced problems of immigration, and was generally was quite sympathetic toward its array of characters.
Upon reading the low-scoring critics complain about the movie, it almost seems as though one of them set the stage, wrote the initial report, and all the others just read his example and followed suit. Their complaints are surprisingly similar, ranging from a crammed plot to badly developed characters. One of the biggest criticisms by these relentless judges was that Wayne Kramer, the director of the movie, lacked focus, or more precisely, he lacked a definite position. Which in their view means a clear, uncompromised, pro-immigration stance.
Kramer, in his own holistic way, does indeed try to include every story and angle into his film. A Muslim teen-age girl, who participates in Islamic and possibly Jihadist internet forums, appears alongside a self-proclaimed atheist Jew who works illegally in a Jewish school. A wealthy Iranian family is presented on equal footing as a Mexican single mother. Working class Koreans and an aspiring Australian actress from an obviously middle-class background harbor the same desire of becoming Americans. But Kramer, in keeping with his artistic integrity, allows us a peep into the dark side: the immigrant-smuggling “coyote” with death on his hands, the Muslim teenager who sympathizes with the 9/11 killers, the Korean gang that robs and murders store owners, the Muslim Iranians honor killing their too-Americanized sister, the Mexican who counterfeits green cards in his print shop, and the list goes on.
Yet, Kramer clearly believes that America is a nation for everyone. He reveals this passionately and even poetically through Hamid, the naturalized American-Iranian Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officer. Hamid displays his version of American identity to a young Korean (Justin), whom he confronts during a bloody convenience store robbery as Justin holds the storeowner hostage with a gun at her head. In tearful bursts of accented English, Justin tells Hamid that he and his family will be part of the naturalization ceremony the next day. To convince Justin to drop his gun and to go to the ceremony unscathed, Hamid describes his own acceptance of American citizenship as the "most spiritual moment of my life." He says to Justin, “Look around tomorrow at the faces, and understand the sublime promise of the moment.”
Hamid’s passionate eulogy on becoming an American ignites the critics’ harshest ridicule. Dana Stevens from Slate.com describes this scene as “the movie's glorious nadir, the moment when its leaden self-seriousness transmutes into comedy gold.” Stephanie Zacharek wrote at Salon.com that s he “blanched when I heard those words -- they're overwrought, and some people around me in the screening room tittered.” Blanching and tittering, glorious nadir; those are the reactions to an immigrant poeticizing and celebrating the feeling he had upon receiving his American citizenship.
Perhaps this is what earned Crossing Over an 87% disapproval rating from the movie critics at Rotten Tomatoes. How can anyone describe America, and being an American, in such glowing terms? Especially an America that sends a poor, illegal Mexican single mother back to Mexico without her young son? And one that refuses to sympathize with a teen-aged Muslim girl and deports her to an alien Bangladesh? Still, in the eyes of these seemingly equal opportunity immigration advocates/film critics, the deportation of the Muslim potential Jihadist is far worse than that of the white Australian aspiring actress who grants sexual favors to an immigration bureaucrat in “a bizarre sexual quid-pro-quo deal” to get her green card. Even Kramer has no sympathy for this Australian girl, portraying her as a callous opportunist, whereas her Muslim and Mexican counterparts receive ample empathy. Whites, after all, don’t need the kind of saving that Third World immigrants coming from broken governments and fundamental religions require.
Immigration advocates and defenders will never be content until there is unequivocal support for immigrants, and specifically the Third World kind. No need to show the cheating coyotes and the counterfeit card printers. Muslims killing their sisters should never be talked about; it is their culture after all. And it is best to sweep the rising problem of Asian gangs under the carpet. There are so many success stories to document, why go for the bad apples?
The citizenship judge at the ceremony that Justin finally attends describes America as a welcoming country. America is for the taking, not for the giving (discriminately, if at all). Anyone who suggests otherwise will incur the wrath, or hopefully just the ridicule, of these immigration advocates/film critics. Kramer tried to keep to his artistic integrity by providing us with as much truth as possible, despite his clear sympathy for immigration and immigrants. This earned him a contemptuous 13%. But that’s better than an outright zero.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
La Foule
An artistic depiction
"La Foule", 1998, by Olivier Suire-Verley
This painting was posted at the ever-informative site of GalliaWatch, maintained by Tiberge, which gives us an almost daily detailed account of the happenings over in France.
