TV Review: The Red Tent

When I was in University I read The Red Tent and I loved it. I didn’t think of it as harmful. I didn’t think of it as revisionist. Rather, I thought of it as embellishing a slight snippet of scripture whose weight allotted for speculation and research. If you think about it, Biblical fiction does a lot to embroider and embellish and for the most part we embrace it. Probably my favourite Biblically themed novels of all time Ben-Hur and The Thief (by Stephanie Landsem) use Christ as a peripheral character whose essence is the center. Nonetheless, we assume Him into the life of characters that are highly fictitious. My favourite Old Testament re-telling “In the Field of Grace” by Tessa Afshar does the same with the Ruth and Boaz story, planting fictional seeds that allow the eventual coming of Christ to inhabit the pages.

Also in University, not long after reading the Red Tent, I attended a weekend of seminars designed to look at the Bible merely as a great piece of literature. For this, I set my faith and my pre-conceived notions aside, immersing myself instead in the beauty of translation ---from the Hebrew and Greek, through the Latin Vulgate and finally to the King James and the numerous translations we are familiar with today. From structure ( prose, as in the Message) and modernization (the NIV) ,we recognize that this is a tome that has undergone a lot of sieving and a lot of filtering. For me, what is important, is that the general message stays the same. The authenticity is in the feeling. The feeling is in interpreting it with the guidance of a Higher Power. The Bible is one book that is borne of relationship, of study and of personal conviction. That being said, like any other story I read and love, I look for the essence of truth and the intent when I visit interpretations of the story.


I revisited the Red Tent in its Lifetime incarnation and was, again, completely compelled by this embellishment of the Biblical tale. It didn’t change my set opinions on the story, it didn’t threaten my faith, it didn’t offend me. Rather, it seemed to make a lot of sense. Anita Diamant painstakingly researched the world of the women of Jacob’s tribe and here she inserts her own ideas and plausible event sequences to colour in the patriarchal lines. To add, it is just a gorgeous filmed and heart-wrenching story of family, of love, of suffering and of a woman strong enough to overcome injustice while still doing good to those around her.


The Red Tent is the eponymous name given the place where women during their monthly cycles and confinement and childbirth would retreat. Diamant admits there is no factual evidence for such a structure in the Biblical tale; but she makes a convincing argument that it was often a custom of many Middle Eastern cultures of ancient times and knowing that women in both natural areas were viewed as unclean as per later Leviticus law, makes a lot of sense. It is here that we are guided first and foremost to meet sisters Rachel and Leah and their handmaids Bilhah and Zilpah.


Jacob, as in the Biblical tale known to most, arrives to aid the farmer Laban and falls immediately in love with his beautiful daughter Rachel. Unlike in the Biblical story familiar to us, Rachel, scared of the act of love on their marriage night, forces Leah to wed in her stead with a veil covering her. Jacob and Leah consummate their marriage and Jacob enters into the family. Leahs gives him several sons, as per Biblical record, and Rachel, often barren, one golden boy named Joseph. Finally, Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and Leah arrives and it is her voice and life explored.


She is raised in the sphere of women in the Red Tent and eventually becomes apprentice to her mothers (especially Rachel ) who are talented midwives. Inside the Red Tent, everything is cloistered and shrouded in feminine sphere. While Jacob is adamant his offspring follow the faith of One God, the women still pray to idols of fertility and motherhood. For Christians and religious types who are interpreting this as blasphemous, I instead assert it is quite plausible given the time period and the known obsession with idols. [ I heard some banter on the internet where people were admonishing this aspect for being “un Christian” which is, face it, a little ridiculous considering there was no Christ for which to be Christian]


***

I get a little perambulatory here; but I did find that the story led me to do some forward thinking as one often does in the Old Testament while anticipating the sanctity and redemption of the New.

While the story has shifted and facts have been embroidered and in some factors re-imagined, I assert that the strongest themes of the miniseries and the novel are themes that believers should applaud: themes of grace and forgiveness. Usurping thoughts of revenge with magnanimous acts of benevolence. When Dinah witnesses Jacob reconciling with his brother Esau, her mother Leah bids her to mark the moment and remember it: for ( and I paraphrase) we can measure the quality and strength of a man by his ability to forgive. Later, in Egypt, upon her deathbed, Dinah’s mother in law begs for forgiveness for her ill-treatment of Dinah and for sequestering Dinah’s son. Dinah gives forgiveness. When Joseph, at this point vizier of Egypt sentences Dinah’s son Ramos to execution for an attempt on his life, he forgives by reducing the sentence to exile and sparing his nephew. Finally, as Jacob lays dying, Dinah gives the gift of forgiveness by tending to the father she had years earlier disowned.

Blood is a major motif: the blood which brings life ( which can put believers in mind of the Cross and the ultimate act of life giving ) and the blood of the slain men in Shashem. Of sacrifice when Shalem and his King father are willing to offer the bride price of circumcision as per Jacob’s wish. Blood marring cloth otherwise perfectly spotless and white—Shalem provides Dinah with a snowy shawl on the night of their wedding which later, blood-stained, becomes reminiscent of another cloth marred with blood.


There are also wonderful moments of grace and symbols of communion. Jacob’s mother, the oracle Rebecca who—in this adaptation is attributed for Joseph’s ability with dream interpretation---is often visited by impoverished pilgrims who wait for hours in the hot sun to provide her with offering and wait to hear their fortunes. Noticing their hunger, Dinah and Rebecca’s slave girl break bread and provide it to the poor standing in line. Grace is found when Dinah risks her life to descend into the valleys of Thebes and aid the life of an abused pregnant woman at risk of her own. Dinah, too, eventually accepts her gift of midwifery and despite the prejudice afforded the “Foreign Born midwife” and her stubborn pride at the occupation’s harkening back to her tumultuous past, she casts it aside to help the women in need. Even as it takes her to the castle yet again where she will deliver (unbeknownst to her) her brother Joseph’s first son.


There are people who are automatically going to look at the two major departures from the Biblical story ( here, Dinah is not raped inspiring her brother’s bloody revenge, rather she falls in love with the prince and marries without her father’s consent and Rachel and Leah not being ordered by Laban to trade bridal places when Jacob asks for Rachel’s hand). But by just looking at the creative license here and fostering and mulling on these supposed discrepancies, they will miss the beauty of a story that is knit with grace, resilience and, ultimately, the power of forgiveness over vengeance. There are not many more Christian themes than these. Instead of attacking stories that try to present moments of goodness and light amidst the magnanimous grandeur of the Biblically historical setting, we should look at how these stories might inspire eventual readership, scholarship and study. Diamant takes departures, but she does so respectfully and the intent and the outcome, not to mention the positive changes that can be wrought from this inspiring story, are something not to scorn but to praise.

Quirky Romances that Rachel Really Loves

I have been talking with my friends Hillary and Melissa about favourite romantic movies.   We talk a lot about everything and we always want to make sure we have all seen what the others love.

Here are a few quirky movies that just touch the romantic in me in some way shape or form. To add, they might not be overtly familiar to everyone .

Princess Caraboo:  loosely based on a true story, this whimsical tale is set during the prime of the Regency---Prince Regent and everything! ---involving a stowaway pretending to be a princess (she even has her own language) adopted by an aristocratic family.  Several believe she is a fraud, though, including a reporter with lots of gumption ( I love those!) played by Stephen Rea.

