Culture at Home

I ended up making a few adjustments but more or less carried out my plans, while my wife and son were away in Chicago.

I ended up bailing on Murasaki's The Tale of Genji.  I just found it unsatisfying on many levels, both the glacial pace and the fact that women had essentially no interior life of their own and were just described as men's playthings essentially.  I am enjoying Kennedy's To Ride a Cockhorse much more and will finish that this week and then probably move on to Williams's Stoner and then Joyce Cary's first trilogy.  So this is all progressing reasonably smoothly.

In terms of the movies I watched, I wrapped up Truffaut's Doinel series with Love on the Run.  Given how this was the last of the bunch and Truffaut was adamant there would never be more, I basically assumed he had killed off Doinel, though in fact nothing of the sort happens and Doinel just starts yet another love affair with an ingenue and he repeats himself yet again.  I can see the frustration that the character never seems to grow, but it might in fact have ben very interesting (if not a little depressing) to see what he had made of his life at 50 or 55...

I also watched the Marx Brothers' A Night in Casablanca, which was fine.

I had just read Hrabel's short story "The Legend of Cain," which was the basis of Closely Observed Trains, so I watched that and enjoyed it a fair bit.

Then I watched Bill and Ted Face the Music, which was pretty silly but overall entertaining.  I realized that I never did get around to watching the 2nd one (Bogus Journey), so I rented that from the library as well.  I found this one to be just stupid and not really entertaining, so I stopped.

Then I put the movie watching on hold and switched over to catch the digital Fringe, which was streaming until the 21st.  I think probably the most ambitious piece was Bannock Republic, about a First Nations' chief trying to decide what to do about the last remaining residential school in the Province.  While it sounds heavy (and there were heavy moments), it was actually a comedy.  I also liked Insomniac.  A few pieces didn't quite live up to my expectations, but that's the Fringe for you.

On Sunday, as I was waiting for their very delayed return back from Chicago, I sat down and watched Ray's Pather Panchali.  It does require a certain patience.  In general, I prefer Ray's films with a more urban setting and have quite a few to look forward to this fall.  I expect that I will like the 2nd and 3rd films a bit more, not least because they are a half hour shorter and have sections set in Calcutta, and I should manage to watch them this week.  If I am not mistaken, he has the same actors for the mother and father, but he chose older actors to play Apu for the follow up films (rather than seeing the same actor age in real time like Jean-Pierre Léaud or indeed all the characters in Linklater's Boyhood*).

I had kind of hoped/expected to catch another jazz group at Streetcar Crowsnest but since the family hadn't made it back from Pearson, I had to make sure I was around to welcome them home.

The heat wave is really a pain.  I'm wondering if it is worth going to the movies just for the AC!  The only thing of any real appeal right now is the action-comedy Free Guy.  The overall reviews seem to be that it is extremely derivative but somewhat entertaining.  I'm trying to understand if Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch is still coming out  It was supposed to be released last year, but seems to have been pushed to this Oct.  I'd probably go see that, even though it also has mixed reviews from those who saw it last year.

Overall, I was pretty successful in watching what I had planned, though I am a bit behind on the Ray films, and I didn't get to Midnight Cowboy or Taxi Driver.  One of these days...

Edit (8/25): I just pushed through and watched Aparajito and The World of Apu on consecutive days.  Definitively powerful films.  I guess The World of Apu was probably the most interesting from my perspective, but death really hovers over so many of these films.  And now I can rest easy knowing I have watched the Apu Trilogy.  I'll try to get to more of his films, and in particular the so-called Calcutta Trilogy (The Adversary, Company Limited and The Middleman) in Sept. and Oct. 

* I should probably plan on watching this film again, probably with my son.