This last week I watched the two recent Guy Ritchie interpretations of Sherlock Holmes. After the first film, I picked up my husband's copy of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" and began reading. The first story in the collection is the "Scandal in Bohemia," which immediately brought to light a couple of passages that were directly quoted in the film. That kind of careful treatment of originals is nice, but I bemoan the fact that Irene Adler seems so much more intriguing in the writings than she does in the two films. What a shame that the filmmakers did not see the potential of the character and instead settled for little more than a feisty doll. Perhaps there is not enough room for a well-rounded female character in a bromance slash Bond-type steampunky romp of this sort. But that is ok - Ms. Adler is not ubiquitous in the hundred-year old writings either.

I will continue reading ACD's stories about the razor-sharp, coke-snorting sociopath, before I move on to that nineties recooked version by that elusive Russian writer B. Akunin (get it?). I remember the first editions of these nine or so books selling out in Moscow within a couple of days after going on sale. I was totally hooked on them, too. What was there not to love? The late nineteenth century in Russia lent itself just as much to steampunk as London. And so Akunin's initially unlikely hero (I vaguely remember him wearing a corset out of insecurity about his body) opens a remarkable fun exploration of that latter day imperial society that registers seismic shifts in its politics - be they assassinations or demographic changes - yet chooses to ignore them. I don't recall whether there is a Irina Orlova (again, get it?) anywhere in the story, but I can't wait and check...the comparison of these two master detectives should be fun!

Chicks in wigs – or: let them, like, totally eat cake

So, yesterday I finally watched “Marie Antoinette”, regardless of the bad feeling I had ever since I heard of it as a Sophia Coppola project. I was right, it is a piece of overdressed drivel, but then I expected nothing more, surely not after the xenophobic, unreflected “Lost in Translation” and the meandering, or should I say pointless “Virgin Suicides”.

There are not many films about women out there. There are even less that are also directed by a woman. (One remarkable example that comes to mind is Jane Campion’s unforgettable “The Piano”.) This is why “Marie Antoinette” is such a wasted opportunity. From the first scene it is obvious, that Coppola had the budget for a grand costume drama about one of the most tragic women in the history of Europe, but she has neither the vision, nor the talent to craft the unique biography she has chosen into the film it could have been. In fact, she somehow managed to avoid the tragedy altogether and rendered the doomed woman into a frivolous, stupid blonde. We spend over an hour watching her shopping and pouting, because she cannot get her husband to sleep with her. We see her live it up at parties, meals, masked balls. We get more close-ups of shoes than we get of the population that would eventually cut off her head. While I understand that this is part of the film’s aim – show this life from MA’s perspective, from her isolated, uninformed point of view (she asks for more money without ever wondering where it comes from) – to cut the tragedy short at half point makes this just a pointless, costly music video. This brings me to the intensely annoying soundtrack. I get the idea that the clothes and the hair may be reminiscent of the New Romantics (in a strange forward loop), and perhaps Coppola took some inspiration from Baz Luhrman’s “Romeo and Juliet”, but what she created is highly distracting, to say the least. (I wonder, if this bizarre choice of songs is due to the influence of erstwhile boyfriend Quentin T.) At some points we do get period music – mostly when motivated by the action (visit at the opera, guitars playing, string quartets in the background), but at all other times the film is crowded with second rate pop, the lyrics of which are supposed to underline what is going on (that horrendous rendering of “Fools rush in” when the queen meets her lover? Ugh!).

I read Marie Antoinette’s biography by Stefan Zweig, which utterly fascinated me. I immediately knew that this could be a magnificent film, because of the overwhelming contrast between the cocooned life with all its excesses, wastefulness and blindness and the last four years of the queen’s life. The events themselves are tense enough: The royal family attempt to flee from France, are caught, incarcerated, the king undergoes a showtrial and is killed first, the queen's son and daughter are taken from her, and finally she herself makes that last journey to the guillotine. Not even her brother, the Emperor of Austria helped her. But even more intriguing is MA’s late attempt to partake in the politics of the revolution, that she even proved to be talented at it, much more so than her hapless husband. The tragedy lies, of course, in the fact that she engaged in these issues far too late and had to pay with her head for her erstwhile lack of interest.

None of this is in the film. It is as though this part of the biography is not interesting, which is, of course, just as idiotic a decision as was made for the plot of another recent costume drama about a woman, “The Duchess”. I had higher hopes for this flick, since I had no prejudice toward its (male) director and (male) screenwriters. But, alas, it has the same problem: a truly remarkable biography is cut off at the point where it gets interesting, where a real arc in the character is observable. Instead the decision was to stick with the fabulous, empty blather of great clothes, hair and bling, a threadbare love-triangle (or rather rectangle), and a lukewarm ending. Like Coppola’s creative miscarriage, this endeavour suffers the deadly disease of “it looks good”. Hatcher, Dibb & Co. had the golden opportunity to portray one of the first female politicians of Europe (who had not been born to sit on one or the other throne): A woman that morphed from beautiful style icon and society girl into a disfigured (which she allegedly found liberating) intellectual, who focused all her energy on the political issues of her day. Again, we see nothing of the latter part, and are stuck with the first half that is more watchable, in the minds of the filmmakers, if less meaningful.