Sliding Doors:  I love love love this Choose Your Own Adventure tale and its quotable lines by the inimitable John Hannah ( seen here with gorgeous Scotch accent in tow).  In one life, Helen catches the subway train, in the other she doesn't and her life intersects letting you know what each path would hold.  Romantic, daring and sweet. GREAT hero.

Crossing Delancey:  a recent discovery of mine thanks to a post by Susanna Kearsley on facebook.  I watched it every night when I was in Boston recently in my hotel :) You can tell immediately that the screenplay is whisked from a stage play. The dialogue is so tight. Isabella works at a bookstore and is romanced by a pretentious author. All the while a man who sells pickles has his eye on her.  When a professional matchmaker and her Bubbe attempt to set her up, she learns a lot about herself.  Just a sweet, quiet exposition on ideals met and changed.  GREAT HERO!  knows himself. Has a Knightley-esque confidence about him.

The Giant Mechanical Man:  This is one that Ruth introduced me to and I have a thing for Chris Messina in this. He is so mesmerizing.  He plays Tim a talented street performer who bonds with Janice a meek and mild unemployed woman. They both try to maze through life with late night pie, silent films and menial jobs at the local zoo.  There's a real Chaplin-esque flair to this.











The Mirror Has Two Faces: my favourite romantic comedy of all time.   Jeff Bridges plays a stalwart math professor at Columbia who places an ad for a platonic relationship based on a marriage of minds and not sex and Rose, a spinster English professor ( played by Barbra Streisand) answers.  I swear I quote this film once a day.  Its exposition on the medieval conception of Courtly Love and its beguiling exploration of two people attempting to embark on a physically passionless relationship just hits me.     Observe how  subversive it is: using romantic cliches to make its point--- down to clips of Now, Voyager and Brief Encounter and the ironic use of a swelling Marvin Hamlisch composed soundtrack.

The Purple Rose of Cairo  My favourite Woody Allen film features Mia Farrow has a humiliatingly abused wife obsessed with the pictures.  One evening she finds herself so engaged in the "Purple Rose of Cairo" ( traditional 30s tripe with high-faluting talk, martinis and buried treasure), she finds herself dating the hero. Winsome, sweet, nostalgic and yearning.

Romantics Anonymous:  This sweet French confection focuses on two people with severe social anxiety disorders who find love  over their shared passion for chocolate.  It is almost awkwardly painful to watch at times; but resilient and exhilarating at others.







Cluny Brown: long time favourite classic of mine adapted from the equally quirky novel by Margery Sharp by director Ernst Lubitsch. It more than has his famous touch.   Cluny is a plumber's daughter who ends up at the prestigious estate of the Carmel family as war erupts. While she sets her cap on the boring local apothecary, the visiting impoverished and daring writer Adam Belinski (CHARLES BOYER!!!!!!!) sets his sights on her.   The euphemisms and innuendo are a mile a minute.

Pathos and Heartbreak with a Slapstick Chaser

Today I did something I have always wanted to do: watched a ton of Charlie Chaplin films.

Face it, for one to expand their social history and cultural education, then one of the most predominant figures of the 20th century is a good place to start.  Indeed, some sources cite Chaplin as "the Tramp"  as the single most recognizable figure of the 20th Century.  Chaplin certainly followed the industry through some gargantuan times. Further, he had his thumbprint on visual storytelling from its beginning and spanning his rather remarkably long career.

To add, he is the utmost professional: independently wealthy enough to garner complete control of his art, he produced, directed, acted in, wrote and even composed the music for most of his work.  When he invested in and started United Artists, it helped him pursue creative independence and carte blanche even further.




He is a man, legend, emblem and icon borne of a society that needed him to reflect the socialism construct of a rapidly changing world.  More still, a magnet for several rumours and legends: urban and otherwise that shroud his little off-kilter bowler-hatted persona.

Did Adolf Hitler steal Chaplin's toothbrush moustache to capitalize on a beloved figure?  Did Chaplin live in poverty and horde away his wealth in trunks when his Cinderella story just began to unfold?

With an almost Dickensian background  ( complete with work house flavour ), Chaplin entered the Vaudeville scene and eventually crossed over to America. There, he maneuvered his way into an industry just beginning to boom, took hold of it, tweaked it to his own making and ran with it.

Today, as it rained outside and blustered October-like even in August, I set work and life aside and visited the past.  It started last night when I finally watched City Lights. I had always wanted to see it, being told that it was one of the greatest films ever made and I was dazzled. Moreover, I was mesmerized. You see, when the Tramp---here pursuing a blind flower girl ---interrupted by the wackiest, quirkiest adventures--- is on screen, you cannot help but be pierced by those mournful bright, expressive eyes deeply set hollow in their eye-lined orbs and you cannot help but fall prey to the malleable physicality that allows him to spurt and sprint around the screen, taking everything with him.

It is in this film I was finally able to flesh out the iconic figure with cane and hat and wilted-corsage-in-button-hole so second nature to our society.   There is something clownish to him, something mime, something graceful like Astaire, something as sombre and pathetic as Garbo and something full of distilled genius.

I recognized that the pure masterpiece in Chaplin's work--yes, in this one film---is that it was happy and sad at once. It was drenched in pathos while still skipping happily along.  The end sequence, when the wordless, nameless tramp is reunited with his cured love is heart-stopping and full of the strangest, quirkiest sense of grace.

We have come full circle, both are redeemed by love even as their social statuses now sever them from each other.

And it was in this film that I recognized I was watching history unfold.  For the Tramp, nameless, and the Flower Girl, equally nameless and all surrounding characters--rich and poor-- embodied the every-people of a changing age.

So I wound my way into the juxtaposition of forged family and statement of social equality in The Kid , framed by the resonance of Chaplin's tortured childhood.  Then, I waded through the hyper-energy of the Great Dictator startled by the resounding contrast between the buffoonish oration of the Great Dictator and the end summation by the Jewish Barber, mistaken in his identity and owning the world with his cries of democracy and happiness.  If there is better American war propaganda from 1940, I would be interested to see it.  ( and yes, I've seen the 49th Parallel). 

Each title card fascinates me, indicative of the story arc but snatching at the most surprising opportunities to speak to the visual art. Each moment the Tramp ---from his earliest days in Kid Auto Races at Venice to Mabel's Strange Predicament ---twitches his nose or jerks up his elastic eyebrows held me.  This visual narrative: so foreign to our experience and relationship with films today, and yet so focused and beguiling.

I followed expression meets socialism in The Gold Rush as Modern Times swooshed broad paint strokes on the changing face of commerce ...and on film.  Not unlike the telling sequence in the Artist  when the sound of a glass hitting a table startled the audience, so hearing the Tramp sing and the hiccups of sound in Modern Times jolted me.  I had fallen into silence: the mime-like transience of a world where no one has names, and no one speaks to me--but to each other--- and I follow the muted action like someone on the sidelines peeking in.

It is something we do every day, is it not? As people watchers.  We catch small blurts of silent action and fill in the words for ourselves. We watch people in their humanity before their voices can break through. We see what we can detect and judge and feel and takeaway from their actions, their body language, the way they lean in or cross their arms straining back.

There is an acute and telling sense of humanity reverberating through all of Chaplin's films.  There are also nods to some recurring devices.  One I noted was the birdcage: seen in the Great Dictator as in City Lights and obvious and subtle oxymoron of symbol speaking to the precarious situation some of the characters find themselves in.

