To thine own self be true

“How many things are there which I do not want.”
–Socrates

A one-off movie for sure, but if you know how much Burton loved and memorized plays of Shakespeare, this recently released DVD movie from 1967 is not a total surprise.
A labor of classics-love, Doctor Faustus was co-produced and co-directed by himself, starring Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and capable members of the Oxford University Dramatic Society. (The latter itself a different move instead of using professional movie actors.)

The play source by Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe is based on the once-well-known narrative of Faust/us, a learned, respected scholar who succumbs to sin and temptation in order to live out his secret desire for supreme knowledge and, above all else, power; which leads to a fatal contract with Mephistopheles, which Faust is destined to lose, despite his regrets, doubts, and attempts at resistance.

Burton expertly handles Marlowe’s lines and language and even the Latin passages which periodically pop up in the dialogue. The sets and special effects may look corny or cheesy by movie standards today, but they do give a sense of the scholar’s world, a sense of time and place travel (through superimpositions), as well as, memorably, hell with a touch of Roger Corman kitschiness.

Most memorable about this production are Burton’s performance, the language, the credibility of Faust’s final damnation, and the imaginative supporting musical score by Mario Nascimbene.

Much about Burton’s fascination with Faustus, also reflected in another Burton film project–Hammersmith, reveals his love of poetry in addition to an ironic narrative structure which reflected the various highs and lows of Burton’s own movie career–a fact reflected in my poem “Burton” reprinted below.

Burton

“Stars go out when actors die.”

More Henry than we ever knew,
your haunted blue eyes
looking skyward
from a father’s coalpit,
calling for forgiveness or fame
with an omnipotent voice.

Smile curled on cynic’s lips:
the failed cherubim.
Ever-hungry for spirits and song,
you took New York by storm
inverting mirrors to Hamlet’s soul
and made us weep to hear
your too too sullied flesh
melt and thaw unresolved
in a whorl of late night
carousing with buds and Liz.

Flushed with fever and wit,
you abdicated the playhouse throne
and found success
as hollow as Hollywood.
Pockmarked and stiff,
you sleep-walked through
a plethora of dire scripts,
mocking your right to rule
with a vigorous impotence.

Having at last to live
with your self–
a gaunt shadow of greatness
and unkind reflection.
Too late, you must have grieved,
like brother Dylan, the sun lost
in its dark inexorable flight.

……………………………………………………..

And then there are bad choices, as reflected in the famous and great, to wit Richard Burton. Burton played Henry VIII in Anne of a Thousand Days, one of the many dissolute parts that echoed his own decline. Born in Wales, he took up acting to avoid a future like his coal-miner father’s. Burton’s smile variously reflected his satisfaction with success initially and later a cynical smugness about film acting, which helped to pay for his and Elizabeth Taylor’s excessive lifestyle.

His New York stage performance as Hamlet was a significant achievement. I can remember being very moved by it when I listened to it on record in the late ’60s. To me, he seemed to peel layers off the character and role, he was that great an actor. At this time, though, he was starting to drink heavily which led to bad choices in roles and films. He knew he had been the greatest stage actor of his time and yet had sold out to Hollywood.

In the end, he was literally wasting away (e.g.,1984), though his voice remained memorable as always. Burton had a tremendous library, incidentally, and loved to read. He often quoted from Shakespeare and had a great love for his fellow countryman-poet Dylan Thomas, who similarly drank himself to death. (The last line of the poem alludes to “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.”) Certainly, Burton knew too well he had squandered his talent and could not overcome the demons of his self-inflicted alcoholism.

I include this poem to demonstrate how we sometimes ‘do it to ourselves’ with our poor choices. This can sometimes result in tragedy and an unnecessary wasting of whatever talents we have.

ps/ My favorite Burton films remain: Anne of the Thousand Days, Becket, The Comedians, The Desert Rats, Equus, Look Back in Anger, 1984, The Night of the Iguana, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The Taming of the Shrew, The V.I.P.s, Where Eagles Dare, and Who`s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, He is the only actor I have ever been moved by to write about.

(entrance via Montreal Street to roundabout at the inn on the harbor)

(grounds around inn)

(canopy onto back of inn leading to its own interesting, private Japanese garden)

(walking into garden)

(a big pond between the inn and the harbor)

(the waterfall)

(U.S. passenger ferry in harbor beside inn)

(lots of comings and goings in the harbor including float planes landing and small ferry- boat service)

(my friend hanging out on the terrace railing, trying to cadge food unsuccessfully)

(morning on the balcony; harbor and Empress in background: terrace faced 4 directions)

(late evening: looking west on the large, separate walk-out terrace; ask for the Sunset suite)

(early morning now, looking east toward downtown)

(sunrise, same view)

(nothing like room service breakfast)

(another morning–waiting for breakfast in the Aura restaurant)

(interesting artwork on display)

The Glory, The Tragedy, and The Pity: A very moving exhibit and tribute to Canada’s Greatest Hero. (Kleenex boxes provided by the museum.)