And so we are left with portraits of women who look good, dress well, have affairs and unattractive husbands, too much money and cute little lapdogs. We never learn how they overcome this delusional predicament, this conflict that today may pertain to a Paris Hilton, but not many more. We never see how women back then could outgrow their prescribed role of the (unhappy) wife (in both films the protagonists succumb to their “duties”! In Coppola’s film that is even suggested to be an arc: "I will stay with my husband!" Infuriating!). Thankfully, both are eminently forgettable, although it is harder to forgive Coppola for messing up this one (but then: has she ever not messed up?). In fact, if I were to judge the character of the historical Marie Antoinette by this flick, I would say “good riddance!” to her ultimate fate, since according to Coppola’s portrait that head was filled with nothing but air anyway.

Notes from the Western Ukraine 11.04. – 19.04.2009

Tag 1
Lemberg, erste Eindrücke.
Wir kamen mit einer rumänischen Propellermaschine im Lemberger Flughaften an. Den ersten architektonischen Eindruck liefert die im soz-realistischen Stil gehaltene Flughafenhalle, die ganz im stalinistischen Barock gehalten ist. In der Kuppel und an den überhöhten Wänden prangt kraftstrotzendes Bauern- und Arbeitervolk. Sogar die Kolchosenkuh ist muskulär und attraktiv. Ein unerwarteter, musealer Beginn also, wo Uniformen (die sich eigentlich nur wenig von den sowjetischen unterscheiden) und Sowjetästhetik zusammenkommen. Es regnet.

Stadtspaziergang. Und wie es regnet. Der Wind ist sehr kalt. Ich überlege mir meine Handschuhe aus dem Hotel zu holen, entscheide mich aber dagegen um den Anschluss nicht zu verlieren. Wir laufen halt ein wenig schneller. Trotz des Wetters, und trotz der heruntergekommenen Fassaden ist der erste Eindruck von der Stadt ein schöner, melancholischer, träumerischer. Der Marktplatz und die Innenstadt mit ihrem welkenden Jugendstil mischen Aufbruch mit Niedergang: während viele der schönen alten Holztüren still verschlossen dem Regen Gesellschaft leisten, rennen Lembergs extrem hochbehackte Damen und geschäftigen Herren von einem Laden zum anderen.

Wir sind im Hotel George untergebracht, auch ein Jugendstilbau, auch museal, weil noch im sowjetischen Stil „renoviert“ mit all den Merkwürdigkeiten, die so einem Remont eigen waren – und wohl noch sind. Das Blau im Foyer ist zu blau, die Polstermöbel in der Lobby haben ob ihres abgesessenen Sowjetcharmes Sammlerwert. Die Zimmer sind hoch, goldschwerer Polyester liegt gerüscht auf Bett und Tisch – die Schranktür hängt schief. Für schätzungsweise 20 Zimmer stehen ein Damen- ein Herren-WC und eine Dusche auf dem Gang zur Verfügung. „Eines der besten Hotels der Stadt“ meinte die, wie sich später herausstellen sollte, nationalistisch angehauchte Studentin, die uns liebenswürdigerweise am Flughafen getroffen, und sicher zu unserer Bleibe geführt hatte.

Kupoła. Wir essen in einem dem polnischen „Modern“ nachempfundenen Lokal zu Abend – der Anfang einer langen Reihe von Nalesniki – wo lokal gebrautes Bier (das Porter war etwas bitter im Nachgeschmack aber durchaus geniessbar), sowie eine aus dem Nichts erscheinende Ladung ukrainischen Wodkas zu den verschiedenen Speisen verköstigt werden. Es stellt sich heraus, dass unter uns auch Sänger weilen – die Deutschen beginnen zu singen. Sie sangen schön, lokales und mitgebrachtes, und als ich lauschte, den Wodka sippte und meiner Müdigkeit nachspürte, fielen mir zwei Filmszenen ein: Zuerst die Szene in Casablanca, wo es in Rick’s Cafe zum Gesangsduell zwischen den uniformierten Deutschen und den Französisch eingestellten kommt. (Vielleicht, weil die Musik im Restauranthintergrund übersungen wird). Die zweite Szene ist das Ende von Stanley Kubrick’s „Paths of Glory“ als die Französischen Truppen ein gefangenes, deutsches Mädchen (gespielt, wie ich meine, von der zukünftigen Mrs. Kubrick) dazu zwingen zu singen. Mit einer Stimme die ihre Angst verrät stimmt sie „Der treue Husar“ an. Die raubeinigen Truppen werden still und lauschen dem Volkslied, das sie an ihre Menschlichkeit erinnert. Ein grossartiger Film. Ich sollte eine Veranstaltung zum ersten Weltkrieg machen.