Not the Tramp, of course. He is of liberty. He sneaks in and out, cannot keep a job, is the apotheosis of freedom and nomadic adventure.   You cannot cage him. He is on the fringe of society, he is everyone and no one all at once. Characters cross his path and a story is born.   Strikers and revolutionaries, dictators and authorities edge near him and history is re-told.  He is part of the action, but on the outskirts of it.  He is like his strange mis-matched clothes. He never quite fits anywhere.
This sojourner, poet, romantic and jubilantly melancholy figure. So, he is for all who are just outside the lines of propriety. No wonder. No wonder he was so popular.

He takes the events of a century churning forward, plagued by war and disease and abject poverty and tweaks them into something comical.  But, the pathos is still there.


Note: you can find most of these films easily on the web in public domain and on youtube.

Movie Rant: Carrie (1952 ) dir., William Wyler

This is the most spoilery thing ever. Okay? So for the three of you who are all: I WANT TO BE SURPRISED BY THIS PIECE OF TRASH MOVIE then please do not read about its preposterous plot and unsympathetic characters.  Mea Culpa, Theodore Dreiser


Good lord.

So, there's this scandalous Edwardian novel called Sister Carrie  by Theodore Dreiser which I read in University about a girl who moves to the big City and of course everything goes Sodom and Gomorrah for her and it is all about the CITY being immoral and a GIRL being able to survive only by sheer luck, a penchant for theatrics, and the help of men ( no matter whether or not she compromises her virtue). Anyways, there is also a MOVIE version starring Laurence Olivier and Jennifer Jones and the guy who plays the photographer in Roman Holiday whose name, I believe, is Eddie Albert.



And guys....

holy crikey! THE MELODRAMA!  the MELODRAMA! there was so much melodrama JUST in the music that  I watched it in little pieces over the long weekend here.

What strikes me about this film ( and I suppose the source material; though it has been so long that I cannot accurately speak to it ) is how much I hate how STUPID everybody is.

Let's start with Carrie: the beautiful ingenue type who captures the immediate attention of a shop keeper when they meet on her train into Chicago.  He is obviously a douchebag. She is not so dumb that she doesn't know he is a douchebag. When he gives her money ( because she almost slices her finger off at a sewing machine in a garment factory on her first day of employment) and begs her for dinner, she plans on showing up just to return the money. She knows, ladies and gents, that he is a douchebag.

But that never happens. And while she is at the restaurant about to give him the money she meets another douchebag. This one is George Hurstwood and he manages the restaurant and is married with a family and stuff.

He is the most idiotic character in the history of film ( slight hyperbole).  Carrie is installed in a rather distasteful arrangement at the Shopkeeper's apartment and even given a puppy while Hurstwood pursues her when Shopkeeper  (I think his name is Drouet ) is away.   They go to a play and sit in a carriage and she is all "No! I am virtuous and not a kept woman" Until she is no longer virtuous and still a kept woman.

She finds out that Hurstwood has a wife and kids ( because it never came up before while they were courting ); but she cannot blame him because his WIFE IS NOT A NICE WIFE and his wife DEMANDS MORE THAN HE CAN GIVE and he just wants love.

He wants love so much that he basically takes an open envelope with 10 000 in it and tells Carrie he got a divorce and kidnaps her on a train to New York. He's all: While we're on this train my divorce will go through!  And she is all: THIS IS SO ROMANTIC and they kiss.    They get to New York and it turns out a private investigator has followed them. This sometimes happens when you take ten grand that doesn't belong to you.   Carrie and George move to a tenement like apartment while George tries to work for a living. But he has trouble working for a living because no one wants to hire a thief and he is up in years and there is not a lot of work to be had.

Carrie becomes pregnant and she irons his shirts and stuff and makes his tea and sometimes he runs up a cigar on credit and it seems very How Green Was My Valley: all Triumph of the Poor.

But .... no!  You see, Capital D-Bag George didn't actually get a divorce and his wife is back and there's talk of bigamy charges and CARRIE LOSES HER BABY and George is all: it's okay because we really couldn't afford it. So don't you worry. And Carrie is all: THIS IS A TERRIBLE LIFE

Meanwhile, in the society pages, they learn that George's son from his first marriage--- the marriage including the family George just dismissed in order to move away with Carrie-- is going to be in New York! Carrie presses George's best suit and says: HE CAN HELP YOU FINANCIALLY! go see him!

And while George is chickening out from approaching his son whom he abandoned, Carrie leaves knowing that she is a millstone around George's neck.... because PEOPLE, this entire film is a WEB OF MISCOMMUNICATION!


George comes back and is all: NOOO! NOT CARRIE~

And Carrie pursues a career on the stage and starts making money while George starves on the street and spends his evenings at a flophouse.

One destitute night, George waits for Carrie outside the stage door and begs for a quarter and CARRIE is all: LET US HAVE OUR HAPPY ENDING!!! I will get you food and launder your clothes and we can live together.

And George is like: Imma gonna wait til you go and do something and then I am going to take a quarter-- JUST a quarter from your change purse and ruminate on suicidal thoughts while I flick the gas burner you're making tea on. Cause you see, in the book, I kill myself with gas so here before I set once more into my useless and meaningless emotionally-stunted existence, I am going to tragically THINK about suicide.




But no one dies.

THE END

Film Review:' La Veuve de Saint-Pierre"

I have wanted to see this movie since I was in high school.   I have always wanted to see this film; but somehow I have not. Until today. It was on the Movie Network: Encore and I was up and couldn't fall back asleep and knew that I had a full day of writing ahead ( I am nose-deep in finishing my new novel) ...

A few notes on the setting:

note 1: St Pierre is a little island off the coast of Newfoundland that is still in the possession of the French. I find it a fascinating little place and would love to go sometime.

note 2: it is FAIRLY obvious that this film was not filmed anywhere near St Pierre and is actually just totally filmed in Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island which is a UNESCO world heritage site and one of my favourite places in Canada! So HUZZAH! NOVA SCOTIA

This movie is achingly gorgeous and strangely ethical and philosophical and surged with harrowing humanism and consequences so grave you will want to sink your head into your hands.

It begins simply: two men go out to the pub on one foggy night, get drunk and kill a man.  Stupidly.

Their case is tried and neither can remember doing the deed.  It's all circumstantial and rather insipid and kind of horrible. You keep seeing in their eyes the desire to rewind the clock and put the liquor down and rescind their impractical stupidity.  Nevertheless, one man is sentenced to deportation from the sieged isolation of the little island and the other sentenced to death by Guillotine as was custom in French tribunal. As St Pierre belongs to French the same sense of legality is honoured there.

The stoic Captain ( a delicious, delicious Daniel Auteuil)  is seen receiving a horse from a cargo ship. He beckons his gorgeous wife Pauline ---known as Mme La---( Juliette Bincoche) to admire its ebony sinews and classic stance and we see a married couple deeply, madly in love. This sets off a relationship so passionate in its inference that I could scarcely keep my eyes from the Captain's eyes as he drunk in every moment of his wife's normalcy.

Indeed, the Captain drinks in every movement of his wife: every thought, the slightest of movements. Its as if he so treasures and cherishes her gift of sheer being he would like to steal into her thoughts to better understand every yet-unturned leaf in the blossoming garden of her compassionate enterprise.  You will die at how in love this gent is with his lovely wife.