In this post, Tiberge writes about the number of legal immigrants that are allowed into France, and used this most-appropriate image as the header. She didn't say much about the painting except that it came from another site.
Well, I went to the site from which she got her information, and tried to find out more about the image by right-clicking on it. I was lucky enough to find the file name, "la_foule_1998.jpg". Typing in "La Foule 1998" in Google, I managed to find the painting and many replicas of the image on the internet. It seems to be somewhat famous.
The painting, called La Foule (The Crowd), is by Olivier Suire-Verley, who paints in a mixed expressionistic/impressionistic style. I think his most striking painting is actually La Foule, which captures some of the energy of a large crowd trying to get to (and through) a narrow exit.
Is that how immigrants feel. As though they are running out of some claustrophobic "interior" to the golden light of an "exterior"?
Why do the feel like this? Are they reacting to reality? Or to dreams and chimeras? I personally think it is the latter, since many who actually make it through that golden opening, and into the world beyond, are often bitterly disillusioned.
They go from such powerful, shining chimera, to the grayness of reality. Looking for jobs, learning a language, having their children turn away from them, wondering if every glance is loaded with antagonism or even hatred, missing their own bright sun and warm earth.
I think immigrants have been duped. Many believed that they would find some kind of paradise beyond that glowing doorway. The Moroccan in Paris, the Turk in Berlin, the Pakistani in England, the Jamaican in Brooklyn, the Haitian in Montreal, all thought that they would partake of the land of milk and honey, and streets paved with gold.
Instead, they live in ghettoes, feeling like aliens even into the second and third generations. They can see the milk and honey, but it is hard to get at. And even those who have prospered somewhat never cease to talk about the sun and the warmth of their former (now chimeric) lands.
The shining light in the painting should be directed back at them, instead of outward into this unknown.
 |
This painting was posted at the ever-informative site of GalliaWatch, maintained by Tiberge, which gives us an almost daily detailed account of the happenings over in France.
In this post, Tiberge writes about the number of legal immigrants that are allowed into France, and used this most-appropriate image as the header. She didn't say much about the painting except that it came from another site.
Well, I went to the site from which she got her information, and tried to find out more about the image by right-clicking on it. I was lucky enough to find the file name, "la_foule_1998.jpg". Typing in "La Foule 1998" in Google, I managed to find the painting and many replicas of the image on the internet. It seems to be somewhat famous.
The painting, called La Foule (The Crowd), is by Olivier Suire-Verley, who paints in a mixed expressionistic/impressionistic style. I think his most striking painting is actually La Foule, which captures some of the energy of a large crowd trying to get to (and through) a narrow exit.
Is that how immigrants feel. As though they are running out of some claustrophobic "interior" to the golden light of an "exterior"?
Why do the feel like this? Are they reacting to reality? Or to dreams and chimeras? I personally think it is the latter, since many who actually make it through that golden opening, and into the world beyond, are often bitterly disillusioned.
They go from such powerful, shining chimera, to the grayness of reality. Looking for jobs, learning a language, having their children turn away from them, wondering if every glance is loaded with antagonism or even hatred, missing their own bright sun and warm earth.
I think immigrants have been duped. Many believed that they would find some kind of paradise beyond that glowing doorway. The Moroccan in Paris, the Turk in Berlin, the Pakistani in England, the Jamaican in Brooklyn, the Haitian in Montreal, all thought that they would partake of the land of milk and honey, and streets paved with gold.
Instead, they live in ghettoes, feeling like aliens even into the second and third generations. They can see the milk and honey, but it is hard to get at. And even those who have prospered somewhat never cease to talk about the sun and the warmth of their former (now chimeric) lands.
The shining light in the painting should be directed back at them, instead of outward into this unknown.
It Took a Westerner and a Jew
To get the ball rolling on the Human Rights Commissions
Ezra Levant on the Michael Coren show on March 24, 2009
Ezra Levant, hailing from the Western city of Calgary and founder of the Western Standard, which now exists only as a online magazine, was on the Michael Coren Show a couple of nights ago to talk about his new book Shake-down. The whole hour-long show is available on Youtube. I highly recommended it since Michael Coren, usually a mild microphone-hogger, gives Levant free rein to present example after example of cases he describes in his book.