2. Tag
Ostersonntag. Es regnet in Strömen. Einige unserer Gruppe haben sich um sieben in den katholischen Gottesdienst begeben. Beim Frühstück erfahre ich, dass die Messe anscheinend gut besucht war. Die geschilderten Eindrücke werden von fürchterlichem Lärm aus dem überdimensionalen Stereoblaster untermalt. Warum, so fragt man sich, kann sich in diesen slawischen Gefilden der Musikgeschmack nicht ändern? Man sollte meinen, dass bei so viel Geschichte, bei soviel baufälliger Ästhetik ein gewisses Verlangen nach passender Vertonung aufkommen sollte. Doch nach wie vor herrscht die Variante „zuckriger Pop-Techno“ vor, die in unmässiger Lautstärke durch Mark und Bein gejagt wird. Beim Frühstück in unserem pompös kitschig sowjetischen Jugendstil Saal, spät abends aus den Kluby – es dröhnt immer derselbe Bass: ndss ndss ndss ndss. Im Wiener Kaffe bei einer Tasse grünen Tee erfahre ich jedoch aus einer lokalen zweisprachigen (ukrainisch/englisch) Zeitung, dass es in Kiev wieder (!) zur Verleihung des Preises „Ne-Popsa“ kam. Ein Preis, der an ukrainische Indie-Rockbands vergeben wird, die es mit der Entwicklung einer eigenen Musik etwas ernster meinen. Das ermutigt! Mein grüner Tee wird von schwülstigem Geigenrausch berieselt. Not sure what is worse…

4. Tag
Wacklige Notizen im rosa Bus

Lviv liebt Frank Sinatra. Frank swings and sways everywhere. Auf dem Marktplatz, im Café in der Armenierstrasse, im Café auf dem linken Ufer unter der Oper, in dem wir nach einem grossartigen Abendessen sogar noch mitsangen. New York, New York! In Lviv!

Tilmans Feldwörterbuch aus der k.k Zeit ist ein Hit.“ihr habt nichts von uns zu fürchten, wir sind österreichische Soldaten.“ „Gebt uns möglich schnell was wir verlangen“

5.Tag
We are done with Lemberg, its Cafes and Jugendstil, its tremendous graveyard and ridiculous Sacher-Masoch jokes. It is a beautiful town, with a great opera, a vivid theatre scene and seriously good food. But before I get melancholic, I remember that we also left the hotel with its awful shower, its awful techno-music and vulgar blue renovation. I wonder whether in Balzac’s times shower arrangements were comparable. At the station we learn that the train we were supposed to catch to Ivano Frankivsk does not run that day, but with the help of our own guardian angel Zina we are able to catch a coach instead. And so we embark on a journey of extreme contrasts as only these Eastern realms can offer them. The bus is rough as are the roads we travel on. Not enough room for legs and suitcases, but we all make do. This is a good group of people to travel with – uncomplicated, good-humoured, open. We fold in with the luggage and pass the cookies. About two hours into the journey, we take a brief break so some of us can use the “powder-room”. Some of the girls now face one of the most disillusioning aspects of the human condition: the facilities at this “Avtostanstiia” are every bit as horrendous, as they promised to be 25 meters against the wind. Yet it is frequented a lot – a sure sign that it is just part of normal life. “Surely it cannot get worse?” I hear – well, yes it can. The lack of common human hygiene has not reached its epitome here today. I recall the tears that the ammonium in that Beijing bog brought to my eyes… and the fly-infested hole in the ground in Astrakhan…
We have another hour or so to reach our destination. When we get there we are smacked by the difference. Ivano Frankivsk’s hotel Nadija welcomes us with new and clean ensuite rooms, with Vivaldi and tasteful tablecloths. (We do not yet know that the Four Seasons CD is apparently the only one they have, but still) The story of this town is sad and hopeful at the same time, like most others on our itinerary. Armenians came and left, Catholics came and left, Russians came and left, Jews came and left – Some let blood, some mixed it, others drew it. The Ukrainians themselves breathe their identity “naturally”, as our guide puts it, without, however, acknowledging whether the stale perfume of spilt blood ever causes them to choke. Perhaps it does not. After all, every one of the abovementioned groups were just passing through and this was never their land, their language, their religion, their air. Perhaps the manner in which they left had nothing to do with those who “rightfully” inherited this land, who own it now? Or who should have owned it all along? Who decides on the ownership of land, I wonder and remember the sad wisdom of Chief Seattle. Now the Carpathian woods with their rare specks of old forest are being looted for their trees that are chopped (I think of Tolstoi’s magnificent short story “Three deaths”) and shipped to Italy for fine furniture making. The logging industry is booming and this city has a tinge of yeehaw spirit to it, the scent of a gold-digger town. A wealthy frontier with fat cats and shiny windows, patent leather shoes that do all they can to ignore the dust that covers them on these sandy streets. With wealth comes the arrogance of the nouveau riche. A good example is an encounter we have as we try to climb up the only tall building in the center to get a good view of the city from above. We are stopped by a perfectly groomed watchdog, who deems us obviously too poorly clad to step into his beautiful tower of glass, steel and marble. He only stops barking, when our bemusement and our German and English conversation suddenly make him aware of the appalling scent of his own infinite provincialism. Horizon is not something you can buy. We get ten minutes on the roof terrace – and there she lies, Stanislau, with her lack of restauration, her cleanly dressed beggars and her temporary wealth. The repo-churches glisten in front of the distant, gentle hills and quietly remember their ups and downs.

