Celluloid Heroes

Kinks - Celluloid Heroes
Everybody's a dreamer and everybody's a star,
And everybody's in movies, it doesn't matter who you are.
There are stars in every city,
In every house and on every street,
And if you walk down Hollywood Boulevard
Their names are written in concrete!

Don't step on Greta Garbo as you walk down the Boulevard,
She looks so weak and fragile that's why she tried to be so hard
But they turned her into a princess
And they sat her on a throne,
But she turned her back on stardom,
Because she wanted to be alone.

You can see all the stars as you walk down Hollywood Boulevard,
Some that you recognise, some that you've hardly even heard of,
People who worked and suffered and struggled for fame,
Some who succeeded and some who suffered in vain.
Rudolph Valentino, looks very much alive,
And he looks up ladies' dresses as they sadly pass him by.
Avoid stepping on Bela Lugosi
'Cos he's liable to turn and bite,
But stand close by Bette Davis
Because hers was such a lonely life.
If you covered him with garbage,
George Sanders would still have style,
And if you stamped on Mickey Rooney
He would still turn round and smile,
But please don't tread on dearest Marilyn
'Cos she's not very tough,
She should have been made of iron or steel,
But she was only made of flesh and blood.

You can see all the stars as you walk down Hollywood Boulevard,
Some that you recognise, some that you've hardly even heard of.
People who worked and suffered and struggled for fame,
Some who succeeded and some who suffered in vain.

Everybody's a dreamer and everybody's a star
And everybody's in show biz, it doesn't matter who you are.

And those who are successful,
Be always on your guard,
Success walks hand in hand with failure
Along Hollywood Boulevard.

I wish my life was a non-stop Hollywood movie show,
A fantasy world of celluloid villains and heroes,
Because celluloid heroes never feel any pain
And celluloid heroes never really die.

You can see all the stars as you walk along Hollywood Boulevard,
Some that you recognise, some that you've hardly even heard of,
People who worked and suffered and struggled for fame,
Some who succeeded and some who suffered in vain.

Oh celluloid heroes never feel any pain
Oh celluloid heroes never really die.

I wish my life was a non-stop Hollywood movie show,
A fantasy world of celluloid villains and heroes,
Because celluloid heroes never feel any pain
And celluloid heroes never really die.