Levant gained fame (or infamy) when his print magazine was the only one to publish the Mohammed cartoons, which resulted with him having to appear before the Alberta Human Rights Commission. Levant says this case cost him in the $100,000 range and three years to resolve, and he is a relatively famous Canadian, with all kinds of contacts and associations who helped him. Imagine, he says, the full-time-working, five-figure-earning person with no famous contacts on his Rolodex. In fact, these are just the type of people the Commission "gets".
I'm not sure what other method Levant has to tackle the problem other than to talk about it nationwide, and now to shock the country into realizing the callousness and immorality of the Commission from the accounts in his new book. I think that is his primary strategy so far. But just by the force of his book, his personality and the stories, this strategy might work to get some of the Commission's mandates amended, if not scrapped.
I think it is apt, and maybe providential, that a Westerner is the one to fight so vocally for Western standards. And that a Jew is dismantling what his antecedents set up several decades ago to combat what they believed was potential Nazi-type hate directed at them.
Providential, but also a profound learning lesson. Be careful how you rearrange a country's laws, is what I say, especially if you're "visitors" here. By that I mean, however much Jews try to assimilate as Canadians, they, by their own volition, will always remain Jews. Therefore, their efforts to change things in this country will primarily be for their benefit, and not for the country as a whole. If they go down the route of dismantling or rearranging existing laws and regulations, they have to think hard about the consequences.
Thus, ironically, the Human Rights Commission, established to protect Jews, ended up being harmful to them, and of course to the rest of the country also. It has become a hotbed for Muslim complaints, who are one of the most anti-Semitic groups there are.
 |
Ezra Levant, hailing from the Western city of Calgary and founder of the Western Standard, which now exists only as a online magazine, was on the Michael Coren Show a couple of nights ago to talk about his new book Shake-down. The whole hour-long show is available on Youtube. I highly recommended it since Michael Coren, usually a mild microphone-hogger, gives Levant free rein to present example after example of cases he describes in his book.
Levant gained fame (or infamy) when his print magazine was the only one to publish the Mohammed cartoons, which resulted with him having to appear before the Alberta Human Rights Commission. Levant says this case cost him in the $100,000 range and three years to resolve, and he is a relatively famous Canadian, with all kinds of contacts and associations who helped him. Imagine, he says, the full-time-working, five-figure-earning person with no famous contacts on his Rolodex. In fact, these are just the type of people the Commission "gets".
I'm not sure what other method Levant has to tackle the problem other than to talk about it nationwide, and now to shock the country into realizing the callousness and immorality of the Commission from the accounts in his new book. I think that is his primary strategy so far. But just by the force of his book, his personality and the stories, this strategy might work to get some of the Commission's mandates amended, if not scrapped.
I think it is apt, and maybe providential, that a Westerner is the one to fight so vocally for Western standards. And that a Jew is dismantling what his antecedents set up several decades ago to combat what they believed was potential Nazi-type hate directed at them.
Providential, but also a profound learning lesson. Be careful how you rearrange a country's laws, is what I say, especially if you're "visitors" here. By that I mean, however much Jews try to assimilate as Canadians, they, by their own volition, will always remain Jews. Therefore, their efforts to change things in this country will primarily be for their benefit, and not for the country as a whole. If they go down the route of dismantling or rearranging existing laws and regulations, they have to think hard about the consequences.
Thus, ironically, the Human Rights Commission, established to protect Jews, ended up being harmful to them, and of course to the rest of the country also. It has become a hotbed for Muslim complaints, who are one of the most anti-Semitic groups there are.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Article on the Immigration Movie "Crossing Over"
Critiquing the Critics
This is an article on the recent immigration movie Crossing Over that I wrote and submitted to American Thinker. They didn't accept it. I also didn't send it to ChronWatch, since they haven't yet published whatever American Thinker hasn't accepted. I am filing it in my article archives instead.