Day 3
I forgot about our day in Drohobyc, maybe because it irritated me intensely. There is not much to write about this godforsaken place that clings to what little glory its erstwhile spurned and betrayed son, Bruno Schulz, yields to it now. With growing indignation I hear of his and his family’s fate and their legacy in this town, or rather the lack thereof, and I cannot help myself: Serves them right to have his frescoes stolen from underneath their noses by a government that cares. With the exception of a dedicated few (and even their motivations seem suspect in part – think of the strange story about the museum owner who has the remaining frescoes in his cellar and refuses to exhibit them at the local museum!) – no one here even knows his work or cares to know about his fate. Not that I condone governmental art-theft, but this case is the exceeption: there is something incredibly cool about a commando parashooting in far behind state-lines, taking down a few walls, and shipping them out of the unsuspecting country before anyone realizes what is going on. That is great secret service work reminiscent of Bourne or Oceans 11 shenanigans and not for the sake of some destructive government secret or personal enrichment, but to save art that otherwise would rot and decay for lack of interest and care. I say: mazeltoff!
Must buy: The Illustrations of Bruno Schulz, Northwestern UP
PS: The opera in Lviv was a hoot!

Tag 6
Ausflug zum Huzulenmuseum in Kolomiia. Sehr beeeindruckend waren die Musikinstrumente, vor allem die kurzen und geraden Alphörner, Dudelsäcke und das Hackbrett. Muss nach einer CD suchen. Die Perlenintarsien auf den Holzmöbeln waren erstaunlich, die Perlenschmuckstücke erinnerten mich stark an ähnliche Muster und Techniken, die ich im Hopi und Navajo-Reservat gesehen habe. Auch die Tücher haben zum Teil etwas von mittelamerikanischem Design. Tilman meinte Peru. Überhaupt treffen sich in diesem kleinen Museum die unterschiedlichsten Kulturassoziationen: Alpin, Türkisch (Kilim), Keltisch (Dudelsack), Slavisch (Rusalka, wenn auch umkodiert). Die Luft ist richtig gut hier, es riecht nach Pinien und Schnee. Ein schnelles Bild vor dem Ostereimuseum, ein kurzer Rundumschlag im Souvenirladen und ab nach Jaremtsche. Dort gibt es einen grossartigen Wasserfall, eine rtillettobeschuhte Reiseführungsvolontärin (die uns ob des unangebrachten Schuhwerks um unseren Spaziergang brachte – was zu einer gewissen „Stutenbissigkeit“ führte) und jede Menge Kitsch.

Tag 6-7 – Auf dem Weg
Eindrücke vom Vorbeifahren:
Freie Hühner, Storchennester, Pferdefuhrwerke, Brunnen im Hof, unfertige Häuserruinen, keine Flussbetten, Äcker um die Häuser, Gänse, weiss gekalkte Baumstämme, Wasser auf den Feldern, viele neue goldbekuppelte Kirchen grossen Ausmasses, verweste Tiere am Wegesrand und tote Fabrikgelände (erinnert an Half Life), kleine Feuer (Laub?) deren Unzähligkeit den blutroten Sonnenuntergang mit blauem Rauch verschleiert. Am Abend geht es im Bus nach Krakau, wo wir um vier Uhr morgens ankommen werden. Nach und nach wird sich unsere Reisegruppe auflösen. Am Sonntag steige ich als drittletzte aus dem Bus am Tübinger Stadtgraben, müde, verstaubt, aber froh mitgefahren zu sein.

Washing Machine

Kate Bush has always been one of my favourite female artists. Hounds of Love is a fantastic album and like so many of her fans I eagerly awaited her latest, Aerial, when it came out a few years ago. On first hearing I liked a lot on the first side, cringed at a couple of songs, but absolutely loved the second CD (the proggy stuff), which professed more creative freedom than the poppy songs that had to sell. For a while I listened to the album a lot, then it kind of moved into the ranks as I went through a classical, then a jazz phase.

Yesterday I came home from a long day at college, spent after reading about war, violence and other such historical nonsense. Students had taken up my afternoon, colleagues needed admin resolved, I hastily had to put togheter a few research topics for a potential collaborative project, spent some times savouring the miserable news of the world, and then, finally, got home for dinner with my sweetheart. I finally calmed down and realized that I really had to relax. I recalled Aerial. We stuck on the second side and it was just as masterful as I had remembered it. Eberhard Weber is divinely complementing her voice and piano work, the birds and voices add beautifully to the texture of the sound and I basked in the soothing sounds of light that she somehow managed to capture so sensually.

