REDS (spoilers, including THE DEFIANT ONES)

Friday night my historical movie watch party showed Warren Beatty's Reds. (I was seeing it for the first time since its original release forty years ago.) That's the one with him and Diane Keaton as John Reed and Louise Bryant, American leftists who witness the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.  It's certainly well-made, and more intelligent than the usual 1981 Hollywood fare, let alone the "fast food" output of today's studios. But it was ultimately a Hollywood movie with those familiar romantic tropes.  

In The Player shrewd studio executive Tim Robbins says, "I have no problem with political movies, so long as they aren't political political!" Reds isn't exactly political political; it's about romance as much as politics. (Jack Nicholson has most of the best lines as Louise's other boyfriend, the playwright Eugene O'Neill.) As with Doctor Zhivago, it feels like a story of lovebirds dealing with something far bigger than them.  I thought of that famous line from Casablanca:  

It doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.

I would have liked more about the period after Reed and Bryant returned to the USA and had to deal with wartime and postwar government repression and the US Socialist Party's playing dirty pool to keep out communists like Reed.  The scene where they try to infiltrate the Socialist convention from which they'd been banned (then retreat to the basement) feels hauntingly familiar.  It reminded me both of the Democratic Party cheating Bernie Sanders and of Keir Starmer's Labour Party barring elected delegates from their conference and mounting anti-heckler security!  This part could have been a whole movie in itself...

Later on Reed is back in Russia and hoping Louise will rejoin him.  Emma Goldman (one of my heroes, nicely played by Maureen Stapleton) says to him:

If Louise were to come here, she'd have to leave the United States illegally, then live in exile with you, and never go home again. All for the sake of a revolution she was never any part of. Why should she?

Because the audience wants her to, of course! So she returns (the real Louise didn't) and gets reunited with Reed in time for his deathbed scene... 

This ending reminded me of the ending in The Defiant Ones, where Sidney Poitier makes it onto the train that'll carry him to freedom, but Tony Curtis doesn't, so Poitier gets off and sits with Curtis and sings until the cops arrive to take them back to the chain gang. James Baldwin pointed out that this ending's purpose was to reassure the white audience that their friendship was stronger than Poitier's desire for freedom.  But suppose it had been the other way around?  If Curtis had got off the train rather than abandon Poitier, would the audience have believed it? They'd only believe the black man sacrificing himself for the white man, not vice versa. (Baldwin heard black men in the audience saying "Get back on that train, fool!")

Speaking of radical heroes of mine, on Sunday I saw the documentary Buffy Sainte-Marie:  Carry It On at the Bloor Hot Docs.  I remember when I was young hearing her song "Look at the Facts." There was something angry about it that I really respected! (I also admired the anger in punk rock...)

HANSAN: RISING DRAGON

Today John P. and I saw Hansan:  Rising Dragon, at the Empress Walk.  It's a Korean movie about a battle where naval hero Yi Sun-sin defeated the Japanese (whom they called Wae) over 400 years ago.  It was pretty well-made and exciting.  Now I'll have to see the movie it's a prequel to, The Admiral:  Roaring Currents, about the final naval battle where Yi defeated the Japanese once and for all at the cost of his own life. (That one was a huge hit in Korea!) Korean cinema has some considerable talent... 

Afterward we saw a crowd of expatriate Persians at Mel Lastman Square demonstrating against Iran's Islamic government.  I noticed they were waving the pre-revolutionary flag with a lion and sun in the place where they now have the "eternal flame"--a bit like the South Vietnamese flag I saw on a Toronto storefront once.

On Saturday we were celebrating my niece's return from Denmark and made a cake, but things were so chaotic that it wasn't till mid-afternoon that they got to offer me a piece, and it spoiled my dinner a bit. (I just had a bowl of Tim Horton Doughnuts chili, normally a lunch-sized meal.)

Moira went to Kingston for a few weeks, so I'm alone here, which is something different for a change. (Before she left, she took me by surprise by cooking and freezing several portions of beefaroni and chili for me!)

Last week the book club discussed Hans Christian Andersen's stories.  Next time it'll be Mordechai Richler's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.  

Yesterday the memoir group met again.  The others just want do one piece a week, but maybe they'll let me recite a second one anyway. (I'm already thinking of a piece about "manners.")

Is this really September?  Even the nights are still warm enough for me to sleep with the windows open!

In recognition of Her Majesty's funeral--why do I always think of these things a day late?--here's the Alfred de Musset poem "A Soldier's Funeral" set to music by the stunning Lilli Boulanger on the eve of the Great War!

At the dentist

Last week I went to my new dentist and got a couple of fillings. (My last dentist was Czech, but this one's a Korean from Indonesia!) A couple of my teeth need root canals.  I have the alternative of just pulling them out, and it's tempting:  they're inconspicuous molars, and I'm not a Julia Roberts with a perfect smile to protect.  But I decided on the root canals instead for a simple reason--I want to keep the symmetry in my mouth when I'm flossing!

My memoir group is moving from writing one piece at each online session to writing two, like when we met in person BC (Before Covid).  All of a sudden I've been thinking of all these subjects I can write about!  For today's meeting I'd written about joy, and I've already written about regret, next week's subject along with circuses. (Then I'll write about religious beliefs...) I thought about what I'd write while the dentist was working on my mouth.