(currently on at the BC Museum in Victoria)

(Terry’s runners, worn-out on the bottom)

(one of Terry’s socks with holes and blood; he repeatedly injured himself until he could run no longer)

(his prosthetic leg)

(the van which his close friend Doug drove)

(the Thunder Bay marker where his marathon came to an end)

(one of Terry’s differently designed tee shirts: the most famous one)

On the inner harbour, a gallery and gift shop of work by Canada’s top nature painter.

(spontaneous, creative play from an early age)

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy [and Jill a dull girl].–from Mother Goose

Many animals play: dogs, cats, horses, otters, monkeys, dolphins. People, too, play beginning in their first year of life, once they hit the floor. This process seems to increase exponentially in the first two decades, moving through the toys and games of pre-schoolers, through elementary school recesses, the playing of sports, the other kinds of play fostered by art, music, and drama, and via computer and screen interactions of secondary school right into college and university.

Something there is which wants, needs, and loves to play from the simple activities of peekaboo, hide-and-seek, to some of the older bygone pastimes of marbles, skipping rope, and hula hoops. Much of that desire comes from the Inner Child that remains with us from our childhood into adulthood. The latter being a period when parents and grandparents discover all over again the joy and spontaneity of play, its pleasures, engagements, and meanings.

Some even get to play for prizes, competitions, and a living as in the case of professional athletes. Others get to play at different roles in plays, musicals, or as performers in concerts. Play permeates our lives and, indeed, the bored person in line at the bank playing Angry Birds distracts him/herself, as we all do with the play of various screen entertainment, be it on a smartphone, television, or bigger screen. Diversion and distraction similarly found by millions of others listening to their MP3s, car radios, CDs, and the like.

It seems in these distracted/distracting times, that much of what we do, in fact, is play or seek the latest gadget that will facilitate play of some kind. And yet much of adult life is awash in the seriousness of educating oneself, job training, working, careers, meetings, working for a living, working to maintain a home and family. Something people often take very seriously often for long periods of time. Until, in some cases, individuals may wake up to the seriousness, responsibilities, and heaviness of life which they have traded for, losing much of their personal freedom, leisure, and carefreeness.

In short, the missing play, inner child, and wisdom of both may get lost and forsaken, a ‘lost childhood’ and innocence described by Wordsworth in his “Ode: Intimations on Immortality” and recovered by Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. It is this freedom to play and engage enjoyably and simply that may not resurface at all if not for new love, retirement, or the joys of grandparenthood.

Life’s seriousness is guaranteed by all manner of things: divorce, illness, debt, bad luck, accidents, and so forth. At times, it may seem as if the glass looks half-full or mostly empty. But the return to/of the pleasures and engagements of play reveal some of the best of life–the possibilities of fun, and shared pleasure. In that, the recovery of the best and simplest of what one once was and can be again through will, attitude, and choice.

(Calvin & Hobbes stuff: refinding one’s own Inner Child in adulthood)

(Otherwise: There might have been no shows for students in schools I taught over a 30-year-period; 2 examples above: McNally ’74-’83)

………………………………………………………….

My parents would never have reconciled, enjoyed a happy retirement, and died on the same date, one hour apart, nine years to the day.

I would never have finished grade 8, moved from the chikdhood home, or left my hometown of Winnipeg.

I would never have gone to high school or university.

I would never have heard the Beatles, learned to play guitar, and played in several groups.

I would never have become a writer or written poems, songs, or books.

I would never have fallen in love and married.

I would never have had a family or grandchildren.

I would never have become a teacher, a nursing orderly, a letter carrier, or a film classifier.

I would never have had the many friends I have known.

I would never have taught and retired, living long enough to collect a pension.

I would never have become a serious reader, a fan of classical and jazz, a playgoer, and met many musicians I admire and look up to.

I would never have seen great art or enjoyed the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright.

I would never have learned to drive a car or been up in an airplane or on a ferry.

I would never have lived in apartments, a condo, or owned a house.

I would never have owned all my favorite movies, books, and music.

I would never have flown a kite.

I would never have owned a black female miniature poodle.

I would never have become a gardener.

I would never have become a bird-watcher.

I would never have seen the desert in winter or New England twice in the fall.

I would never have collected one issue of each of Classics Illustrated.

I never would have attended my elementary and high-school reunions.

I would never have written about any of this on a blog in a cloud somewhere.

If Jack hadn’t proposed and Nikky accepted.

No, I never would have got this far.

………………………………………………………………..

Notes

title: the time and date the Cuban Missile Crisis ended and the world was not blown up many times over. “Jack”–J.F.K. “Nikky”–Nikita Kruschev.

We are a product of our contexts and are here today by the skin of our teeth. The crisis was the closest we came to doomsday as a species and planet. I am under no illusions I/everybody/everything else is here because of a fluke, luck, and the personalities, fears, and choices of these two individuals. I am grateful to both men for their cooler heads and compromise that has allowed me as much as I have experienced and enjoyed thusfar.

I invite you to ponder how much history and things we take for granted now would not have occurred if Nikky pushed the button that fateful moment 55 years ago.