***********************
Critiquing the Critics of the Immigration Movie Crossing Over
Crossing Over received an incredibly low 13% approval from the internet movie-rating site Rotten Tomatoes, and another dismal 38% from Metacritic – both sites post an aggregate of mainstream media movie critics’ reviews. This truly baffled me at first, since I thought the movie captured many of the nuanced problems of immigration, and was generally was quite sympathetic toward its array of characters.
Upon reading the low-scoring critics complain about the movie, it almost seems as though one of them set the stage, wrote the initial report, and all the others just read his example and followed suit. Their complaints are surprisingly similar, ranging from a crammed plot to badly developed characters. One of the biggest criticisms by these relentless judges was that Wayne Kramer, the director of the movie, lacked focus, or more precisely, he lacked a definite position. Which in their view means a clear, uncompromised, pro-immigration stance.
Kramer, in his own holistic way, does indeed try to include every story and angle into his film. A Muslim teen-age girl, who participates in Islamic and possibly Jihadist internet forums, appears alongside a self-proclaimed atheist Jew who works illegally in a Jewish school. A wealthy Iranian family is presented on equal footing as a Mexican single mother. Working class Koreans and an aspiring Australian actress from an obviously middle-class background harbor the same desire of becoming Americans. But Kramer, in keeping with his artistic integrity, allows us a peep into the dark side: the immigrant-smuggling “coyote” with death on his hands, the Muslim teenager who sympathizes with the 9/11 killers, the Korean gang that robs and murders store owners, the Muslim Iranians honor killing their too-Americanized sister, the Mexican who counterfeits green cards in his print shop, and the list goes on.
Yet, Kramer clearly believes that America is a nation for everyone. He reveals this passionately and even poetically through Hamid, the naturalized American-Iranian Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officer. Hamid displays his version of American identity to a young Korean (Justin), whom he confronts during a bloody convenience store robbery as Justin holds the storeowner hostage with a gun at her head. In tearful bursts of accented English, Justin tells Hamid that he and his family will be part of the naturalization ceremony the next day. To convince Justin to drop his gun and to go to the ceremony unscathed, Hamid describes his own acceptance of American citizenship as the "most spiritual moment of my life." He says to Justin, “Look around tomorrow at the faces, and understand the sublime promise of the moment.”
Hamid’s passionate eulogy on becoming an American ignites the critics’ harshest ridicule. Dana Stevens from Slate.com describes this scene as “the movie's glorious nadir, the moment when its leaden self-seriousness transmutes into comedy gold.” Stephanie Zacharek wrote at Salon.com that she “blanched when I heard those words -- they're overwrought, and some people around me in the screening room tittered.” Blanching and tittering, glorious nadir; those are the reactions to an immigrant poeticizing and celebrating the feeling he had upon receiving his American citizenship.
Perhaps this is what earned Crossing Over an 87% disapproval rating from the movie critics at Rotten Tomatoes. How can anyone describe America, and being an American, in such glowing terms? Especially an America that sends a poor, illegal Mexican single mother back to Mexico without her young son? And one that refuses to sympathize with a teen-aged Muslim girl and deports her to an alien Bangladesh? Still, in the eyes of these seemingly equal opportunity immigration advocates/film critics, the deportation of the Muslim potential Jihadist is far worse than that of the white Australian aspiring actress who grants sexual favors to an immigration bureaucrat in “a bizarre sexual quid-pro-quo deal” to get her green card. Even Kramer has no sympathy for this Australian girl, portraying her as a callous opportunist, whereas her Muslim and Mexican counterparts receive ample empathy. Whites, after all, don’t need the kind of saving that Third World immigrants coming from broken governments and fundamental religions require.
Immigration advocates and defenders will never be content until there is unequivocal support for immigrants, and specifically the Third World kind. No need to show the cheating coyotes and the counterfeit card printers. Muslims killing their sisters should never be talked about; it is their culture after all. And it is best to sweep the rising problem of Asian gangs under the carpet. There are so many success stories to document, why go for the bad apples?