On Thursday the History Meetup met at the Tim Horton Doughnuts near Bay & Bloor. (The previous place was too noisy:  there was a band performing on the street outside!) Howard suggested the Imperial Pub so we'll go there next.  I'm returning to the Toronto City Opera next month, which rehearses on Thursdays, so I'll be moving my Meetups to Tuesdays.

Preparing for the upcoming book club event, I read the Hans Christian Andersen story "The Angel." It was so beautiful that my jaw could have dropped!

I have a huge Chinese dictionary, and recently I've been going through it and writing each character down, including its pronunciation (both Chinese and in Japanese when it's used in Kanji), and a one-line meaning. (My computer can write Chinese and Japanese characters!)  

I'll forget most of it, of course, but it's like this story from India I read online:  a guru's student said "I've read tons of books, but forgotten most of them.  What good has it done me?" So the guru gave him a dirty old sieve and sent him on a quest to bring him water from the river.  But the water kept running out, of course, and the student had to return and say "I've failed." "No, you haven't," said the guru. "Look how clean and shiny you got the sieve!  The books you read and forget clean your mind just like the water cleaned the sieve it was running through."

Lately I've been listening to symphonies and concerti as I write down those Chinese words. Grieg's A Minor piano concerto reaches out and grabs you!  And Beethoven's third piano concerto in C Minor is one of my favourites too.

I just heard about how a Scottish lad called Rory verbally accosted pedophile Prince Andrew in the Queen's funeral cortege and got wrestled down by police while the crowd aggressively ignored him, singing "God Save the King." Now I know what happened after the kid said "The Emperor's naked!" Rory's my new hero.  As for the crowd, the word "useful idiots" comes to mind.  If you think Rory's impolite, consider that the funeral cortege for Belgium King's Leopold II, directly responsible for the Congo holocaust, got booed by working-class people in the Brussels streets. (I might have done it too, not just because he was evil but because he got away with it!)

I heard about an interview where the new King had said that NHS hospital staff should take a more "caring" approach. (So who's been working long, stressful hours, at the risk of their own health, to prevent Covid from killing even more people?  Not him.) Really, sometimes Charles is inept to the point of being pitiful!  And I say this as someone who admires the high ideals he sometimes expresses, and wants to give him a break.

Should the Dominion of Canada keep its "hand-me-down" monarchy?  I've never supported it and I'm not going to start now.  As far as I'm concerned, Canadian monarchists are the most fatuous people in the world!

Did you know that Charles III is the same title Bonnie Prince Charlie would have got if the 1745 rebellion had succeeded? (Oh, you did.)

The consequences of insomnia

Last night I had a bout of insomnia.  It started when I dreamed of something I've probably mentioned here before:  One morning when I was 15 I had to bicycle to high school in the pouring rain, and when I came to a stop sign I pressed the brakes to stop like usual, but the road was so wet that I skidded into the intersection.  And a policeman stopped me and chewed me out, and I cried!  This wouldn't bother me if he'd just been more sympathetic, but he didn't give a shit.  He called me "my man," and I've hated that expression ever since.  I failed to cope with the world, and I can't redo it.  My parents clearly felt I was too sensitive, but there it is. (The asshole got fired a week or two later--I just wish I'd been there to kick him while he was down!)

Anyway I woke up from this dream and couldn't get back to sleep because I still feel so angry about it.  Not just mad at the cop, but at everyone who's told me I'm too sensitive! (They effectively said, "We can't expect anything else to be different, but we can expect you to force yourself to be less sensitive about it.") And mad at myself, too, for being unable to cope. Eventually I did get back to sleep, but didn't wake up till noon.

My memoir group has taken to choosing our topic the week before instead of waiting for the revelation an hour or two before meeting. (Please bear with me, this really isn't a digression!) And I like doing it that way because I have time to think and write longer pieces.  But Selia prefers to still hear the topic on the same day, so I promised to email it to her then.  But this week, waking up so late, I forgot to do so and she found out too late to participate this week!  As it was, I lost track of the time and barely managed to get dressed before the meeting was due to start. (Sylvie, blessings on her, says she'll email Selia future topics.)

What else has been happening in my life?  Last week I got my hair cut and noticed I look a bit like Lennart Brix, Detective Lund's icy boss on that Danish show The Killing, which we've almost finished. (As the British would say, it's pure dead brill!)

On Thursday I had lunch with Debbie.  We were going to eat Vietnamese at Dzo, but it turned out the place wasn't open for the lunch trade, so we ate Chinese hot pot at Mix2 Grill instead.  I told her, "It's all part of the adventure!"

For my next History Meetup topic, I've chosen Qin Shihuang's unification of China in 221 BC.  So I'll be reading Jonathan Clements' The First Emperor of China.  But I can't go borrow the book till tomorrow because it's Labour Day.

Last week I read that the families of the Munich Massacre's nine Israeli victims 50 years ago have come to an agreement with the German government for compensation. Meanwhile, it turns out that Israel's Operation Breaking Dawn the other month killed 46 Palestinians, including 17 children. (When will their  families get compensation?)

Fifteen years ago my four-month break from diary writing ended, so I've resumed posting my diary at https://thistime15yearsago.blogspot.com/