Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 12/15/20

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Lost in Yonkers (Martha Coolidge, 1993)

Mercedes Ruehl and Richard Dreyfuss in Lost in Yonkers

Cast: Mercedes Ruehl, Richard Dreyfuss, Irene Worth, Brad Stoll, Mark Damus, David Strathairn, Robert Miranda, Jack Laufer, Susan Merson, Illya Haase. Screenplay: Neil Simon, based on his play. Cinematography: Johnny E. Jensen. Production design: David Chapman. Film editing: Steven Cohen. Music: Elmer Bernstein.

Céline and Julie Go Boating (Jacques Rivette, 1974)

Dominique Labourier and Juliet Berto in Céline and Julie Go Boating

Cast: Juliet Berto, Dominique Labourier, Bulle Ogier, Marie-France Pisier, Barbet Schroeder, Nathalie Asnar, Marie-Thérèse Saussure, Philippe Clévenot. Screenplay: Juliet Berto, Dominique Labourier, Bulle Ogier, Marie-France Pisier, Jacques Rivette, Eduardo de Gregorio, based in part on stories by Henry James. Cinematography: Jacques Renard. Film editing: Nicole Lubtchansky. Music: Jean-Marie Sénia.