The citizenship judge at the ceremony that Justin finally attends describes America as a welcoming country. America is for the taking, not for the (discriminate) giving. Anyone who suggests otherwise will incur the wrath, or hopefully just the ridicule, of these immigration advocates/film critics. Kramer tried to keep to his artistic integrity by providing us with as much truth as possible, despite his clear sympathy for immigration and immigrants. This earned him a contemptuous 13%. But that’s better than an outright zero.
 |
This is an article on the recent immigration movie Crossing Over that I wrote and submitted to American Thinker. They didn't accept it. I also didn't send it to ChronWatch, since they haven't yet published whatever American Thinker hasn't accepted. I am filing it in my article archives instead.
Critiquing the Critics of the Immigration Movie Crossing Over
Crossing Over received an incredibly low 13% approval from the internet movie-rating site Rotten Tomatoes, and another dismal 38% from Metacritic – both sites post an aggregate of mainstream media movie critics’ reviews. This truly baffled me at first, since I thought the movie captured many of the nuanced problems of immigration, and was generally was quite sympathetic toward its array of characters.
Upon reading the low-scoring critics complain about the movie, it almost seems as though one of them set the stage, wrote the initial report, and all the others just read his example and followed suit. Their complaints are surprisingly similar, ranging from a crammed plot to badly developed characters. One of the biggest criticisms by these relentless judges was that Wayne Kramer, the director of the movie, lacked focus, or more precisely, he lacked a definite position. Which in their view means a clear, uncompromised, pro-immigration stance.
Kramer, in his own holistic way, does indeed try to include every story and angle into his film. A Muslim teen-age girl, who participates in Islamic and possibly Jihadist internet forums, appears alongside a self-proclaimed atheist Jew who works illegally in a Jewish school. A wealthy Iranian family is presented on equal footing as a Mexican single mother. Working class Koreans and an aspiring Australian actress from an obviously middle-class background harbor the same desire of becoming Americans. But Kramer, in keeping with his artistic integrity, allows us a peep into the dark side: the immigrant-smuggling “coyote” with death on his hands, the Muslim teenager who sympathizes with the 9/11 killers, the Korean gang that robs and murders store owners, the Muslim Iranians honor killing their too-Americanized sister, the Mexican who counterfeits green cards in his print shop, and the list goes on.
Yet, Kramer clearly believes that America is a nation for everyone. He reveals this passionately and even poetically through Hamid, the naturalized American-Iranian Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officer. Hamid displays his version of American identity to a young Korean (Justin), whom he confronts during a bloody convenience store robbery as Justin holds the storeowner hostage with a gun at her head. In tearful bursts of accented English, Justin tells Hamid that he and his family will be part of the naturalization ceremony the next day. To convince Justin to drop his gun and to go to the ceremony unscathed, Hamid describes his own acceptance of American citizenship as the "most spiritual moment of my life." He says to Justin, “Look around tomorrow at the faces, and understand the sublime promise of the moment.”
Hamid’s passionate eulogy on becoming an American ignites the critics’ harshest ridicule. Dana Stevens from Slate.com describes this scene as “the movie's glorious nadir, the moment when its leaden self-seriousness transmutes into comedy gold.” Stephanie Zacharek wrote at Salon.com that she “blanched when I heard those words -- they're overwrought, and some people around me in the screening room tittered.” Blanching and tittering, glorious nadir; those are the reactions to an immigrant poeticizing and celebrating the feeling he had upon receiving his American citizenship.
Perhaps this is what earned Crossing Over an 87% disapproval rating from the movie critics at Rotten Tomatoes. How can anyone describe America, and being an American, in such glowing terms? Especially an America that sends a poor, illegal Mexican single mother back to Mexico without her young son? And one that refuses to sympathize with a teen-aged Muslim girl and deports her to an alien Bangladesh? Still, in the eyes of these seemingly equal opportunity immigration advocates/film critics, the deportation of the Muslim potential Jihadist is far worse than that of the white Australian aspiring actress who grants sexual favors to an immigration bureaucrat in “a bizarre sexual quid-pro-quo deal” to get her green card. Even Kramer has no sympathy for this Australian girl, portraying her as a callous opportunist, whereas her Muslim and Mexican counterparts receive ample empathy. Whites, after all, don’t need the kind of saving that Third World immigrants coming from broken governments and fundamental religions require.
