#69744
05/13/2002 12:36 AM
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 6,296 |
http://www.nobel.se/economics/laureates/1994/nash-autobio.htmlCheck out John Nash's autobiographical sketch for the Nobel prize. I don't know whether he delivered this autobiographical information as part of his speech--but it's pretty apparent that he wasn't tossing roses at his wife. What I do know is I am bloody upset with Ron Howard for distorting Nash's speech in acceptance of the prize and all the love language horse hockey Howard's writers put into the script. I get so furious with Hollywood for completely distorting biography. They did it with Jacqueline Du Pré's life--and they've apparently (Mr. Howard, to blame here) did it with John Nash. A bloody speech is a bloody speech--and to romanticize the speech just to get one final warm fuzzy feeling out of the audience makes me want to throw up. Off my bloody box, WordWarning
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#69745
05/13/2002 3:24 AM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
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#69746
05/13/2002 4:49 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 819
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 819 |
Dear WW,
PBS ran a more or less accurate biography of Nash about two weeks ago. Even when the warts are shown, it makes a very interesting story. Mrs. Nash did divorce him, but remarried him about fifteen years later. She's one gutsy woman! She deserves much more credit for keeping Nash together than she got in the syrupy movie. Ah, but we don't yet give herstory equal billing with history, do we?
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#69747
05/13/2002 5:35 AM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
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#69748
05/13/2002 7:15 AM
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Geoff wrote:
She's one gutsy woman! She deserves much more credit for keeping Nash together than she got in the syrupy movie.
Yep and I'm all for veins of iron v. ones of syrup.
WW
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#69749
05/13/2002 9:52 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819 |
I'm with Max on "herstory." I think the thing that irritates me about politically-correct neologisms is that they are invariably condescending. Who hasn't had the displeasure of having some zealot with a room temperature IQ correct them with the latest b*lls**t term for something that didn't need a new name?
Anyone who goes to see a Ron Howard film expecting it to deal with brutal realities of schizophrenia and marital discord is as naive as the one who is shocked at the prices of the snacks at the concession stand.
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#69750
05/13/2002 1:43 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
I knew a staunch feminist who decided to give up on all the changed PC word usages when one day she found herself wanting to change kingdom to queendom and thought that, at that point, she was just getting too fanatical and ridiculous about it all, and hurting rather than helping her cause. She's still a feminist with a focus on the goddess and all, but no more words like herstory.
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#69751
05/13/2002 4:21 PM
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467 |
There you go with that phallic symbolism again!
(Edited) I didn't mean that to sound like I was siingling you out. I saw the post a few minutes later and realized I'd sounded personally harsh. My apologies!
TEd
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#69752
05/13/2002 6:43 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 3,409 |
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#69753
05/14/2002 12:14 AM
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Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 200
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 200 |
Who hasn't had the displeasure of having some zealot with a room temperature IQ correct them with the latest b*lls**t term for something that didn't need a new name?
EDIT: the rest of my post seems to have not clicked in. It was to the effect that said zealot often finds this a convenient tactic to change the subject of a conversation that is not to his or her liking.
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#69754
05/14/2002 1:38 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 819
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 819 |
I didn't intend to creast a tempest in this teapot by using "herstory"; rather, I'm just an insufferable pun nut. I do think, however, that most histories are written, until recently, from a biased perspective, as if to say, "Oh, yeah, there was a woman involved." Other than that, I dislike PC just as much as you others. As for WW's iron veins vs. syrup, the iron only flows at high heat, and syrup is really just sap! 
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#69755
05/14/2002 12:03 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055 |
> I get so furious with Hollywood for completely distorting biography.
I here you Wordster. I kind of went to see 'A Disgusting Perversion' on a dare. I found it shallow and boring - like the real title already suggests. Couldn't be bothered watching the end even - you know you can never get that time back - I don't want to spend it watching people who got rich by churning out that tripe.
Speaking of award-winning films, I saw Mulholland Drive on the weekend, and was impressed. If you don't like Lynch then you won't like Mulholland either, but otherwise you're sure to see it as a pinnacle in his film making. He has found a roundness to the style presented in 'Blue Velvet'. It's finally a story which can't be described on the back of a Wheaties packet. It's non-linear/circular advancement forces the viewer to THINK, and afterwards debate the film, rather than getting all warm and fuzzy and forgeting it. Worth a watch.
