To thine own self be true

on many days, you can’t trust anyone or believe anything you hear or read anymore.

Well, these things do happen occasionally along the way.

Was going to drop off my tax at the office tower adjacent to Sutton Place Hotel this morning. Pressed the first letter for the tax office name and his name came up like magic.

Now I don’t know about you, but when I come across a window, I usually view it as an opportunity meant to be, a message or sign. Anyway, I rolled up on the elevator 6 more floors after I accomplished the first errand of the day.

He had to be paged, but through the mists of time, stepped Garnet, same smile, now 55, filled out, nicely coiffed, and smelling pleasant. He was, of course, happy to see me and remembered only too well the only 100% final grade I ever awarded a student had achieved in that course with me, thanks to his ‘beating the system’ with my extra work opportunities. He was a teacher’s delight and never ‘sucky’.; he just honestly worked hard and wanted to do his best and then some.

Garnet was a remarkable student; he was 15 in grade 11 as I recall, about one year ahead of everyone else and smaller than the other kids. You could tell, even then that he was destined for success, likely in business.

What he ended up excelling in was law and now works with MLT Atkins as a tax counsellor and, no doubt, an expert. He mentioned that he still drives by McNally and remembers his days there. He is still in touch with another McNally student–the Olympic swimmer named Cheryl Gibson (given last name) who also went into law.

Garnet turned out to be pretty decent, is unmarried, and still takes care of his elderly parents. I was impressed, but not surprised to see that he’d made the grade downtown and stayed in Edmonton; moreover, I was happy to see that he had basically remained the same keen, boyish, friendly character that was once in my classroom.

Garnet, incidentally, was the guy (at 15) who encouraged McDonald’s to come to Edmonton, and they opened up their first store at Capilano in our school’s region. For his efforts, they gave him a scholarship. I knew he’d gone into law because I ran into his name among the prizewinners mentioned in lobby of the Law building where my son used to work there. Even then I was not surprised.

Many kids in classrooms are not as obvious or super-keen as Garnet was, but it has been my distinct pleasure to know, remember, and to meet him again after all this time. More about other students down the road as they pop up. (N.B./ For information about two of my top-ever grade 12 Strathcona students, see Mar. 27, 2014’s entry on filmmaker and musical composer James Mireau, and the Feb. 12, 2015 entry citing anthropologist-filmmaker Niobe Thompson. What a privilege to have taught these two outstanding men! Those kinds of connections give a lot of satisfaction and pleasure after a 30 year teaching career.)

Ah, the many possibilities each day as one moves through life! We go through a lot on our little human journeys. Lindsay Anderson’s 1973 film classic, O Lucky Man!, remains a primer of what happens to many of us as we move from innocence to experience along the road of life.

Mick Travis (played charmingly and sympathetically by a youthful-looking Malcolm McDowell) is a young man moving into the adult world, ambitiously determined to succeed, but he is ultimately a naïve Candide-figure who needs to ‘learns the hard way’, through many scenes and episodes, what too much of life and human nature are truly like, with their many uses, abuses, and manipulations. In the process, he proves to be a gullible ‘babe in the woods’ who is easily misled–a reminder of how many of us get taken, distracted, and agenda-ed by many others in different areas including business and career and by religion, sex, misleading idealism, war, science, money, film, and even our gullible selves. Although Mick is unlucky most of the time, the film shows that a person must be truly lucky to survive the negative pitfalls and machinations of others in this life.

This cynical, but very wise film was based on some suggestions by MacDowell, no doubt, influenced by his own experiences in the film world with Anderson (after MacDowell starred in If.. ) and Stanley Kubrick (after he starred in the controversial A Clockwork Orange), Indeed, this film context is framed by the beginning and end of this movie, ironically reminding the viewer of the uses of and abuses by directors also.

O Lucky Man! is wildly free-spirited, adventurous, wry, hip, unpredictable, and satirical all at the same time, all of which separated it from the pack of other, more straightforward, unconventional movies of the late ’60s and early ’70s. One of the cleverest strokes of aesthetic choice is Anderson’s use of the same actors (notably Helen Mirren, Ralph Richardson, Rachel Roberts) in multiple roles, setting off ironic echoes of deja vu and odd connectedness in life experience.