While the prisoner under the Captain's watch is silently resolute, there is an over-arching judicial problem: the prisoner's sentence cannot easily be carried out.  They need a guillotine sailed in from the far reaches of France's middling empire and an executioner to see the dead to its end.  The Governor, a stern and horribly near-sighted man, proves far more obsessed with retaining his own idea of order than finding a proper end to a precariously bizarre instant.

The prisoner, Neel Auguste, is an exemplary case in reform.   Mme La undertakes him as a kind of protege and he begins by helping her consecrate a greenhouse under the ill-tempered weather of their maritime island.  Soon, Neel is helping the widows of the neighbouring Dog Island, fixing roofs, even saving a life. He is granted permission to marry and months pass without word about his method of execution or a man to carry out the odious deed.

In fact, when the cargo ship carrying the guillotine finally rims the mouth of the harbour, Neel is one of the first to volunteer to row it to shore.

As Mme La is compelled to spend more time with the prisoner and invest in his rehabilitation, so the Captain is caught in a paradox between his own brand of justice, buried deep in his resolute conscious and his awareness that his wife is preoccupied---if not in a conjugal sense--- with another man.

The eventual outcome is a distractingly strange and bleak and tragic downfall rips apart any idea of romance I had in its infancy due to its rugged, gorgeous sea-scape and spine-chilling chemistry between our Captain and his beautiful Mme La.

I doubt I'll be able to shake it from the precipices of my brain for awhile. It is a tortured movie that spills out like a kind of salt-water opera: tugs at you with brine and oakum and sinks into your pre-conceived notion of law and justice.

A gorgeous story, very well-told, thoughtful and just the right kind of bleak. It's hard to find any light in here beyond the muddled grey of the ocean exterior: but that's Louisbourg for you--- all haggard and rock-rifted and pining for bottled, captive light.

The This is All I have Time for 'Frozen' review

Dear Blog,

We need to have a talk about Frozen. It is ADORABLE and it more than passes the Bechdel test and the central relationship is not a romantic one and the singing is Broadway fantastic and it is basically the Disney version of Wicked (complete with Idina Menzel) and there are some lovely little twists and Olaf the Snowman might be the best side-kick since the Genie in Aladdin

And it is so freaking adorable I want to go back right now. Which won’t work because I am at the office doing important things

But, really…. It is high time you went and experienced the warm fuzzies for yourself. Guys, ‘tis clever! SO clever and brilliant and bright and charming and ENCHANTED

The end.

Despicable Me 2: The best RomCom of the year and the utmost champion of the Alternative Family

When we last left Gru and his lovely little minions, they were dancing after an impromptu recital staged by Gru’s adopted orphans, Margo, Edith and Agnes because he missed the first one while charging to the moon in a pink space suit blotted by the fact that his washing machine is now shared with three precocious girls.

Now, he is very much the family man: having traded villainy for jams and jellies and the minions, rather than being wily and helping him execute disastrous and dastardly capers, keep house and run around and test jam and are just kinda what they always were: little yellow bouncy jellybeans of incomprehensible fun.

When Lucy Wilde and Silas Ramsbottom from the Anti-Villain League convince Gru to get back in the game to bring down a sleezy villain named El Macho, Gru is wary about how the strain of his old life will affect his new-found family bliss. But, old super villain habits die hard and with several nifty gadgets, Gru and Lucy go undercover at a mall cupcakery and all is spiffy…. Well… kinda spiffy… it inevitably  has to go to hades with explosives and squirt guns and dynamite-strapped sharks plummeted into volcanoes first.

The plot to Despicable Me  and its sequel is really quite a moot point.  Like most lovely, deliciously giggly things, it is the characters and the greater premises that entice us.   In the first, it was the blatant softening of Gru’s heart when his mischievous plan is foiled by the doting of doe-eyed orphans who worm their way into his affections and even coax him to go to the carnival.  In the second,  it is the established unit of alternative family that the curtain opens on: championing single-parent families, adoption, quirkiness,  and alternative families with its conjoining of Gru who is from God-knows-where (Transylvania? ) and  the delightful little girls who were left holed up in the worst establishment since Miss Hannigan took her turn at bathtub gin-making in Annie.

Gru has happily traded his lifestyle and the alternative family is sewn so tightly together  no one can doubt the sincerity of the paternal figure ( dude! He dresses up as a fairy princess ---albeit an ugly one –for Agnes’ birthday) despite the girls’ desire for a mother brandished through their encouragement of Gru to online date.

The result is possibly the best romantic comedy I have seen all year.   Dating is a huge motif.  The eldest girl, Margo, falls immediately Capulet-Montague in love with a sweltering, floppy-haired and be-accented boy she meets at the mall while Gru fights off his crazy neighbour’s best attempts at setting him up while confronting his puzzling attraction to his friendly new partner, Lucy Wilde.     All of the tropes and conventions: from a long love montage featuring Gru’s rose-coloured morning in flourishes of music, spunk, spark and bright as he realizes his love for Lucy to his battle with the telephone receiver he is afraid to pick up.  There are clips (cute clips ) of champagne shared and walks on beach as Gru falls for Lucy at the same time as warily keeping Margo from pursuing her affections.   The chip hat of despair ( if there can be such a thing ) at a Cinqo de Mayo party is just another RomCom emblem for mistaken moments and transitory passions, misunderstood subliminal messages and ….well…the pivotal climactic transposition between like and the pursuit of love.  A  flashback to Gru’s childhood and his hopeless pursuit of his class crush squelched by her belief that he has cooties ( he’s an odd looking thing ) falls, again, into romcom territory.

It’s very strange that in a sea of really horrible romcoms ( seriously. Name a good, smart 2013 romcom ), an animated movie emerges as front runner --- but it excels because at its core it has always had heart, has always been vulnerable, has always nudged the audience with possibility.   Take a moment in the first when a bunch of mothers benched with Gru watching their little girls at ballet practice, lean in and admire him as a single father.  In the same vein, the sequel finds Lucy Wilde glistening-eyed when she witnesses a lovely encounter between Gru and the girls at the mall.

He might have a pointy beak-nose and be a super villain with a strange accent, undertowed by even stranger cadences of speech; but darnit! If those girls adore him there must be SOMETHING there .

I don’t want to get into the denouement of the silly movie or how Gru and Lucy secure their romance; but I do want to commend the film on FIRST establishing the legitimate quality of the alternative family before establishing a potential mother figure.

The family unit is not lacking because of a mother figure, there is no cavity or hole and the viewer recognizes that if their world will just consist of Gru, the girls and that strange little beast-dog Kevin and a billion minion cousins and Dr. Nefario as a sinister elderly grandparent then that is a fine, fine world indeed.   

Even as Agnes wistfully ( okay, so she sounds more like an automaton zombie ) plods out the Mother’s Day poem for a school pageant wondering what a mother would be like, we know that if the mother never arrives from her cotton- candied- cloud dreams then she will still be just fine.   Observe the cute moment when she brings Gru, sitting melancholy on the front step as rain blasts him, an umbrella and keeps him company. This odd little unit has a good thing going .

When the girls are given a chance of a mother and Gru a chance at finding romantic happiness, we know it is not a necessity rather than a pleasantly unexpected addition.--- Something that online dating and a mapped out guide-to-love would never have wrought.