Immigration advocates and defenders will never be content until there is unequivocal support for immigrants, and specifically the Third World kind. No need to show the cheating coyotes and the counterfeit card printers. Muslims killing their sisters should never be talked about; it is their culture after all. And it is best to sweep the rising problem of Asian gangs under the carpet. There are so many success stories to document, why go for the bad apples?
The citizenship judge at the ceremony that Justin finally attends describes America as a welcoming country. America is for the taking, not for the (discriminate) giving. Anyone who suggests otherwise will incur the wrath, or hopefully just the ridicule, of these immigration advocates/film critics. Kramer tried to keep to his artistic integrity by providing us with as much truth as possible, despite his clear sympathy for immigration and immigrants. This earned him a contemptuous 13%. But that’s better than an outright zero.
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
And its existential search
CarsonMcCullers in 1959
Carson McCullers was a Southern writer. She relocated to the north, and then lived mostly in Paris in the latter part of her life. Her most famous work is The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, which she wrote when she was just twenty three. About ten years later, she published another successful body of work, a novella and short stories, called The Ballad of the Sad Cafe.
I had read both these books many years ago, and found her works enigmatic and poetic. I just saw a film version of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, with a very intelligent performance by Allan Arkin as the deaf-mute John Singer, which explained many things.
The ending in the film and in the book are slightly different - by this I mean that the reasons for these disparate endings are slightly different. In the book, one gets the impression that Singer had an existential fallout, which was brewing for a long time. In the film, the director made it seem as though Singer was reacting to a visit gone wrong with his deaf-mute friend Spiros Antonapoulos, who had to be transferred to a mental institution after years of living with Singer.
I think people in general are afraid to confront existential fallouts. They want to give concrete "reasons" for drastic choices.
The young girl in the story, Mick, discovers classical music while listening to her rich friend practice the piano. Singer, who rents a room in Mick's family house, learns of this new-found interest, and buys several classical records so that Mick could come and listen to them.
This is how Singer made sense out of his life. He bought things for others, or got them out of trouble, or saved relationships by helping the various parties see their stubborn ways. It seemed, though, that no-one really listened to Singer, but all depended on his seemingly solid presence and kind "ear".
Mick said at one point that her loneliness goes away when she listens to music, and even when she remembers music. She says that Singer ought to find something like that to take his loneliness away.
Of course, that was ultimately Singer's problem. He couldn't find that thing to ease his emptiness, so he depended on people to make himself feel better: by giving them gifts, or his sympathetic ear, or just his time. But, they always disappoint him. Despite the many problems they come to him with, their lives return to normal after a little while, and they don't need him any more - for a while.
I think what Mick was telling him was to find something outside of himself. Because for all his generosity, he was quite stubborn about it. It is as though he had put himself on a pedestal, and expected his generosity to bear fruits - of friendship, of the defeat of loneliness, of gaining happiness. This generosity was part of his ego.
Mick, without realizing it, was telling Singer to let go of himself, and surrender to something bigger than himself, bigger than his ego. For her, it was music. Perhaps for Singer, it could have been God.
I think the book was more correct about Singer's final, drastic choice. The movie, probably having to deal with a fickle audience, gave a more "cause and effect" explanation for Singer's behavior. He treated his deaf-mute mentally deficient friend badly (only marginally so), the friend got sick (heartbroken?) and dies. Therefore Singer thought it was his fault.
Still, the film is closer to the truth than I give it credit for. How pompous of Singer to think that life (and death) revolved around him, so much so that he thought a friend died because of him?
 |
Carson McCullers was a Southern writer. She relocated to the north, and then lived mostly in Paris in the latter part of her life. Her most famous work is The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, which she wrote when she was just twenty three. About ten years later, she published another successful body of work, a novella and short stories, called The Ballad of the Sad Cafe.
I had read both these books many years ago, and found her works enigmatic and poetic. I just saw a film version of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, with a very intelligent performance by Allan Arkin as the deaf-mute John Singer, which explained many things.
The ending in the film and in the book are slightly different - by this I mean that the reasons for these disparate endings are slightly different. In the book, one gets the impression that Singer had an existential fallout, which was brewing for a long time. In the film, the director made it seem as though Singer was reacting to a visit gone wrong with his deaf-mute friend Spiros Antonapoulos, who had to be transferred to a mental institution after years of living with Singer.