http://youtu.be/yp_QkUVZGPc

Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (1990):Movie Review

Kurosawa's Magical Tales of Art, Time and Death

By VINCENT CANBY

Published: August 24, 1990

LEAD: A solemn little boy comes out of his house one rainy morning to find the sun shining. His mother, practical and no-nonsense, looks up at the sky and says that foxes hold their wedding processions in such weather. ''They don't like to be seen by people,'' she says, and goes about her business.
A solemn little boy comes out of his house one rainy morning to find the sun shining. His mother, practical and no-nonsense, looks up at the sky and says that foxes hold their wedding processions in such weather. ''They don't like to be seen by people,'' she says, and goes about her business.
The casual remark is enough to send the boy into the forest, where the trees are as large and imposing as California redwoods. Even the ferns are taller than he is. The rain glistens within the shafts of sunlight. The boy moves with a certain amount of dread. This is forbidden territory.
In a moment of pure screen enchantment, a strange wedding procession slowly comes into view, the priests in front, followed by the bridal pair, their attendants, their families, their friends and their retainers. They walk on two feet, like people, but that they are foxes is clear from the orangey whiskers on their otherwise rice-powder-white, masklike faces.
The procession appears to be choreographed. The foxes march in unison to the hollow clicking sounds of ancient musical instruments. Every few steps their haughty manner becomes furtive when, as if on cue, they abruptly pause, cock their heads to the side, listen, and then move on.
This is the sublime beginning of ''Sunshine Through the Rain,'' the first segment of the eight that compose ''Akira Kurosawa's Dreams,'' the grand new film by the 80-year-old Japanese master who, over a 40-year period, has given us ''Rashomon,'' ''Throne of Blood'' and ''Ran,'' among other classics. The film opens today at the 57th Street Playhouse.
One might have expected ''Dreams'' to be a summing up, a coda. It isn't. It's something altogether new for Kurosawa, a collection of short, sometimes fragmentary films that are less like dreams than fairy tales of past, present and future. The magical and mysterious are mixed with the practical, funny and polemical.
The movie is about many things, including the terrors of childhood, parents who are as olympian as gods, the seductive nature of death, nuclear annihilation, environmental pollution and, in a segment titled simply ''Crows,'' art. In this, the movie's least characteristic segment, Martin Scorsese, sporting a red beard and an unmistakable New York accent, appears as Vincent van Gogh, beady-eyed and intense, his head newly bandaged.
Van Gogh explains the bandage to the young Japanese artist who has somehow managed to invade the world of van Gogh's paintings, entering just down-river from the bridge at Arles: ''Yesterday I was trying to do a self-portrait, but the ear kept getting in the way.''
''Dreams'' is a willful work, being exactly the kind of film that Kurosawa wanted to make, with no apologies to anyone. Two of the segments may drive some people up the wall.
''Mount Fuji in Red'' is a kind a meta-science fiction visualization of the end of the world or, at least, of Japan. As the citizens of Tokyo panic, Mount Fuji is seen in the distance, silhouetted by the flames from the explosions of nuclear plants in the final stages of melt-down. ''But they told us nuclear plants were safe,'' someone wails.
In ''Mount Fuji in Red,'' the nightmare of nuclear holocaust, expressed in psychological terms in Kurosawa's ''I Live in Fear'' (1955), is made manifest in images of cartoonlike bluntness.
It may be no coincidence that Ishiro Honda, who has worked off and on as Kurosawa's assistant director since 1949, and is his assistant again on this film, is one of those responsible for such Japanese pop artifacts as ''Godzilla,'' ''Rodan'' and ''The Mysterians.''
''The Weeping Demon'' segment is Kurosawa's picture of a Beckett-like world, one ravaged by environmental pollution. ''Flowers are crippled,'' someone says, looking at a dandelion six feet tall. Horned mutants roam the earth. In this last pecking order before the end, demons with two horns eat those with only one.
''Dreams'' is moving both for what is on the screen, and for the set of the mind that made it.
Among other things, ''Dreams'' suggests in oblique fashion that the past does not exist. What we think of as the past is, rather, a romantic concept held by those too young to have any grasp on the meaning of age.
In this astonishingly beautiful, often somber work, emotions experienced long ago do not reappear coated with the softening cobwebs of time. They may have been filed away but, once they are recalled, they are as vivid, sharp and terrifying as they were initially. Time neither eases the pain of old wounds nor hides the scars.
For Kurosawa, the present is not haunted by the past. Instead, it's crowded by an accumulation of other present times that include the future. The job is keeping them in order, like unruly foxes.
The foxes in ''Sunshine Through the Rain'' are not especially unruly, but their power is real and implacable. When the little boy returns home from the forest, he is met by his mother, who has run out of patience with him. She hands the boy a dagger, neatly sheathed within a bamboo scabbard, and tells him the foxes have left it for him.
Since the boy has broken the law protecting the privacy of foxes, they expect him, as a boy of honor, to kill himself. The boy is bewildered. His mother sighs and says that if he can find the foxes again, he might persuade them to forgive him. In that case, he can come home. In the meantime, the door will be locked.
The boy looks hopeful. ''But,'' his mother points out, ''they don't often forgive.''
A little boy is also the ''I'' figure, the dreamer, in another magical segment, ''The Peach Orchard,'' about the fury of some imperial spirits when a peach orchard is chopped down while in bloom. The boy explains that he tried to stop the destruction. Because they believe him, the spirits allow him to see the orchard as it once was.
As these spirits, life-size dolls representing ancient emperors and the members of their courts, begin to sing, the air becomes thick with orangey-pink blossoms and the doll-figures turn into trees. The effect is exhilarating.
In ''The Blizzard,'' a mountain climber is tempted to give in to his frozen exhaustion by a beautiful demon. ''Snow is warm,'' she tells him soothingly. ''Ice is hot.'' ''The Tunnel'' is about a guilt-ridden army officer who must persuade his troops, killed in battle, that they are indeed dead, and that nothing is to be gained by trying to hang onto life.
The film's final episode, ''Village of the Watermills,'' features Chishu Ryu as a philosophical old fellow, the elder of an idyllic village where the air and water are clean, where villagers take no more from nature than they need, and where people live on so long that funerals are times of joy and celebration. The style is lyrical, the mood intended to be healing.
''Dreams'' is absolutely stunning to look at and listen to. It is, in fact, almost as much of a trip as people once thought ''Fantasia'' to be.
More important, though, is that it's a work by a director who has continued to be vigorous and productive into an age at which most film makers are supposed to go silent. Movies are a young man's game. ''Dreams'' is a report from one of the last true frontiers of cinema. ''Akira Kurosawa's Dreams'' is rated PG (''Parental Guidance Suggested''). It includes sequences that could frighten very young viewers.