That was yesterday. Tonight it was my turn to wash dishes after dinner. I put on the mp3player and my pink rubber gloves and went at it. This time I listened to side one. Something peculiar happened. The two songs that originally made me cringe, “Lovely Bertie” about her little son and “Mrs. Bertalozzi” with its really weird chorus about a washing machine, suddenly acquired a new dimension. I must have listened to both with different ears today, because I really appreciated both immensely. Why?

It is easy to like the obviously masterful craft, poetic riches combined with that rare commodity of originality, which make the second CD such a joy to listen to. But today I realized that the first CD is about something rather different. If the second CD relies on poetry, the first relies on prose. There is a reason why one reviewer (at neumu.net) referred to this album as expanding “into novel-like richness”: the first CD, like a novel, tells the story of a (grown!) woman’s most personal moments: Admiration for a powerful man (King of the Mountain), desire for a younger man (Pi), the delight of a mother watching her son (Bertie), the misery of a housewife that has lost joy and probably her marriage (mrs. Bertalozzi), the urge to be alone and withdraw utterly from the moment and this existence (How to Be Invisible), the beauty of a female warrior (Joanni) and, finally, how that moment strikes us when we realise that our mothers are dead (A Coral Room).

It is an astounding sensitivity that KB brings to this novelistic examination of a woman’s inner world. While I used to favour the first song on the CD (about the alpha male, go figure), I am beginning to think that it is actually Mrs. Bertalozzi that takes the wreath. It is the first time I have been moved like this by a woman singing about women and their middle aged plight since Marianne Faithful’s Ballad of Lucy Jordan. It is the first time I realized that KB tells the story of a woman who watched the clothes of her man spin in the washing machine and begins daydreaming about an erotic moment with him at a mediterranean beach (the entire album musically captures the Mediterranean, its water, its beaches, its light and somehow also the flight of the birds above). It is a profound mourning song about lost sexuality, oh and beauty.

So there it is. Not a song to listen to every day, unless you are really sick of life, but something to appreciate when you get the chance to share one of those sad moments of painful self-reflection in women's lives. I recommend putting it on when you are cleaning stuff. It really seems to work then.

Lip Service

There is much that needs getting used to in the German television landscape: the blatant sexism in beer commercials; the obscurity of the C-movies on prime time; the endless third rate crime shows that clutter the channels; not to forget the horrendous attempts at music and comedy that could, at times, be classed as WMDs! What gets to me most, however, is the brutal disfiguration of language caused by Germany's utterly mind-numbing habit of dubbing all foreign material.

When I voiced my horror at a recent gathering of film buffs here in Tübingen, I was told that dubbing contributes greatly to the survival of cinemas in the country: the numbers of cinemagoers in, say Sweden or Switzerland, where films are subtitled, are, so I was told, far below those of Germany. I don’t know how much truth is in this statement, but it seems reasonable: usually folks go to the pictures because they want to be entertained, not to overuse their brain cells. What I don’t understand is why there is no choice.

I am willing to accept the rationale for cinemas. Proprietors need to fill the shows, and if they can do that with dubbed films, but not subtitled ones, then there is little arguing to be done. But TV? No way! In the time of HD and cable there is absolutely no reason, why films should not be offered in “Zweikanalton” (two-channel sound), where a button on your remote will give you the choice between the dubbed German or the original version.

And let’s face it: the dubbing is atrocious! Let’s just look at English language films: translations are often wrong, not just stylistically off, but also skewing the content. Besides, how audacious is it to change an actor’s performance, to rob him of his most precious instrument, his voice? Not only are sociolects, dialects, slang, jargons, speech-characteristics etc. utterly lost in this one-size fits all approach; the very soul of most performances is betrayed when a German actor tries to transpose the role into an unnatural linguistic habitat. Gary Oldman in Rosencranz and Gildenstern are Dead; Samuel L. Jackson in Jackie Brown; Judi Dench in Macbeth, Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca, Marlon Brando in The Godfather, Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, Sean Connery, Cate Blanchett…all of them robbed of their voice!

And don’t think that all these great mimes get an individual voice to represent them! Germany does not have enough actors that can break into the synchronisation business to ensure that the voice of a unique performer remains unique in its German straightjacket. No, some (mostly mediocre) German actor will get to do Robert DeNiro and Harvey Keitel.

This editing out of the original language has devastating effects. For one, the level of English in Germany is, frankly, appalling. I am shocked to experience just how illiterate this nation is in the new lingua franca. I am not referring to regular Germans, but to media people, business folks and, most of all, academics. They stutter around committing linguistic blunders that can curl your toenails. Their vocabulary is extremely limited, their idiomatic capabilities converge toward nil, their grammar is shakey, and their pronunciation – well, they mostly sound awful. But how should they know any better, since they never actually hear English the way it should and can be spoken?

The reason for this resistance and “Germanification” of the English speaking media is not, as one may think, due to some proud attempt to preserve the purity of the national tongue, such as the French may have it. Oh no, the crazy thing is, Germans actually want to speak English, and they do use countless English terms! Hence contemporary TV-lingo is utterly contaminated with bastardized anglicisms that not only sound forced and stupid to the ear, but are sometimes simply nonsensical even to an English native speaker. In other words: instead of offering the audiences (from all walks of life) the opportunity to experience English in the second best way possible (apart from living in an English speaking country), German TV actually bars its viewers from the original sound and instead offers an unbearable language hodgepodge littered with words like “motherf*cking” (pronounced: “mahzerfahkkink “), "mixery" (pronounced: “Mikksserreeh") or the “freshesten Videos" (there is a perfectly acceptable and closely related German adjective "frisch" - but supposedly that does not sound "koohl" enough).