Another brilliant choice was the use of ex-Animals Alan Price’s totally unique and ironic song commentaries throughout the film. His smarmy and realistic songs like “Poor People” and “Sell, Sell, Sell” expand the ideas of Mick’s episodes and process along the way. Anderson has also seamlessly woven Price and his band into the narrative and episodes as a secondary subnarrative; a band story of the day.

The new 2 disc Warner Brothers DVD is splendid visually and aurally–a real treat for film aficionados, and there several extras including a Price and McDowell commentary, a profile of McDowell, a vintage featurette, as well as the original trailer.

For me, looking back, this classic reflected many present and past moments in my own life. I had no trouble identifying with Mick’s relative innocence and naivete, and with his dramatic collisions between idealism and an often, more sordid, corrupt reality. IMHO, there has never been nor ever will be another satire as clever as this one on the uses and abuses of the world upon an individual in such a funny, focused, timelessly relevant way again. More than highly recommended.

(BTW/  Enjoy the cast party–a delightful, appropriate, conclusive metaphor for actors  and audience alike!)

Crokinole.

(getting ‘skunked’ by my grandson)

who today wrote a piece on populist politics using Ralph Klein as an example. Sorry, Rex. Klein was a despot who took millions from education to finance horse-racing, which he was involved with. Beginning in the 1990s, he unilaterally gutted hospitals, putting thousands of nurses out of jobs, closing wards and entire hospitals, allowing hospitals to become very embarrassingly dirty, filling up emergency rooms, etc. Yeah, he did that; his “didn’t blink” ‘courage’ equalled zero compassion.
Schools he stopped funding, leaving teachers unable to buy the basic books they needed to teach the curriculum. He wasn’t really interested in children or education. Horse-racing, sure.
I think we saw his real colors the night he showed up drunk in a homeless facility and berated the people there for being lazy and not wanting to work. This snapshot showed what an uncompassionate, egotistical, out-of-control premier he was.
No, sorry, Rex. He may have been ‘popular’, but he sold education and health care downhill big-time. Alberta has never really recovered since the ’90s and is a pale shadow of its once exemplary greatness in those basic, key areas.

“Long and long has the green grass been growing,
Long and long has the rain been falling,
Long has the globe been rolling round.”
–Walt Whitman

(one of the first panorama views (looking toward Laurier Park) that I fell in love with when I first came to Edmonton in spring of 1969 on a walking exploration of the city–this one taken in fall with one-of-those-widescreen disposable instamatic cameras I used to love from the ’90s )

It took a lot of guts for famed producer Dino de Laurentiis to make yet another Hollywood-styled, religious epic based on the Passion of Christ story, but he did with the very ironic, massively conflictful Barabbas, starring Anthony Quinn as the lead character.

Barabbas is the violent thief who was spared by a people’s vote in Jesus’ place. Once freed, the basically sceptical, unreformed criminal tries to understand the truth of the “Master’s” story, but remains unconvinced despite an amazing eclipse of the sun during the Crucifixion scene, the ensuing Resurrection, the stoning of believer Rachel, and the murder of his Christian friend at the hands of a psycho-gladiator.

His existentially being condemned to live produces much irony, as in (SPOILERS follow) when he survives an earthquake after working 20 years in a sulphur mine or when he participates in the burning of Rome and then is chastised by the Christians he assumed started the fire. Indeed, the ending is ironic, thanks to the capable pen of screenplay-writer Christopher Fry who stayed as faithful to the spirit of the original Par Lagerkvist novel as possible and supported by Richard Fleischer’s nicely balanced, nuanced direction.

I certainly feel that the conclusion is not a successful slam-dunk conversion (as in the various other Hallmark-styled flicks) given many filmic and text elements suggesting otherwise. For this alone, the movie is a triumph of contrasts, ambiguities, and uncertainties about the main character and his process through an amazing tale of long-time survival. Barabbas’s inner conflicts are many, deep, and remain so right through the unexpected ending.