http://youtu.be/4aQlRal3j4Y

A deconstructive reading of Octavio Paz’s “The Blue Bouquet”

A deconstructive reading of Octavio Paz’s “The Blue Bouquet”

            We are being programmed to perceive the world in a particular perspective, and most of us are unaware of it. What we consider “natural” or “common sense” is based on societal norms and standards. Most of us do not see, however, that these norms and standards are set by a dominant group that influences the rest of the world to see things the way it does. This necessarily becomes what is “objective” and everything else is measured against it. People try to make sense out of their experiences with this in mind, unconsciously defining reality according to what they have been influenced to believe.

            The character in Octavio Paz’s Blue Bouquet is an example of someone conditioned to see things a certain way. He “inhales the country air…and hears the breathing of the night.” His romanticism of the country and towards life in general, becomes apparent in these lines:

            I breathed the air of tamarinds. The night hummed, full of leaves and insects. Crickets bivouacked in the tall grass. I raised my head: up there the stars too had set up camp. I thought that the universe was a vast system of signs, a conversation between giant beings. My actions, the cricket’s saw, the star’s blink were nothing but pauses and syllables, scattered phrases from that dialogue. What word could it be, of which I was only a syllable? Who speaks the word? To whom is it spoken? I threw my cigarette down on the sidewalk. Falling, it drew a shining curve, shooting out brief sparks like a tiny comet.

            He is one of those who believe that one’s life has a purpose and that there is a reason for everything. The lines “I walked a long time, slowly. I felt free, secure between the lips that were at that moment speaking me with such happiness,” show that he is reflective and at that moment seems to be at peace. When he said that “the night was a garden of eyes” probably referring to the stars, this revealed not only a foreshadowing event, but also that the character was poetic.

            His poetry, however, is confronted with the harsh reality of a man wanting to take the former’s eyes out. The man said that his girlfriend had a penchant for a bouquet of blue eyes. This very striking image is one that is difficult to get out of one’s head. But there is more to it than its absurdity – why is there an obsession with blue eyes?

             Blue eyes are usually a signifier for “American.” The fact that the man wanted to take out blue eyes from people does not only show a simple act of obsessive violence but obsessive violence towards the “American.” The man said, “Don’t be afraid, mister. I won’t kill you. I’m only going to take your eyes.” The desire to remove people’s blue eyes may symbolize the desire to stop them from seeing things the “American” way.

            But while there seems to be anti-American present in the text, the line “my girlfriend has this whim. She wants a bouquet of blue eyes. And around here they’re hard to find” can also be construed as an obsession to see things through American eyes, because that is something “hard to find” around here. This could mean that while the dominant way of perceiving the world is through “blue eyes”, the situation in the country was different. The owner of the boardinghouse was described as a “one-eyed taciturn fellow.” As for the man who wanted to take people’s blue eyes out, there was no mention of his eyes, except that half his face (including his eyes perhaps) was covered by a sombrero.