The alternative family is all and well and happy; but every once and awhile something else  can show up to cut and paste into the already well-carved life and that, too, can be dandy.

Also,  minions. 

Films! I saw some!

Hi all,

I am a lazy little book blogger and don't really have the time to write these up with the credit they deserve; but BOTH get the Rachel Stamp of approval....

I saw two films over the past week.


1.) Before Midnight 

Love this trilogy and this, to me, was the strongest yet

Just go and sink in and revel in the conversation

2.) Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing

I think Nathan Fillion was miscast as Dogberry; but he is the only weak link in a super strong cast.  I could watch Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof spar forever .....

Random Musings on 'Hello, Dolly!'

I love Barbra Streisand in her belle époque ( hello! Funny Girl )

I could seriously watch her forever. She is so strikingly alive. She owns the space she inhabits. She flounces and flairs and flings her arms wide and she invites you in: to every harsh and adorably edged quip laced with her New York vernacular, to everyone wide, dewy-eyed glance and profile shot, to her triumphs, insecurities and sheer, strong femininity.

Hello, Dolly! has some pretty terrible musical numbers; but upon recent re-viewing I didn’t pay attention to that. This, friends, is spectacle. This is the type of musical that was meant for the screen: broad sweeping canvases: from Yonkers to nameless parks and avenue parades in New York city in the late 1800’s. This is the type of musical that is best viewed as a lavish, too-much, too-often, over-hyped, over-sung, over-repetitive sweep of musical goodness. This is “Glee” – on speed…. As directed by Gene Kelly: a veteran of movie-musicals with the same timbre.

'Put On Your Sunday Clothes' goes on illogically forever. Random characters show up and dance across train tracks: it is the epitome of delicious musical frounce and frou-frou. The poorly-lyrical “Dancing” number spills from Irene Molloy’s hatshop ( and the misdaventures therein with Cornelius and Mr. Vandergelder ) and out into the street, magnetically picking up other couples like lint to Velcro. 'Before the Parade Passes By' starts in one of the movie’s soft and wistfully reflective moments: urging us to spare a moment for Dolly the vulnerable widow---not Dolly the control freak. Her lavish exterior winnows away and we are given a glimpse of lost hope and utter humanity; before she is swept into the whirlwind of coloured kaleidoscope noise once more; parading with hat and feathers aplomb, over-taking the streets and forcing the attention on her. Craving from a nameless, faceless crowd what she had just mused on losing beneath a tree but minutes before.



filminc.com

"Hello, Dolly!' itself is a wonderful song. Seriously. Louie Armstrong, people, and good old Satchmo shows up, too! But it goes ON FOREVER and EVER! Two reprises. Bridges galore …. The denouement gets you revved up just as the central chorus whirs in again.

This is movie musical whipped cream. This is the feeling after you eat turkey dinner. This is cake.

What interests me most about this entire mélange of strange and wonderful sparkles and tomfoolery is that it is a marriage bred of Thornton Wilder whose silent escapades epitomized communal American life: Our Town, for example, revels in the quiet, the normal, the quilted pattern of community, home, hearth. 'Hello,Dolly!' , based on his play the Matchmaker marries Yonkers with the big broad city; the small Hayfeed clerk with the brokerage of matrimony in the high town. The high city life spilling back into Yonkers at the end of the film ( with Cornelius and Irene ready to flee away with money from the safe and Dolly willing and ready to be tamed) and the eruption of whirl and business descending upon a rural and very 19th century setting.

'Hello, Dolly!', for all its frills and flounces and terrible lyrics makes a bolder statement, thus, it’s about change, disenchantment and …dare I say it…. urban expansion.

Guest Post by GINA: Thoughts on the Great Gatsby

Gina is Smarter than I am..... and she proves it ....again

Deleted Scenes from a Gatsby Review

One thing a movie reviewer quickly learns is that, no matter how hard she tries, she can never get everything she wants to say about a movie into one review.  However, I caught a break with my last review. When I reviewed the new Great Gatsby film for BreakPoint.org, Rachel was kind enough to offer me this space to share any leftover thoughts I might have on the film.

And so I present “Gina’s Gatsby Review: The Deleted Scenes.”

The Music

I had a bit of a tough time making up my mind about the music. Fact is, I’m old-school; if I were in charge, I’d have gone with George Gershwin and Cole Porter. But I understand the raw, modern effect that Baz Luhrmann was going for, and I have to say he pulled it off pretty well (even though I nearly had to bang my head against the wall before I could get “Young and Beautiful” out of it). And I appreciate that he at least managed to work in a few authentic tunes of the period.

Not that I didn’t giggle at some of the ways he used them. Like hitting the crescendo in Rhapsody in Blue just as we were introduced to the title character. It was like, “Fireworks! Gershwin! GATSBY!” It was completely over-the-top—but then, as I did point out in my review, the story is over-the-top and the character is over-the-top. So Luhrmann’s over-the-topness is a good fit. (Though the room full of billowing curtains was a little much. I’m pretty sure that, in Fitzgerald’s vision, the living room was supposed to look like a living room, not a Victoria’s Secret ad that got out of control.)

The Acting

Honestly, I’ve never been much of a Leo fan. When all the other teenage girls around me were sobbing over the end of Titanic, I was yawning and looking at my watch. But he’s come a long way since then. And the part of Gatsby, the eternal golden boy, fits him like a glove.

Tobey Maguire was adequate—though I think he’s a pretty good actor in general, I didn’t find anything particularly special about his Nick. It seemed to me he went a little too much with the “drifter” side of Nick, and not quite enough with the sharp-eyed observer side, though he may have simply been following director’s orders.

However, the women—Carey Mulligan as Daisy, Elizabeth Debicki as Jordan, and Isla Fisher as Myrtle—all nailed it. Mulligan fully inhabited the beautiful, fragile, shallow Daisy in a way that both attracted and repelled. You could grasp that she’d been hurt and that she was now fully focused on protecting herself at all (and I do mean all) costs, which gave her Daisy just that slight amount of appeal and sympathy needed to keep you from throwing your drink at her. And Debicki, though she didn’t have nearly enough to do, was perfect; she gave the part a hard, cynical, bright-eyed gloss that was quintessentially Fitzgerald. I think and hope that this truly was a breakout role for her, and that we’ll be seeing much more of her in the future.

The Frame Story

One particularly controversial aspect of the film was the framing device that it added: Nick in a sanitarium, telling this story to his doctor. Luhrmann had explained his reasons for doing this—mainly, to give a plausible reason for Nick to be telling it in the first place—but while they’re valid reasons, I still could have done without the device.

In the first place, as others have pointed out, we have a man who tells us that he’s only been drunk twice in his life, being treated for morbid alcoholism. Whoops. It would be one thing if Nick were a pathological liar, but I don’t think that’s the impression we’re supposed to get.

And in the second place, the frame story just seemed to obtrude too much on the main story.  A little bit of narration would have been great—nothing wrong with keeping some of that beautiful Fitzgerald phraseology—but making a big deal out of the narration and why it was there was just a drag, especially when the frame story didn’t really seem to go anywhere. (And why does narration have to be explained anyway? Literature and films are both full of stories that are narrated just because the author or director wanted them to have a narrator.)