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#69756
05/14/2002 1:40 PM
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 320
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 320 |
The word is a disgusting feminazi invention...With all due respect, Max, feminazi is to my mind every bit as wince-producing as herstory. 
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#69757
05/14/2002 4:47 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
By, I don't know anything about Lynch, but if Mulholland Dr. is the pinnacle of his film-making, then I don't want to see anything else of his, either. That thing bored me to death, as well as leaving me to wonder what the heck was going on. And FWIW, I HATED Blue Velvet. These kinds of things just do not suit my tastes at all. I want my pictures to be LIGHT, and I want the camera far enough back and to stay on one scene long enough for me to see clearly what has happened, or is happening. I really hate the kind of thing where, for ex., you see several people scuffling in the dark, and then the next shot shows nothing but the gleam of a knife handle protruding from someone's abdomen--and then the scene switches to the next day with different people. GRR!
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#69758
05/14/2002 9:15 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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#69759
05/15/2002 4:10 AM
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 477
addict
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addict
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 477 |
It's non-linear/circular advancement forces the viewer to THINK, and afterwards debate the film,
... and walk out, take one look at my best friend and say in unison "I need a drink!" Then we talked, and talked and thought about it some more... and I still can't say I *completely* fathom it!
When it comes to movies I tend to not be heavily swung one way or the other - I really like some movies which are absolute "fluff", and then I really like some which take a bit of thinking about, and sometimes I just like something about half way between the two. Probably all depends on my mood at the time.
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#69760
05/15/2002 7:33 AM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055 |
Jackie says: I HATED Blue Velvet.
As I said, I think Lynch is one of those directors you either love or hate. I'd be surprised if you didn't see ANY artistic merit in the opening of Blue Velvet alone though. It regularly gets picked to pieces in media classes at uni, and I think for good reason. You don't have to like a film to concede it represents a new and original an artistic approach, rather than a predictable narrative.
Hev says: can't say I *completely* fathom it!
Hev, don't worry too much about 'getting it' - I'd say the film is more about conveying a feeeling, or a notion rather than a strict concept. It's one of those ones where you can analyse to death and still not find the answer to all questions - you're not meant to, I don't think.
Aside: When did Alex W. get so cynical? I get the feeling he's trying to raise the bar.
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#69761
05/15/2002 2:43 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
Jackie says: I HATED Blue Velvet.
Hev says: can't say I *completely* fathom it!
BY says: I'd say the film is more about conveying a feeling, or a notion rather than a strict concept.
This all brings to mind certain films that you can actually have a love/hate relationship with. Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal for instance. I remember thinking it a brilliant film, but hating it for leaving me depressed for like five years afterward! (hyperbole, folks) And I was wondering why a man of Bergman's enormous talents would choose to leave me with this pit of vacuuous meaninglessness. Tragedy is one thing, and I had already studied Eugene O'Neill, but The Seventh Seal was a tough watch (and this when I was in my 20's). Even compared to Bergman's other work, the gut-searing starkness of this was beyond compare. The only other film I recall coming a distant close to the feeling The Seventh Seal left me with was, curiously enough (and, admittedly shot as an emulation of Bergman's work), Woody Allen's Interiors. Saw Interiors when I was living in New York in '78. Everyone was looking forward to the new Woody Allen flick (though we knew it was his foray into drama/tragedy) and we were all set to go out on the town and party hearty afterward. But after sitting through Interiors we were all so bummed out we actually decided to just call it a night and go home. I'll never forget that.
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#69762
05/15/2002 3:00 PM
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Then there was "Cries and Whispers," which I loved at the time although there was so much sadness in that movie--and wretchedness. Never, ever do I hear of someone dying that I do not think of this movie. It was both rich and ragged--remember the woman with the shard of glass between her fingers? Remember the servant? Remember the shots of the sheets on the bed--you could almost smell them? Remember Liv Ullmann's sideways glance to show she'd gained a bit of depravity over the years? Come to think of it, that movie had a lot of bedroom scenes in it--beds for love, beds for betrayal, beds for camouflage, beds for sleeping, and beds for dying....
Bergman regards,
WW
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