There is much to like about this film with some of the most powerful and realistic gladiator scenes ever filmed, its use of light and darkness symbolism, alternate perspectives on the Passion story and its ongoing relevance to people of all stripes. No other biblical movie has the same existential angst (successfully conveyed by Anthony Quinn in one of his greatest, most challenging roles), complexity, and intensity of protagonist feeling. Barabbas as movie and character both work well on their terms.

Scenes like the eclipse during the Crucifixion (using an actual eclipse of the sun), the vicious stoning of Rachel, the crazy mine escape, the violent gladiator training and games, the catacombs episode (mirroring Barabbas’ lostness), the burning of Rome, and the multiple crucifixions finale alone make this movie worth seeing in this excellent Columbia widescreen DVD. And Jack Palance in the best performance he ever gave as a vicious sadist is also worth the price of this disc.

Barabbas is highly recommended entertainment and mental fodder for Christians and non-Christians alike. Put this classic on your viewing list this Easter for sure.

It’s not often that I get a chance to talk with him at the bottle depot where he works, but I’ve known him for about a decade now. A very friendly guy, always smiling, who is originally from Palestine, Bet Lahem (as he spells it). A family man, he and I banter back and forth about families and impending trips. Today, though, I got a chance to speak with him at length.

As I told him, I happily retired from teaching in 2002 and still get royalties from 60 odd textbooks and teacher guides for things I wrote back as long ago as 1980. I identified myself as middle class and that my roots were poor and working class like his. He said today I should write a book about myself. I told him I would include him in it!

Yeah, often the nicest people are working class or relatively poor. Down-to-earth, not hoity-toity, nor putting on airs, and flaunting their egos like so many others who are class-conscious or snobby. I really enjoy Samir, as I do others I have met at 7/11 and other places like that. Real people. Not phony-balonies. Always a pleasure and refreshing.

Robert Osborne, host of Turner Classic Movies, who died peacefully yesterday at age 84. A knowledgeable film historian, a congenial host and interviewer. As the Old Guard continues to pass, it’s time again to say “They just don’t make ’em the way they used to. We’ll not see his like again.”

A work of art for sure. Anatomy of a Murder, Otto Preminger’s remarkable humorous whodunit with one of the tensest, strangest, funniest, and most provocative courtroom dramas ever, still 58 years later.

Talk about perfect casting. James Stewart as Paul Biegler, a small-town lawyer with a love of fishing, but no flies on him in the courtroom. Lee Remick as sexy Laura Manion, a possible rape victim-wife of her untrustworthy husband played by a cocky Ben Gazzara who murders her suspected attacker. Arthur O’Connell as Biegler’s mentor-associate who ‘comes off the wagon’ to help his friend. Eve Arden as Biegler’s smart-mouthed secretary. A young George C. Scott as a sly, crafty, sarcastic prosecutor. Murray Hamilton as Paquette, the snide, lustful bartender who backs up the supposed killer. A very funny Joseph N. Welch as the judge who steals many scenes. And comedian Orson Bean as a visiting psychiatrist.

The legendary Saul Bass devised the effective titles and the legendary Duke Ellington crafted the exceptional jazz soundtrack. (The latter also makes a guest appearance in a bar scene.) Wendell Mayes wrote one of the best screenplays of the 1950s based on a real-life trial shot on location for this film. Sam Leavitt is responsible for the very effective, gritty black-and-white look of this masterpiece.

Producer-director Otto Preminger was famous for his various daring, ground-breaking films, he of The Man with Golden Arm–about heroin addiction. The language of the courtroom in this classic is frank for its time: e.g., the words “rape”, “sperm”, and “panties”. The movie was recognized for its daringness and worthily nominated for seven Oscars.

The excellent Criterion version (pictured above) contains many interesting extras including an interview with Preminger, information about the Ellington score, Saul Bass’s contribution, newsreel footage, a William F. Buckley, Jr. interview with Preminger, a booklet essay, photographs, and excerpts from a book about the film.
Anatomy of a Murder is high on entertainment value and aesthetics, and puts most Hollywood and Netflix films today to downright shame. No, they sure don’t make ’em like they used to.