I don’t presume that exposing Germans to subtitled films and TV-programs will be the magic potion that raises the overall linguistic potential of the nation. But it sure wouldn’t hurt to try, because watching the tube here gives you the impression that you finally ended up in the global provinces. Considering that Germany is in and at the heart of the European Union that cannot be a healthy image for the country and its culture.

Eat Shit Lie

For the last few evenings I have indulged in intellectual fast-food: Elizabeth Gilbert’s #1 New York Times Bestseller “Eat, Pray, Love”. My better half got startled more than one out of his incestuous Austrian Mailer-world, when I giggled out over one or the other passage in this girly womanly book. I finished it last night and only today, pretty much exactly 24 hours later, I can feel anger rise in me. I feel like I’ve been had – or rather, I feel angry with myself for having transgressed my intellectual diet. Don’t get me wrong, I do like a bit of mental junk food, just as the next brainy gal, but this is like pigging out on a shitty domino’s pizza wtih some chili cheese fries and a half-assed milkshake. You think it tastes good at the time, but the next day when you look in the mirror and match your poofy eyes with your hands swelled up with sodium that you get mad at yourself for letting things slide. Again.

“But you seemed to really like it”, said my better half just now, “you had a few laughs, didn’t you”. Sure I did, because it is one of those reads that are just breezily familiar, uncomplicated, seemingly understanding you, me, the reader. The maths are pretty simple: I belong to the fifty percent of American women, and the seventy five of academic women, whose marriage didn’t make it through her thirties; who was left childless mostly out of choice; who makes a career of her intellect; who is well traveled, and multi-lingual. So I find plenty of docking points with the narrative, and if Gilbert has one major talent, it is suggesting familiarity: you feel you have known her character for ages. In fact, at times it feels that you are that character. That is a formidable accomplishment right there. So, I laughed, I identified with the book. Why then am I so incensed?

Because in its very title it proposes a deal that turns out to be as reliable as an unsecured mortgage taken out five years ago. Here is how it works: the eating part is the Greek gift: the character flees to Italy for four months to escape a horrible divorce (well, which divorce isn’t?) and a catastrophic rebound (yep, been there, done that, too). She convalesces with the help of excellent food (pasta/pizza gaining her a luscious 26 pounds) and Italian lessons (a “useless” language in her words).

But it works. I love Rome, I really do. And I, too, utterly eclipsed all the museums and the Vatican the first time I was there, because Roman life just washed me into other parts of the city. So by the time I was a third into the book, I really identified with the character, her post-divorce pain and the ridiculous temptation to call the no-good rebound and get some more of that pain going. Plus I share her fascination with this steadily flowing ancient capital with its beautiful men, the out of this world ice cream and the magic of its walks.

And then, just as I have been utterly reeled in, I get screwed over in the deal. The second part is called “pray”, but would better be called “shit”. Let me explain my suggestion: The character continues her journey to India to do some soul-searching in an Ashram. There is nothing inherently wrong with this – in fact, in its descriptions and references the chapter is in parts even informative and not just entertaining. The reader learns about different Hindu and some Buddhist ideas, about meditation, and what life in a carefully arranged spiritual community brings forth – in you and others. That is commendable, for sure, but already my chest is getting this light tightness from rising anger: not only do we learn about these things; it turns out that our pasta munching New York divorcee is a natural when it comes to these insightful issues and after a few weeks plucks off some of the finest fruit to be had on the meditation tree. And that, mind you, after confiding just a wee bit earlier that she has what the Buddhist call “monkey brain” and no way to control it. I know people that have been meditating for years and have the hardest time to get through that layer of noise that rages in our head, particularly when we want it to be quiet in there. But hey, maybe she is just more plugged in, maybe she can take the fast-lane to spiritual success… suffice it to say that by the time our heroine leaves the Ashram, she is fixed. She found meditational bliss, understood much about how the universe works, and has been able to summon her pissed-off ex-husband’s spirit to have that final talk and settle the emotional bill.

It is at this point that I heard my inner voice for the first time: if only things were so easy. The women I know who got divorced in a, shall we say, unfriendly manner don’t really experience this sort of neat resolution, but must carry their grief and pain with them for much longer than our spiritual super-girl. Well, maybe it’s because she is so flawlessly gifted, so single-mindedly determined, so New York funny, such an American achiever, this successful writer with her insights and her righteousness. Maybe it is because this is all about her, that my allergy kicks off. When I reach the last third of the book I am thinking “shit”, because I feel the old infection is gaining ground, the one that I – like most women in the western influenced world - caught during my life-long exposure to US-fabricated feminine ideals. It is called: perpetual insufficiency. Why didn’t I become such an intellectual Barbie-doll and shine my perfect spiritual teeth in the aftermath of divorce? How come it took years to recover and secure first insights into the spiritual matters that this heroine cruises past on her way to the haven of love?