            When the character insisted that his eyes were brown and not blue, he could very well have meant “Spare me, I am not who you’re after. I am different from them.” But the fact that he was mistaken for one of those with blue eyes can be taken to mean that even if his eyes were brown and not blue, it was as if he saw things through blue eyes.

            Another striking image is when the man’s machete grazed the character’s eyelids and the flame from the match burned the latter’s lashes. It is a threat to the character in more ways than the obvious, and he responds by leaving town the next day.

            The symbol of the eyes is very appropriate to refer to how the world is perceived. The bouquet of blue eyes is foreshadowed by the night being described as a garden of eyes. Night is the binary opposite of day, and day is usually associated with light. Light is the root word of “enlightenment” and to be enlightened means to understand things better and come out of the “dark” or come out of one’s confusion. But when the night is described as a garden of eyes – a variety or assortment of ways of seeing, instead of a “blue bouquet,” it seems to undermine the privileged term “light,” and position “night” in the positive, over “day” or “light.” The insecurity, instability or relativity the night offered is preferred to the certainty and “objectivity” of daylight. It was after all, during the Age of Enlightenment that categorical truths were established, the flaws of which were later on revealed through deconstruction.

            While it remains unclear whether the girlfriend’s obsession for blue eyes is in order for her to use them or destroy them, the blue bouquet calls our attention to seeing or perceiving realities through the dominant culture, leading most of us to dream the American dream. The blueprint to success that we follow is Western, in spite of the fact that our culture and context are different. This illusion has led most of us to desire created needs and wants that keep us in poverty as we succumb to a system that furthers its own interest. But the West sees itself in its interest, and so to see things the way it does may be against our own interest. Knowing this forces us to re-examine our own worldviews on national as well as international issues and assess just how blue our black or brown eyes have become.

GAMES AT TWILIGHT – ANITA DESAI

GAMES AT TWILIGHT – ANITA DESAI

This story explores the range of feelings that a young boy (Ravi) has during the course of an afternoon/evening. He feels trapped when his mother keeps him indoors; he feels ‘released’ when he is allowed out to play; he feels ‘relief and jubilation’ at not being chosen to be ‘it’; he feels ‘panic’ as Raghu approaches his hiding place and ‘fear’ as he desperately looks for a better place to hide; he feels small as he is unable to reach the garage key; he feels ‘delight’ and ‘self-congratulation’ when he avoids capture by hiding in the shed. However, as he takes in his surroundings he feels a sense of unease which is intensified by a spider that tickles the back of his neck.  After some considerable time in the shed Ravi thinks of the triumph he will experience as the winner of the game and he visualises himself as a hero: ‘such laurels’. His run for victory, however, is far from heroic as he falls over and hurts himself because his legs have gone numb.  At this point he feels ‘rage’, ‘pity’ and embarrassment at ‘the disgrace of it all’.  When he charges the other children and bawls: ‘I won’ he is forced to realise that the other children have moved on and not even noticed his absence: ‘All this time no one had remembered Ravi’.  His misery is compounded at this point and he is left lying on the damp grass with: ‘a terrible sense of his insignificance.

There are a lot of children in this story – brothers, sisters and cousins (reflecting the strength of the extended family within Indian culture) – and, as in many families there appears to be a hierarchy as the children compete for attention.  Mira seems to possess the most authority,  with Raghu following and then Ravi and little Manu. The competitiveness is extreme and the children’s  world that they live in can be unpleasant.  Raghu seems particularly rough and aggressive, whilst Mira’s motherliness is in actual fact bossiness.

There are key points in this story where conflict and suspense are built up.  The sense of release when the children are let out is tangible: ‘The children, too, felt released. They began tumbling, shoving, pushing against each other’… The seriousness of the game of hide and seek is illustrated in the violence that accompanies the choosing of ‘it’: ‘The shoves became harder.  Some kicked out’.  Raghu’s counting increases the tension and the fact that his pursuit of the others is accompanied by a ‘blood-curdling yell’ gives the game a genuine sense of being a hunt.  This hunting imagery is supported by Raghu’s whistling, his crashing around and his stick whacking.  Ravi’s glimpse of Raghu’s legs as he hides gives you the feel that he is being hunted and the growing dark (193) and silence (176) contribute to the suspense built up by Anita Desai.

