Of Mankell, and Hamlet, too

Picture from Mankell's WEB site.

Henning Mankell, an optimist even after 4 past marriages and 40 published books (first in 1973) of which only a quarter involve Wallander:

"...Too few writers accept they have a moral responsibility to take a stand".

The Guardian reports in an article called Henning Mankell: 'I shall not miss Wallander'.

I've always thought that every writer takes a stand, since, supposedly, the books are not published by accident, but, rather, by purpose. At least from a point of view of this, an eternally blue-eyed, reader.

Olivier as Hamlet in 1948

A problem may be how to make that 'stand' palatable to readers and not boring like the 'stand' most often is. But then, perhaps Mankell really means that the writers have a moral responsibility to take a stand similar to his. Looking at the Nobel winning writers, it may be that the Nobel judges have the similar stand to Mankell's. Which is Ok with me.

By the by, I don't read much crime at all and have only read a few of Mankell's books, although have watched with intense interest both the Swedish-made Wallander-films and the ones made with Kenneth Branagh. I liked the Swedish ones better. Branagh's version of Wallander was too angsty, Shakespearean sort of way, which, obviously, is no wonder at all. Branagh's Hamlet is probably as good a Hamlet as they have ever been. Recently I watched Olivier's (1948), Branagh's (1996) and David Tennant's (2009) versions back to back in one day. All are splendid adaptations and well worth watching.

Tilda has no errors, or does she?

Aargh! Apparently there is an error in this, if one can call it like that. The photo is linked to the image sharer site imgur.

The picture depicts Tilda Swinton as 'Orlando' in film by the same name, which is based on Virginia Woolf's book Orlando: A Biography. The book tells a tale of a woman (or a man) who exists through space and time starting in the Elizabethan England.

A Twenties Memory

Not my memory, mind you. But a short story by Woody Allen, "A Twenties Memory" in his 1971 book "Getting Even", turns into "Midnight in Paris" in mere 40 years.

The "Midnight", his best picture for quite a while, might still rescue Allen's battered reputation from the gutters. I loved it.

The linked article, "Woody Allen's First Stab at 'Midnight in Paris': A 1971 Short Story", is from The Odds by Steve Pond.

Midnight in men

President Nixon on his life:

“journey to the mountaintop and the despair of life’s deepest valley”.

Are all men in time turning into self-parodies of themselves (look at Murdoch, Reagan, Ted Kennedy, Mao, Hemingway) unless they are lucky to die early enough (JFK, F. Scott Fitzgerald).

There may be exceptions like Eastwood and Philip Roth, but it may just be too early to tell.

The connection is Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris.

Openings

Perhaps Dear Reader still remembers the opening credits (above) created by Kyle Cooper for David Fincher's film Se7en? What a great sequence for a movie that not all who went to see it considered worth seeing. Somehow, though, the opening fits perfectly to that particular movie. Perhaps equally perfect to other things, too, like fronting what happened on the island of Utøya on Lake Tyrifjorden in Norway and to many other horrors that have happened between humans and will happen in the future, I’m sure.

Presumably, there is something in the human condition that makes us (all?) susceptible to committing such actions – and seeing a hint of menace, beauty or meaning in a sequence of pictures and use of noise or silence. Those two may even be related to each other?

But to stay on the subject... Perhaps the Reader is an aviation enthusiast like me, and would prefer the opening sequence of Stanley Kubrick's Dr Strangelove from 1964, where a B-52 Stratobomber is refuelled in air by a KC-135 Stratotanker. A beautifully designed sequence by Pablo Ferro, beautiful aircraft in a beautiful airborne ballet and such an ugly world that they depict and represent.

It would be difficult to tell which opening sequence would be the best of them all, at least for me, who seldom remembers much details of any film – but, rather, a foggy reconstruction of a story that may or may not resemble what the Director had in mind.

Perhaps the opening of Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane would be the best of them all like the whole movie. Although, it could be said in this millennium that the opening tastes not only great but also – what would the word be – formulaic, is that the word, but only because of the hundreds of films that have come after Citizen Kane. Just like any cliché tastes like a cliché, except when it was started and it tasted fresh and rich of meaning to the first tasters.

So let’s refer to the opening of Robert Mulligan's To Kill A Mockingbird (below) and call that the best of them all. In this clip the creator, Stephen Frankfurt, tells about opening sequence on YouTube. Harper Lee has said that the opening shows how "the film can have a life of its own as a work of art"

Incendies

Saw an intense movie called Incendies by Canadian scriptwriter/director Denis Villeneuve based on Lebanese-born Wajdi Mouawad's play Scorched.

This is one of those movies where it is obligatory that whoever writes about it does not reveal too much of the content.

Briefly, the film is about a woman’s fate in a war-torn country called Fuad (Lebanon) where Christians and Muslims kill each other in a tit for tat cycle of violence. The woman, Nawal Marwan (portrayed by Belgian Lubna Azabal), is Christian, persecuted by the Muslims, who goes through an ordeal, moves to Canada and dies. With her last will, she surprises her teenage twins, sister and brother, and sends them on a mission to Fuad in search for their father and brother.

Due to minor problems of some dates of things within the narrative (perhaps those could've been clarified either by dialogue or texts), the movie-goer will have to be extremely vigilant from the very beginning till the end, and perhaps an appearance of some of the characters is a bit confusing at the end, which tries the watcher's 'willing suspense of disbelieve' close to the limit, this is really a great, enjoyable movie that holds its grip throughout. Highly recommended.