To thine own self be true

Ye Olde Conspiracy Theory Movies: 1962’s The Manchurian Candidate, 1973’s The Day of the Jackal, 1965’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, all the other John Le Carre movies, and, to some extent even, the James Bond movies; long before Stone’s JFK and myriad others from the last five decades, spring to this cinephile’s long memory.

But a major turning point of nuance in this film genre certainly happened with Alan Pakula’s celebrated All the President’s Men (1976) and, before that, The Parallax View (1974). These two movies are literally and figuratively dark thanks to Gordon Willis’s cinematography and Pakula’s direction. The depth of presidential corruption we’re seeing today with Trump was definitely foreshadowed by Nixon, the Woodward-Bernstein classic book, and Pakula’s film on Nixon.

The Parallax View says to viewers: What does one really know about assassinations? How much can one know for certain? And, Who can one really trust? Especially when every potential situation may be deceptive or turn out to be a lie–the sort of endless morass Trump has unconscionably wrought upon America. Pakula’s movie compliments the cynicism about politics of the day per se reflected in other movies of the early-mid ’70s like The Candidate and Nashville.

Going back to view Parallax, I still found the sudden, surprising violence of the Seattle Needle rooftop deaths, the bar fight, the dam scene, the car chase, and the convention centre climax to work realistically and powerfully as seen today. The nonchalant, but inquisitive Joe (played by Warren Beatty) is a newspaper reporter who investigates a senator’s murder after Joe’s press reporter-friend is killed after she warns him of a conspiracy.

There are many strong supporting performances by the likes of Hume Cronyn, William Daniels, Paula Prentiss, and an uncredited Anthony Zerbe. But, best of all, there’s the ever-changing, suspenseful cinematography of Gordon Willis and the strange music of Michael Small that enhance the overall feel of this thriller. Indeed, much like President’s and 1971’s Klute, the movie could be described very much as a unique dark thriller emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. In some ways,  it is the most exquisite and psychological realization of political evil ever shown on screen since the original Manchurian Candidate.

Seen today, The Parallax View with its moral of unending, bottomless evil, like the other three Pakulas and his 1990 Presumed Innocent, remains as relevant, upsetting, unsettling, and weirdly evil as ever.

Note: Willis also worked on Presumed, Coppola’s 3 Godfathers, and Woody Allen’s best films.

To reflect on how our lives so far were made entirely possible by the sacrifice of Canadian millions in wartimes. We would not have the peace, the freedom in childhood and youth, and the financial prosperity of adulthood if not for these folks who stood up for generations and went through hell, sacrificing themselves and their lives for myriad other, unknown Canadians over the past decades.

Mind-boggling when you think of what we all (including newcomers to this country) owe them. Canada would not have been the place it is and has been without their selflessness and loyalty.

personal and group agendas.

“And why should I pay any attention to yours, when mine is the most important agenda of all?”

W1440 AM, Wetaskiwin.
They play oldies from the ’50s to ’70s, including a good selection of Canadian oldies.

Howie Meeker’s passed at 97.
The legendary HNIC broadcaster who brought unabashed enthusiasm to covering The Game.

from which I am still trying to awake.”
–Richard Davies

(on left) my father, Delmar (Del) Vernon Davies (1926-1998), in Royal Canadian Navy (Sept. 9, 1943 to Apr. 23, 1946 and–in its Reserve–Sept. 13, 1960 to Sept. 12, 1965). He also served in the Royal Canadian Air Force from Mar. 29, 1951 to Jan. 20,1957 and the Royal Canadian Navy–Reserve–Sept. 13, 1960 to Sept. 12, 1965. (18 years in total.)

It’s going to be another long cold winter and it is always pleasant to have lights and color to warm up the the dark winter nights of our discontent–this year the winter of our Covid discontent, for sure.

held their Sunday press conference at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping parking lot across from a cremation centre (Think Covid deaths) and an adult book store (Think Trump’s myriad sex scandals). A far cry from the campaign opening with him riding down the golden escalator in his hotel.

Many Macbeth quotables relevant to our Trumpian times. Italicized ones still relevant today:

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair.”

“What bloody man is that?”

“So foul and fair a day I have not seen.”

“Or have we eaten of the insane root/That takes the reason prisoner?”

“And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,/The instruments of darkness tell us truths,/ Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s/In deepest consequence.”

“Present fears/Are less than horrible imaginings.”

“There’s no art/To find the mind’s construction in the face:/He was a gentleman on whom I built/An absolute trust.”

“Unsex me here,/And fill me from the crown to the toe top full/Of direst cruelty!” (Melania?)

“Look like the innocent flower,/But be the serpent under ‘t.”

“I have no spur/To prick the sides of my intent, but only/Vaulting ambition which o’er-leaps itself”

“I have bought/Golden opinions of all sorts of people.”

“Bring forth men-children only.”

“There’s husbandry in heaven;/Their candles are all out.”

“Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more!’”

“The primrose way to the everlasting bonfire.”

“Confusion now hath made his masterpiece.”

“There’s nothing serious in mortality,/All is but toys; renown and grace is dead.”

“A deed of dreadful note.”

“Come, seeling night,/Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day.”

“But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in/To saucy doubts and fears.”

“I am in blood/Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,/Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”

“Be bloody, bold, and resolute.”

“I have lived long enough: my way of life/Is fall’n into the sear”

“I have supped full with horrors.”

“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,/Creeps in this petty pace from day to day”

“They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly,/But bear-like I must fight the course.”