Both Nick’s narration and his Gatsby fixation needed to be downplayed a little, instead of overemphasized as they were. They nearly took Nick from disillusioned-observer territory into creepy-stalker territory.

By the way, what was up with actually printing words on the screen at certain points? Is this a new trend now? Because this is the second movie in recent months in which I’ve seen it happen. Dear Hollywood: If this is a trend, it needs to stop being a trend now, okay? Thanks.

On the whole, I thought the adaptation was beautifully done, so I’m not nitpicking. These are just a few stray thoughts about how it could have been even more beautifully done than it was.

Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog.

Thoughts Upon Watching the 1993 "Heidi" Three Times While Sick with Strep Throat

That One Time I was Sick and Watched the 1993 Heidi three times

Darn you, Heidi!  Frig.

Guys, there are some  stories that just rip my little heart to shreds. Heidi is, like Eight Cousins and Pollyanna, a bit of a comfort food read for me. Especially back when I moved from my lovely little town to the big city for university.  Heidi, in her loft on her makeshift bed, would peer out the slats of the window and stare at the stars and I would breathe in and remember the stars that I could see from my bedroom window and that were, well, all but obliterated by the tall buildings and streetlights in Toronto.

I have not once made it through this book without crying. Heck, I was in Switzerland a few years back and just cried THINKING about it on the train. Don’t worry, some random Swiss dude gave me a piece of chocolate and a smile and a tissue.  Thanks, guy.  It is just one of those books that just drains my tear ducts. There’s Heidi and her winsome spirit and all the goats and her grandfather until she’s ripped from her happiness to Frankfurt to act as companion to a girl suffering from one of those vague 19^th Century diseases and in a wheel chair (see Colin from Secret Garden)   And, you know, you just know every feeling she’s experiencing.  When the wealthy old mother of Herr Sesemann gives her that book about the Prodigal Son and she sees a picture of a goat but stupid Fraulein Rottemeier has told her she can’t cry and is forbidden so she sneaks to her bed and feels a heavy lump crammed into her air passage.   Or, when she steals rolls at dinner—fluffy white rolls –for the Grandmother (Peter the goatherd’s matriarch ) and they go stale and …..

lotsa screencaps: thanks, google image search

I CANNOT HANDLE THIS

So, last week I was pretty sick with strep throat and basically just slept the week away home from work; but I wanted to watch a nice movie and I  flipped through the Netflix catalogue and landed on the 1993 Heidi Disney miniseries which I have, surprisingly, never seen before.  The only adaptation I HAVE seen was the  Shirley Temple one which---you know—it’s fine and all; but not really the experience I want as a lover of the book.

So I watched it.  And serious to Pete I was crying through the opening credits.  GUYS, I CANNOT HANDLE THIS STUFF! It’s too much. I am a wreck!

She’s a lovely little girl and her grandfather wants to love her but he’s stubborn and blames himself and there are GOATS and mountains and then Dete (that witch! ) takes her away and I JUST…. GAH! …. WTF!!!!!???!

And, we’re talking three hours of pretty decent adaptation here, kittens.  I mean it is fairly close to the story.  When Heidi is taken to Frankfurt under the promise (LIAR!) that she will be back in a week if she doesn’t like it there and then she’s stuck there with stupid Clara and stupid Fraulein Rottemeier and stupid Sebastian (okay, Sebastian’s not that bad), I just wanna….. gah!

And they don’t go into the Herr Doctor’s history as much as in the book; but he’s there too ( WHEN SHE IS SLEEP WALKING! REMEMBER??? THE SLEEP WALKING BECAUSE SHE IS SO SAD! Of course she is SAD! Her goats are far away! )

And she finally gets back to the mountain and the sigh of relief deflated me like a popped balloon….but…. nooooo! …then stupid Clara and entourage have to hike up through Dorfli to Grandfather’s mountain and …my insides are torn out.

This is terrible. By terrible, I mean wonderful. But, really….. stop wringing my emotions like a dishcloth, Heidi.

The girl who plays Heidi is the friggin’ cutest thing you will ever see. Gosh, the freckles, the braids, the friggin’ way she cradles a baby goat and picks flowers for her grandfather and just loves him unconditionally because she just needs and wants love  (DARN YOU, STORY! Orphan stories…. My kryptonite)

And the Grandfather?--- Jason Robards---that’s right--- because why wouldn’t it be Jason BLOODY Robards. Love him! Seriously attracted to him in anything from the 60s ; but then want him to kinda be my grandpa ‘cause I don’t have one.  Remember him in Huck Finn? With Robbie Coltrane? I went there. I WENT THERE (speaking of Disney movies from the 90s that make me cry, FYI... like that scene with Jim and Huck in the rain and they tried to HANG Jim but failed and Huck is shot... I can't...even.... EMOTIONS! SO MANY!).

childstarlets.com

And you’re thinking: whoa! This is sounding pretty great.  Let me add a cherry to this sundae---- PATRICIA NEAL ---she of the great voice and resume that includes THE FOUNTAINHEAD, BREAKFAST AT TIFF’S and, you know, a stint as John Boy’s mom ---is Grandmother.  Gosh.

The whole thing… I just…. And then I ordered it on amazon and I will neither confirm nor deny that I have watched it two more times since.

*Rachel pauses to compose herself*

I mean, read the book first if you haven’t.  The scene where Grandfather comes down the mountain to re-establish his relationship with God and the community is amazing and not, of course, included in the film. But, this is a pretty decent adaptation as far as literary adaptations go

And ripped my darn heart out.

What the heck!

I just wanna go and snuggle in a hayloft and toast goat’s cheese over a fire and drink a lot of milk now when I’m not frolicking in the Alps.

I really have nothing more to say except that the ICING ON THE MINISERIES’ CAKE is that it’s filmed in Austria (the TYROL! ) and Salzburg so---yeah---there’s that.

This is …really….

*message truncated because I am crying uncontrollably*

Film Review: A Royal Affair dir. Nikolaj Arcel

Sumptuous, driven, ornate, opulent, gut-wrenching.

I actually took out a scrap of paper from my purse and wrote some of the words that catapulted to my mind's forefront as soon as the credits starting rolling.

This, fair reader friends, is why I love period pieces. They are so fascinating, I learn so much, they whet my appetite and I want to go on a research spree and excavate every little detail about the people I have seen come so vibrantly to life and the world that has fleshed out before my eyes in whirling canvas.

After watching A Royal Affair I added Copenhagen ( "Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen"-there. now it's in your head, too)  to one of the places I really must visit

We often associate grand period pieces of the 18th Century with the British and French monarchies; but we don't as often read or watch the palatial life in other parts of Europe, such as Denmark, unfurl.

This is a work of visual opulence, yes, but also one of romance and power play.

Caroline Mathilde of England is betrothed to King Christian VII of Denmark.  She dreams in the opening sequences of how theatrical and artistic he is as hearsay has taught her. She lifts her locket from her neck and stares at the tiny portrait of him painted inside.  When she meets him and they consummate their marriage, she realizes that he is jealous, changeable, temperamental and mentally unbalanced. If his critics and council are right, this is one mad King.

Having fulfilled her duty by providing him with a male heir, Caroline is certain that her life from there on in is a hopeless imprisonment.  The king stifles her artistry (she is a fabulous pianist) so that she doesn't upstage him and the censorship is so great in a Denmark stagnantly opposed to Enlightenment theories, that the books she had transported from England have been sent back.  The king much prefers the company of prostitutes and ribald activities in the evening, leaving the Queen to her bedchambers: trapped in a loveless and passionless existence, though the cogs of her fast-moving, philosophical and Romantic brain are forever turning.