Perhaps the central question to the narrative of this story would be Will Ravi win the game?  Winning is so important to him because up to this point: ‘Nothing more wonderful had ever happened to him than being taken out by an uncle and bought a whole slab of chocolate all to himself’… Beating the older children ‘would be thrilling beyond imagination’ as it would cement Ravi as BEING SOMEBODY.  However, the ending represents a complete reversal of Ravi’s hopes and expectations. (there are many parallels between this story and ‘Death of a Salesman’ – Miller wrote about the image in his mind as he sat down to write ‘Death of a Salesman’ as…’the image of a need greater than hunger or sex or thirst, a need to leave a thumbprint somewhere on the world’).

There are many ideas that may be central to the story – it is up to you to decide what you think are the most important ideas and to find quotes and details from the story that support your selections.  Overpage are some suggestions:

• Childhood is not always a happy and innocent time.
• Childhood play is a serious business.
• It’s very difficult to be the youngest or smallest in a family.
• Sibling rivalry can be fierce and competitive.
• Young children are always desperate to be older and bigger..
• Life is very short and death awaits us all.
• The most important thing in life (and death) is to be remembered.
• Individuals don’t really matter in the great scheme of things.

The characterisation of Ravi is an important aspect of this story.  We experience the hunt from Ravi’s point of view and thus we sympathise with him.  The contrast between Ravi’s ‘short’ legs and Raghu’s ‘hefty, hairy footballer legs’ gives us a sense of the difference in the size of the two boys and encourages us to side with the underdog., The references to nose picking and snot add a touch of humour to the story but also remind us of a less sophisticated time in our lives when we were less aware of social niceties..

The story is very descriptive, but the Desai’s  descriptions do more than just set the scene.  She uses a number of images of LIFE, TIME and DEATH.  Perhaps she uses these images to support the idea that this episode in some way marks the end of childhood for Ravi – it is the first of the many bitter lessons that life will throw at him.  The passage of time from the children leaving the house: ‘’like seeds from a crackling, over-ripe pod’ through to the ‘funereal’ feel of the final game represent one afternoon/evening but they also support the idea of a lifetime passing.  Maybe Desai is trying to remind us that life is a precious gift and is over all too quickly.  The description of the hiding place as a ‘mortuary’ which has the smell of ‘graves’ along with the growing darkness and the repetition of ‘dead’ in the children’s chant all reinforce the idea that death is never far away.

The use of violent imagery such as Manu appearing as if ‘he had dropped out of an invisible cloud or from a bird’s claws’ and Raghu stalking off ‘in search of worthier prey’ remind us that childhood can be as cruel as adulthood and that human nature is often destructive and violent.

   

Nissim Ezekiel: Night of the Scorpion

Nissim Ezekiel: Night of the Scorpion

What is Night of the Scorpion about?
The poem is about the night when a woman (the poet's mother) in a poor village in India is stung by a scorpion. Concerned neighbours pour into her hut to offer advice and help. All sorts of cures are tried by the neighbours, her husband and the local holy man, but time proves to be the best healer - 'After twenty hours / it lost its sting.'.

After her ordeal, the mother is merely thankful that the scorpion stung her and not the children.
Structure and language
Structure
The poem is written in free verse with varying line lengths and no rhyme. The first part is long and full of activity - the scorpion's bite and the reaction of the villagers. The second part - the mother's reaction - is just three lines long.

Sometimes, this poem will be printed as if it were prose. What differences does it make when it is set out in lines? What, if anything, do the lines and the breaks between them contribute?