I think people in general are afraid to confront existential fallouts. They want to give concrete "reasons" for drastic choices.
The young girl in the story, Mick, discovers classical music while listening to her rich friend practice the piano. Singer, who rents a room in Mick's family house, learns of this new-found interest, and buys several classical records so that Mick could come and listen to them.
This is how Singer made sense out of his life. He bought things for others, or got them out of trouble, or saved relationships by helping the various parties see their stubborn ways. It seemed, though, that no-one really listened to Singer, but all depended on his seemingly solid presence and kind "ear".
Mick said at one point that her loneliness goes away when she listens to music, and even when she remembers music. She says that Singer ought to find something like that to take his loneliness away.
Of course, that was ultimately Singer's problem. He couldn't find that thing to ease his emptiness, so he depended on people to make himself feel better: by giving them gifts, or his sympathetic ear, or just his time. But, they always disappoint him. Despite the many problems they come to him with, their lives return to normal after a little while, and they don't need him any more - for a while.
I think what Mick was telling him was to find something outside of himself. Because for all his generosity, he was quite stubborn about it. It is as though he had put himself on a pedestal, and expected his generosity to bear fruits - of friendship, of the defeat of loneliness, of gaining happiness. This generosity was part of his ego.
Mick, without realizing it, was telling Singer to let go of himself, and surrender to something bigger than himself, bigger than his ego. For her, it was music. Perhaps for Singer, it could have been God.
I think the book was more correct about Singer's final, drastic choice. The movie, probably having to deal with a fickle audience, gave a more "cause and effect" explanation for Singer's behavior. He treated his deaf-mute mentally deficient friend badly (only marginally so), the friend got sick (heartbroken?) and dies. Therefore Singer thought it was his fault.
Still, the film is closer to the truth than I give it credit for. How pompous of Singer to think that life (and death) revolved around him, so much so that he thought a friend died because of him?
Organ Pipes at St. James Cathedral
Both loud and soft
Organ recital program at St. James' weekday "Midday Series"
St. James Cathedral has twice-weekly recitals (mostly organ).
Two pieces struck me in today's "Midday Series" recital, performed by organist John Gardham:
1. I didn't know Elgar's orchestral Enigma Variations (Variation 9, known as Nimrod) was also arranged for organ. It has a less tranquil feel in the organ version. Somehow the pipes from the single (grand) instrument have a louder and stronger sound than the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
You can listen to the two variations below:
Daniel Barenboim with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
in 1997 season at Carnegie Hall
Organist Diane Bish at the Second Baptist Church in Houston, TX
2. Healey Willan's delicate pieces. Willan was a Canadian organist who composed both liturgical and non-liturgical music.
I cannot find a Youtube version of the recital pieces, but you can listen to short excerpts of the three pieces (about 30 seconds each) to get an idea of how they sound at the Amazon MP3 list - just scroll down to the middle of the page.)
The pieces are: Ecce Jam Noctis, Ave Maris Stella and Aeterna Christi Munera from Preludes on Plainchant Melodies - #s 8, 10 and 11 in the list.
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St. James Cathedral has twice-weekly recitals (mostly organ).
Two pieces struck me in today's "Midday Series" recital, performed by organist John Gardham:
1. I didn't know Elgar's orchestral Enigma Variations (Variation 9, known as Nimrod) was also arranged for organ. It has a less tranquil feel in the organ version. Somehow the pipes from the single (grand) instrument have a louder and stronger sound than the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
You can listen to the two variations below:
in 1997 season at Carnegie Hall
2. Healey Willan's delicate pieces. Willan was a Canadian organist who composed both liturgical and non-liturgical music.
I cannot find a Youtube version of the recital pieces, but you can listen to short excerpts of the three pieces (about 30 seconds each) to get an idea of how they sound at the Amazon MP3 list - just scroll down to the middle of the page.)
The pieces are: Ecce Jam Noctis, Ave Maris Stella and Aeterna Christi Munera from Preludes on Plainchant Melodies - #s 8, 10 and 11 in the list.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Our Changing Landscape
An update on Ayaan Hirsi Ali, my speculations on her low profile, and her new book deal with Knopf Canada, which is an autobiography from a Muslim feminist perspective.
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