While the King is on a two year European tour, he meets with Johann Struensee, a small-town physician he is taken with during an interview wherein they have a battle of Shakespearian quotes. Struensee is the perfect foil of the eccentric and flamboyant king and he welcomes him to not only be his personal physician, but also his constant companion and confidante.  This does well for Struensee, who was encouraged to try for the post by two men desperate to get back into court life.

When he meets the Queen, she seems as pale and lifeless as the King has described her. Her spirits are low and she views Struensee as another one of her mad husband's whims, destined to bring the king further and further into debauchery.  During a check up, the Queen discovers that behind his medical treatises, the new physician has rows of her favourite Enlightenment works by Rousseau and Voltaire. She immediately sees him a kindred spirit and they bond. Very slowly, very subtly. Their relationship merges further when Struensee presents her a packet of the philosophical works he has written anonymously.  When their relationship transitions from one of mental equality to physical passion, the viewer is more delighted because  a preternatural kinship and solid friendship has already been established.

This is a familiar story and a familiar trope: not only in fiction but in real life.  Forbidden love, power-plays, a double-standard which allows the husband to carry out extra-marital affairs while condemning the wife and a slow-boiling tension made tantamount by members of court who, for reasons of politics and self-protection and advancement need someone to act as scapegoat, need a downfall.


While Struensee has the king's ear, he acts as a royal advisor to the extreme: they dissolve the council and implement a myriad of wonderful decrees inspired mostly by Struensee's personal philosophies and his conversations with the Queen who, like him, would like to see censorship banned and serfdom obliterated with rights for the peasants.

Of course it falls apart. Of course there is tragedy.  History doesn't do well at providing us case after case of happily ever afters. But, like the best films and stories of the sort, while you are in the elegant and refined and supremely passionate midst of the love affair unfolding, you believe that it could go on forever... that it must go on forever... that Enlightenment and romance will prevail.

I knew it was coming, I bit my nails to the quick and wrung my hands ( seriously. goodbye manicure) but I didn't want to see it as it happened. I wanted to freeze a few beautiful and bold, gilt-edged moments in time.

Film Review: the Mill and the Cross dir., Lech Majewski

Discombobulated Musings on a Film so Surreal and Reverent, I cannot surmise it in adequate Words.

source: Wikipedia

"So this could be a group of saints, returning from the past to mourn the present state of Flanders."

What would it be like, you might wonder, to see a painting as an artist imagined it, to steal into its world, examine its blots and colours and idiosyncrasies and irregularities, and exhume the breath of those inhabiting its great canvas?

What would it be like to seep into its folds, to watch it come to life, to view its creator as he sketches out its shape-in-embryo, chooses the axis, the crux of the focal point and weaves the action around and around that pinnacle like the web of a spider?

The Mill and the Cross is rather like revelatory examination of a work.  The film angle never strays from straight on, the viewer is never given any perspective they would not have looking straight on from the canvas.  No fancy, angled-camera work here, rather an exposition.

It begins as Bruegel discusses the inspiration for his next work with his patron.  They weave amidst a flock of still characters, Bruegel conniving slight touches: the re-positioning of a hem, the flounce of a skirt of fabric.  From there, the camera moves out and we are left with the opening shot. That of the great  1564 painting The Procession to Calvary

It is an examination of the political turmoil, the occupation of Flanders under the Spanish, the barbaric persecution of the protestants in a Catholic-dominated land.  But it speaks beyond its specific circumstance, entreating viewers to ponder the barbaric and judgment in their own times, humanity's cruelty to one another and the moments of grace that can intercede to infiltrate meaning to the meaningless and hope to the hopeless.

The plot is an interlacing of moments, of scenes, of tableaux: beginning from the first action where we see two men chopping down a tree in the forest. The Christian symbolism here is not just overt, it is seeped in every crevice of the work. More still, it unfolds into a re-creation of the Crucifixion, as seen by the eyes of an artist in an occupied land.

"In our land we're reduced to beggary. If only time could be stayed. If it could only be brought to a stop. If only we could wrestle this senseless moment to the ground, clearly speak its name to its face and break its power....." says Bruegel's patron at one point.  And brutality is rampant: a young man is severed from his wife, beaten and hoisted on a pole, a woman is buried alive. We are never to know what their crimes were. We are only to know that Spanish persecution in the name of Christ is subjucating tyranny in the same way it did at the time the Romans persecuted our Lord.

source: tweedslandsgentlemansclub.blogspot

There is little speaking, merely figures who move listlessly and grounded throughout the visual scope of Bruegel's imagination. What is said is sparse; but lovely all the same ...almost Shakespearian...certainly poetic. Especially Mary's internal dialogue. Yes, Mary, Simon, Judas and Peter are all present in this re-working of the final days of Christ's life.

Yet, interwoven more greatly are symbols that divine Christ long after his execution, speaking clearly to those who are familiar not only with His influence but the entirety of the Tale told: a lamb is wrested from the back of a stone cottage, the millers make bread. The colour of the Spanish tunics is red: the otherwise muted colour of the landscape drawing back so that the focal point is on the colour of blood.

Christ is in all.

The Great Miller acts as God watching the action below and Bruegel, as artist, acts as God ---able to stop time and meander and manipulate the action, express it, capture it for all the world to see and learn from. For just as Bruegel lifts his hand to stop the motion affront him  ( the way to Calvary) so the omniscient miller from his post on high raises his hand to stop the grinding wheel. Ever think of how a windmill, when caught in a certain position in its ongoing wheel takes the shape of a cross? Here, a moment of intersection against a looming sky makes for an ethereal and equally eerie symbol.


Judas hangs himself as Bruegel picks up scattered sketches
The storm rises and the rooster crows, the mill continues turning


You can see God in everything...you can see God in Bruegel ----though, like the inspiration, Christ and His moment of sacrifice is lost in the carousel of commotion. Nonetheless, though overlooked in the massive span of action and populous, He is there all the same, turning the wheels in motion, redeeming all at once. "All these great events go right unnoticed by the crowd", Bruegel says, thinking of the moment when the perspective shifts and the throng watches Simon break to carry the cross for Jesus

A landscape sprung to life from the crevices and caches and catches of oil work and matted and imagined in vivid life

Characters in tableaux: lusty, ordinary, tortured, frail.... humanity on parade.

Artists' renderings of life are beautiful and yet the seed that roots this beauty is borne, here, of tribulation; but not without a powerful symbol of redemption and not without a working of Grace.


Note: this is a relatively violent movie though rated 14 A.

Silas Marner (BBC 1985): the Condensed Version

(note: I haven’t read this book since High School; but I think this adaptation stands up? I mean, it seems similar….doesn’t it?  YAH!)

SILAS MARNER: CONDENSED 

BEN KINGSLEY: I DID NOT STEAL that guy’s gold. I  have CATALEPSY which means sometimes I just fall asleep for no reason.  I was watching over that guy and I fell asleep and somebody else stole the gold.

WILLIAM DANE: I used to be your best friend; but I needed gold.  LOOK HERE, church elders:  HERE IS BEN KINGSLEY’s pocket knife !  IT IS PROOF! PROOF THAT HE STOLE THE GOLD!

