Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 04/14/25

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

Monday, April 14, 2025

Little Murders (Alan Arkin, 1971)

Marcia Rodd and Elliott Gould in Little Murders

Cast: Elliott Gould, Marcia Rodd, Vincent Gardenia, Elizabeth Wilson, Jon Korkes, John Randolph, Doris Roberts, Lou Jacobi, Donald Sutherland. Alan Arkin. Screenplay: Jules Feiffer, based on his play. Cinematography: Gordon Willis. Production design: Gene Rudolf. Film editing: Howard Kuperman. Music: Fred Kaz.

The most remarkable (and depressing) thing about the shrill, scattershot, and frequently hilarious Little Murders is how relevant its satire of urban violence remains after 50-something years. It can be faulted for some unchecked sexism and homophobia and for some caricature intellectuals that evoke screenwriter Jules Feiffer's cartoons from the era but have lost their edge today, but if anything the angst and fear it depicts has only grown more acute in the era of Trump redux.