Language

Think about how the language the poet uses helps to convey his ideas. Here are some points to consider:

The title is in some ways deceptive. It leads us to believe we are in for a frightening and dramatic tale with a scorpion taking centre stage. In fact, the poem is not about the scorpion at all, but about the reactions of different people to its sting.
The poem starts off in the first person - Ezekiel describes an event that really happened. However, he does not give his own feelings or reactions: we realise he is merely the narrator. Most of the poem is in the third person, as Ezekiel reports on what other people do and say.
Ezekiel does not portray the scorpion as a villain: it was driven to shelter 'beneath a sack of rice' (line 4) after ten hours of rain. It probably stung the poet's mother instinctively as a warning to her when she approached its hiding place, rather than harming her on purpose; and having delivered the sting, scared off the people indoors, 'he risked the rain again' (line 7).
However, the villagers are more superstitious and link the scorpion to 'the Evil One' (line 10). They claim that the poison will help in many ways. For example, by burning away the sins of the woman's former life - 'her previous birth' (line 19) - and ease her life after this one - 'her next birth' (line 22). Perhaps this is their way of making sense of the event: if good comes out of it, it is easier to bear.
The events of the night are described in rich detail - we know about the mud hut and the candles and lanterns, yet we know little about the individual neighbours. Ezekiel lumps the neighbours together as 'they'. What effect does this have?
Ezekiel's father is usually a sceptic and a rationalist - in other words, he does not believe in superstitions and is not religious. Yet when his wife is suffering, he tries 'every curse and blessing' (line 37) to help her. The final, simple 'After twenty hours / it lost its sting' (lines 44-5) is a put down: nothing worked, after all.
The final three lines are poignant. We hear Ezekiel's mother's exact words, her simple speech is in contrast to the gabbling neighbours. She doesn't show any bitterness about her ordeal: she is just grateful that she was the one who was hurt rather than her children. (Children are more vulnerable to scorpion bites than adults.) She thanks God (line 47). Do you feel that the poet sees the god she prays to as more powerful than the spirits the neighbours were conjuring with?
Imagery and sound
Imagery


Ezekiel uses a simile, comparing the villagers to 'swarms of flies' (line 8). It is striking that he uses an insect image to describe the people's reaction to an invertebrate's sting. He develops the simile in the following line: 'they buzzed the name of God' (line 9). What does the fly simile suggest about Ezekiel's attitude to the neighbours?
The neighbours' candles and lanterns throw 'giant scorpion shadows' on the walls (line 13). We know that the scorpion has already fled, so are these images of the people themselves? (A scorpion has eight legs, so the shadow of a small group of people standing together could look like a scorpion.) If so, what does this show about Ezekiel's attitude to the neighbours?
There is a contrast between the neighbours' 'peace of understanding' (line 31) and the mother who 'twisted... groaning on a mat' (line 35). It is ironic that they are at peace because of her discomfort.
Sound
There is alliteration throughout the poem that helps to link or emphasise ideas: the scorpion is seen 'Parting with his poison' (line 5), Ezekiel's father tries 'herb and hybrid' (line 38), Ezekiel sees 'flame feeding' (line 41) on his mother. Underline other examples of alliteration and see if you can explain the effectiveness of their use?
There is a lot of repetition, so that we hear the villagers' prayers and incantations. Ezekiel uses direct speech, 'May...', to dramatise the scene and the echoed 'they said' is like a chorus.
Attitude, tone and ideas
Much of the meaning of a poem is conveyed by the attitude it expresses towards its subject matter. Attitude can be thought of as a combination of the poet's tone of voice and the ideas they are trying to get across to the reader.

A good way to decide on the tone of a poem is to work out how you would read it aloud. Should this poem be read:

In a factual tone, like a report, narrating the events of the night?
In a mystic tone, to contrast the different calls to gods and God throughout the poem?
Reverently, to show Ezekiel's pride in his mother?
Select a short quotation to justify your choice.


The ideas in this poem concern our difficult feelings towards aspects of the natural world that seem to threaten us - the frightened insect becomes the Evil One! - and the complex ways in which individuals and communities respond when disaster strikes one of their number.