Which brings me to the last part of the book. I can see it now, starring Renne Zellweger and Antonio Banderas: The recently enlightened divorcee comes to Bali and finds her South-American soul-mate. The story unfolds as sweetly as overripe papaya and conveniently maintains the somewhat forced chronotope of one year (yes, this book tells you that it is possible to heal from a divorce, find enlightenment and the love of your life in that time and get paid for it). There is a sprinkling of political concern over the fall-out of the Bush era’s clamp-down on anything potentially Muslim and a squeeze of selflessness towards a native Balinese woman and her adopted kids for good measure - delivered in that most American of ways in the form of a fat check to a third-world single mother.

So, in the end, she got it all. Good for her. And that is exactly how one of the reviewers quoted on the back praises Gilbert: good for her! Which got me thinking: are these people taking Gilbert’s work for something other than fiction? Are the American audience and the critics gullible enough to take this piece for real? I suppose it is this troubling idea that sickens me most: the book is cleverly straddling travelogue and idealization built on the fool-proof narrative structure of the three act of the hero’s journey. The narrated time is kept tight, as are the challenges, and none of the obstacles, all of which are internal, are insurmountable. All of this is clad in seemingly non-fictional garb with technical mastery. Thus we were sold a mature female über-mind, a tasty cross between new-age self-help and Sex in the City, and that is fine, as long as people realize the nature of this beast, because for the most part, this is not how real life works. If people take this book literally, they are falling for a lie and that is what is so disheartening: it shows that the old American street-wisdom still holds: there is a sucker born every minute.

I guess some of my anger arose, because I feel like one, too.

Good intent and bad dames. A conversation.

A:

These late November days are miserable: cold and foggy. Folks are huddling by their stoves trying to escape the filthy sleet. You wouldn’t chase a dog out in this weather – but some haven’t got a choice, and so Philip Marlowe takes his post across the street from the so-called antiquarian bookshop that fronts for Geiger’s blackmailing racket …

The Big Sleep never fails to set me daydreaming. Not only is Bogart’s Marlowe about as irresistible as a man can get, but the whole atmosphere is so excellently conveyed that it sticks with you like cigarette smoke in your hair. Never mind the impossible plot: the dialog sparkles so brightly that the tangled tale becomes secondary.

This remarkable feat for a detective story is only possible, because The Big Sleep is strictly character based. Hence the murders remain as unexplained as the entanglement of Bacall’s character in the whole mess. At the end of the film I am just happy that Marlow gets his girl and dispatches the bad guys (at least I think they are the bad guys), but what exactly happened and why beats me every time. The Big Sleep shows that you do not need to tie up all loose plots to create an all time classic: conveying a mood rather than a cohesive narrative is as justifiable a cinematic concern as the telling of a story, behind which may, in a best case scenario, stand a well-argued philosophical argument.

R:

The disregarding of plot is characteristic of many genre pictures. You only need to think of the classic comedies, musicals and horrors to see that the movie’s mood or set sequences are often favored over the story. The writers of the Marx Brother movies noted that each is approximately ninety minutes long, of which ten minutes is allocated to the story. Musicals function the same way. In the golden era of Hollywood a studio would acquire the rights to a selection of songs, some new, though many of the songs had been in and out of fashion since the days of Vaudeville and were already twenty or thirty years old. A producer would be presented these songs and he would then hire in screenwriters to fashion some kind of story around the dance or song numbers. ‘Story’ often served as the mere aspic around the main ingredient.

The additional entanglement of plot is synonymous with noirs, The Big Sleep being a classic example. What mattered was that something happened in the plot, that questions were posed; the reasons weren’t so important. The same goes for the philosophical aspect, or ‘controlling idea’ as screenwriters like to call it. Larger truths are more important than simple facts. Famously, when director Howard Hawks contacted The Big Sleep’s author to confirm who had killed one of the characters he admitted that he had no idea.

A: So what is the larger truth of The Big Sleep?

R: Like in so many noirs, simply the profound inability to distinguish between good and bad of something that had really happened before.

Convoluted noir plots have evolved with the form into their contemporary offspring. One only needs to view David Lynch’s impressive neo-noirs, Mulholland Dr. and Lost Highway, to discover similar labyrinthine plotting. However, what defines the confusion in neo-noir is not the complexity of the external world but the knotty twists of the unreliable protagonist’s psyche.

A:

Nevertheless, The Big Sleep’s disregard of lucid plot and hence argument is astounding, because we tend to rank a philosophically critical narrative higher than one that aims at “mood”: Rakolnikov’s tale may serve as a case in point. Yet this film ranks among the best ever made. If the two – lucid plot and creation of mood – were to be well-mixed, the resulting noir would have to be spectacular. This was obviously what the recent film The Good German attempted to do with its impressive cast, perfect photography, excellent director, and a genuinely honorable intention.