CHURCH ELDERS: YOU MUST BE GONE!

BEN KINGSLEY’S FIANCEE: I no longer want to marry you, you GOLD STEALER

BEN KINGSLEY: Okay, Okay. I get it. I’m a leper from this community and you don’t want me in church. Fine. I’ll just go and wander about. You stupid Calvinists. I am wandering the Midlands until I settle somewhere.  I might be dejected; but I CAN STILL WEAVE!

 *wanders* 

 Oh look! Raveloe! Good Name! Good Cottage. I will weave things here and be an anti-social outcast and scorn community because I was BETRAYED BY CALVINISTS and church is kinda for mean people who accuse other people.

*weaves*

And I am going to store up all the GOLD that I am given as PAYMENT by these here Raveloeans….erm… Raveloeites?  ….THESE HERE TOWNSPEOPLE!.....

And I am going to HIDE it under the floor boards after counting it each night and revel in its awesomeness. I am like a Victorian Rumplestiltskin, so I am.

*counts gold. Hides gold*

DUNSTAN CASS: *strolling through the forest* What have we here?  A guy who is standing up and sleeping at the same time? Weird! Oh! It’s that weaver! Oh look! He dropped his gold. Odd to have SO MUCH GOLD WHILE SLEEPING WHILE STANDING UP IN THE FOREST. Mayhap I should steal it. Because this plot doesn’t have enough to do with GOLD.

*thinks of stealing it*

BEN KINGSLEY: *suddenly awake and no longer in catatonic fit*: were you going to steal my gold? Shame! It’s mine. FORSOOTH!

DUNSTAN CASS: *goes to pub, tells everyone that Ben Kingsley has lots of gold*

BEN KINGSLEY *does nothing to hide his gold in a better spot than underneath the floor board*

DUNSTAN CASS: *steals the gold*

MEANWHILE:

DUNSTAN’S DOUCHEBAG OLDER BROTHER: How are you, secret wife who is addicted to opium?  How have you been neglecting my child who just sits here all blonde and cute while you go and imbibe opium?

OPIUM ADDICTED SECRET WIFE : arasdgjkl;sadjkfj ajdsklf; jkld!!!! I am a terrible mother *imbibes opium*

DUNSTAN’S DOUCHEBAG OLDER BROTHER:  Never mind, secret wife, I will leave you and our child until you clean up your act.  Meanwhile, I’mma gonna go home where my DAD is a SQUIRE and ignore you and your plight and your opium addiction and this cherub who is my daughter. 

OASW: asdjkf jadks;f jkal;ds jfkl;ajdkfl jaksld; jfkljk!!!

DUNSTAN’S DOUCHEBAG OLDER BROTHER: I shall host a big Christmas dance and everyone will dance as they do in those Jane Austen films. Ah, look! Sister Julienne from Call the Midwife. You are fair. Even though I am married and have a daughter, I shall claim you and your porcelain skin.

SISTER JULIENNE: You be the DASHINGEST!

AND THEN…..

BEN KINGSLEY: nwjkl;lasdkjfkla;j dkfljk!  MY GOLD! IT IS STOLEN! I HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO LIVE FOR! IT WAS ALL I HAD IN THE WORLD! I LOVED HOARDING GOLD! No. NO! I don’t want a new hobby. I just wantz more GOLD GOLD GOLD!

MEANWHILE….outside…..

OASW: I shall bring my child to SQUIRE CASS’ estate and crash their party! HEYO! With my daughter in TOW! And he shall claim his daughter and I shall get more opium money. Oh wait. I die…. I DIE…. The world is blurry before mine eyes…. Too. Much. Opium. Daughter, daughter, where are you going?

*daughter crawls into Ben Kingsley’s cottage*

BEN KINGSLEY: egads! A baby!  With golden hair! GOLD! This is the GOLD I NEED!  THIS SYMBOLIC GOLD

*checks outside*

Looks like her mother is dead. I guess I’ll just adopt her. Why not?

*goes and peeks into the Cass Estate Party*

Hey all! I’m that reclusive weaver whose gold was stolen. Mind if I keep this baby ? her mother is dead outside in a ditch.

DUNSTAN’S DOUCHEBAG OLDER BROTHER *somewhat conflicted* Dead Opium Addicted Secret Wife. My. But, I guess this means I can get engaged to Sister Julienne.  Wanna marry ,Sister Julienne?

SISTER JULIENNE: sure thing!

DUNSTAN’S DOUCHEBAG OLDER BROTHER: Here, for your services in helping this abandoned “orphan”, I give you some gold. Buy food and stuff for the child.

BEN KINGSLEY: I SHALL CALL HER EPPIE! She shall stay with me while I weave. She is better than gold.  I also think that I can start finding a way back into the community! Mayhap these people are not so bad. MY LIFE HAS BEEN CHANGED!

*goes all Jean Valjean *

SISTER JULIENNE: It appears that I cannot have children

DUNSTAN’S DOUCHEBAG OLDER BROTHER: WHAT? How!????  This sucks. I wanteth CHILDREN. I mean I already have… but…. I mean. I WANTETH CHILDREN!

*years pass. Eppie grows up all beautiful and rural and rustic and pastoral and likes to weave flowers in her flowing locks. She takes up with a local farm boy and as fast as you can say: Hand me that Pitcher, has found love and happiness*

BEN KINGSLEY: Eppie, you are the light of my heart. YOU ARE SO MUCH BETTER THAN GOLD!

EPPIE: WHAT IS IT WITH THIS STORY AND GOLD? Also, with Calvinists?

DUNSTAN’S DOUCHEBAG OLDER BROTHER: So you see, Sister Julienne, the weaver’s ward, Eppie, is actually my child. We shall claim her and bring her here. Also, it looks like my brother Dunstan stole Silas Marner’s gold. Look, here is his corpse all rotted and interred in the earth. There is gold near it.

SISTER JULIENNE: I am surprisingly unrattled that you had another secret wife and failed her so that she died of an opium addiction. Also ,that you abandoned your only child to live with that strange reclusive weaver. Whatever you say. Love ya!

DUNSTAN’S DOUCHEBAG OLDER BROTHER: I want Eppie back, Ben Kingsley, she is mine.

BEN KINGSLEY *tears*

EPPIE: BUT HE RAISED ME. You’re THE DEFINITION OF DEADBEAT DAD! You suck!  I am staying here. I am marrying my farmboy. You can take your squiredom and your estate and go to…to… HALIFAX

BEN KINGSLEY: this is touching. Indeed, this is a touching way to end the movie.  You, Eppie, and you, Farmboy, go and get married and stay by me the rest of your lives.

It's Redeeming!

Sorry for the silence, friends. I have been extremely busy at a work conference.

As well as being nominated for several Academy Awards, I was THRILLED to see that Les Miserables tops Christianity Today's list of 10 Most Redemptive Films of 2012

Read here:

Also, Breakpoint editor ( and our friend), Gina Dalfonzo, wrote about its redemptive nature on the Breakpoint Blog (and even mentioned my review in the Further Reading portion)

And, BRAND NEW, Gina added this insightful piece to Breakpoint citing Plugged In and rallying Christians who have heard ill of the film to take the plunge.

Read my review of the film here


We must never complain that Hollywood is devoid of faith-based stories!