George Clooney looks mighty fine smoking his cigarettes in black and white, Cate Blanchett’s bad German dame is perhaps a tad overt, but acceptable (although her accent is lousy). The supporting performances particularly of the German actors are great with the exception of the horribly miscast Toby MacGuire, who just can’t pull off a tough guy.

R: He’s about as believable as a Disney character in The Godfather.

A:

The film’s setting of 1945 Berlin is as ingenious as it is compelling: the admix of original footage gives not only the appropriate miserable background for a noir the way The Third Man did with Vienna, but it also squares the audience with one of the 20^th century’s most iconic ground zeros. The lighting is authentic to both the great noir tradition and, of course, expressionist filmmaking which was born in Berlin. Steven Soderbergh is at home in black and white, his mise-en-scene is perfect, and he moves his actors through the rubble with a safe hand.

The intent of the film is, of course, its most admirable asset: it was here in Berlin, that the US lost its credibility as the “good guy” of the war with their ruthless pursuit of the German V2 brainpower that would deliver them the nuclear edge for the remainder of the century. The Russians dismantled German industry, but the Yanks started the nuclear race right there with the massacres in Japan and the looting of German’s cutting edge weapons know-how. In other words, the film seriously questions the credibility of the Nuremberg Trials and the righteousness of the American effort, because their process of judgement was not just selective, but corrupt: The “good” German, who wanted to expose the inhumanity of those behind the V2s, was sacrificed without a flinch. The “bad” German dame, who sold herself and the lives of others to save her skin, goes free. “That is really what happened back in Berlin,” so The Good German in its admirable critique, which fits in with Clooney’s investigations of American integrity in Syriana and Good Night and Good Luck.

R:

It should have worked; everything pointed to it working, but it didn’t. I imagine the pitch meeting; the project described briefly over lunch. It’s a no-brainer: A cross between The Third Man and Casablanca with a great message of corruption and a complex femme fatale. What could possibly go wrong? But perhaps that was its downfall: The project took for granted that it would work, blindly trusting often employed, yet much respected devices. I think it was Martin Scorsese who once said: it takes as much effort to make a bad film as it does a good one and you really don’t know which it’s going to be until it’s finished.

A:

I agree. I think the film got caught up in its mission and forgot to add the magic noir ingredient of The Big Sleep.

R:

As much as I wholeheartedly agree with the political message of the film, I might be more inclined to talk about it over dinner than hi-jack a movie for it. I felt the same after Clooney’s other project Good night and Good Luck. Both films smack of left wing agitprop and seem a little patronizing, as if the filmmakers felt that they had to hide their message in a movie like so many pills crushed into a child’s favorite food. Maybe its use is only jarring because the message of these pictures is so pertinent; it draws attention to itself like an actor trying too hard. I almost expect Clooney to stop in some scenes and turn to the camera and say “you see, folks, how this situation is so similar to the problems we have today?” Laboring the films’ message like this takes you out of the picture, whereas a film such as The Big Sleep brings you in.

A:

The problem is that we aren’t close enough to any one character to really care. In fact we get three different voiceovers which itself already has us meandering between the characters. There is no punch behind Clooney’s journalist/detective – all he has to do to find his clues is smoke a cigarette in the parking lot.

Moreover, the dame’s sex appeal is not strong enough to make Clooney’s obsession with her believable, and ultimately the dialogue between them is where it really falls down – no real tension, no sharpness, just a bit of whining for the good old days. Although many complain about the romantic ‘Paris flashbacks’ in Casablanca, perhaps Curtiz and his colleagues understood that it was necessary to create the unique bond between the two principles, something that is lacking between Clooney and Blanchett. She is cold and dangerous behind her mask of the suffering war survivor, but we don’t really see enough of the deadly mix to get drawn in.

R:

The Good German lacked focus and we don’t buy the relationships between the characters or to themselves. It’s as if the characters remain strangely passive and distant because they themselves know that they are mere characters serving a political message. It’s a classic screenwriting error – because the author knows the final fates of his characters they merely drift along for the ride (in a big sleep of their own) rather than struggling like real people in real situations.

A:

The film constantly draws attention to its genre and bares its devices, so I wonder why Soderbergh shied away from centralizing the fatal attraction between the detective and his femme fatale. He did not have to go as far as The Big Sleep and make the viewer forget about the plot altogether, but he should have given us a way into the situation, allowed us to care. Instead we get thrown in with MacGuire’s “buffoon” and his racket wondering why we should give a hoot about him being shot…

R:

We’re not supposed to give a hoot!

A:

But then why does Clooney’s journalist give a hoot, seeing that the buffoon not only screwed his dame, but also gave him a good beating? The characters completely lose credibility here and with that the whole movie turns into cumbersome work.

What we are left with is the impression that no self-respecting film wants to be reduced to: “It looks good”. That is such a shame, because it should have been possible to unite the “mood” creating magic of The Big Sleep with the tremendous ethic concern of The Good German. Indeed, the most frustrating effect of watching Soderbergh’s film is that it is such a waste of a great opportunity.