Amadeus

For the second week in a row, I went to movie screening. And I am very glad I did. It was good that I went to it just the day after we discussed movie making so I could look for some of the things we discussed. First of all, I loved this movie. I saw it 20+ years ago when it came out, but just as a video rental, not on a big screen. This movie does better on a big screen. It was fun to identify some of the things we talked about in class. They used cross cuts a lot, showing that two things were happening at the same time in different locations. The close up shots were very effective as well.

One scene that got my attention was when Mozart's father comes to visit him in Vienna the first time after he has gotten married. They could have just had his father come to the door and knock on it, but instead Mozart is outside just coming home, and sees his father up the on the stairs, so there is a low angle shot looking up at his father, and a high angle shot of his father looking down at him. He looks small and weak in this way. This shows that his father is dominant, and even though Mozart is a grown man, his father still has some kind of control over him.

All of those things together (and many more) combine to tell a great story, and many lessons can be learned from it. What struck me is how Solieri's jealously consumed him and eventually destroyed him. Seeking to destroy someone else seems to only destroy oneself. Rather than appreciating the talents he had been given (he composed operas for heavens sake!), and appreciating and enjoying the talents of others (Mozart), he only wished for what he did not have and tried to destroy the one who had it. At the end of the movie, Solieri utters a line that jumped out at me - he said, "I am the patron saint of mediocrity." This caused me to question at what point do we accept "mediocrity" and be satisfied, and at what point to we strive to be more? If he would have accepted his mediocrity, his life would have been happier and more fulfilled. But at what point do we accept our mediocrity, and at what point do we try to move beyond it, push past it, and try for greatness? I would suggest that Solieri's mediocrity came not from ceasing to pursue greatness, but from comparing himself to someone else's greatness. It seems when we do that, we always loose.

Class Discussion on Movies

I never knew much of anything about movies before our class discussions. I go, I know if I like it or not, and then I leave. I didn't know that there are certain types of shots and cuts, etc., and how that can have an impact on the way you view the movie and what you think about it. I almost feel manipulated in a way! But it is a good manipulation for the most part, because it helps you to get into the story, to know what is coming next, and to move the story along. I think it interesting how film making evolves. In the movie screening I went to last week, Bang the Drum Slowly, it seemed quite slow moving, and I think it was because there were fewer cuts from one scene to another. The camera showed one scene for a longer time. Before learning about scenes and different types of cuts, I could tell that it moved slower, but I wouldn't know why. So that is kind of cool.

Video Reading

After reading the article about video art, I couldn't picture what they were talking about. I found that my imagination couldn't wrap itself around what it would be like, or how it would be worthy of a gallery exhibition. In the article it says that, "video art stands as a potentiality of artistic expression's major roles in human communication: to give access to other ways of conceptualization." I guess I just wasn't conceptualizing in other ways. So, I went to the web site of the artist mentioned in the article, Nam June Paik to see what this was. It was really interesting - in some pieces there were many TV screens, each with images, that combined into one big image. Other pieces were TV screens with images put together to form TV people. Very creative, and an interesting truly different and new medium than art of the past. It could only be modern. Check out this web page for a different kind of art. http://www.paikstudios.com/gallery/gallery_index.html

Your Brain on Music

This week listening to Your Brain on Music, he said something I though was interesting. He said something to the effect that the connections in your brain that music makes, or that connects to music are formed when you are young. This caused me to think about parents and children and music. It seems like every generation has music parents don't like that children want to listen to. I remember my parents giving me "grief" about some of the music I listened to as a teenager, and how I thought I would never give my kids grief about their music. I was going to be a mom that kept listening to modern music, so I would like the same kind of music my teenagers liked. It just did not happen.

Part of the reason might be that the words and content of some of the music my son wanted to listen to was just not appropriate. But maybe it's more than that. It's not that I don't like modern pop music, there's a lot I do like. However, I find that when I am in a position to just listen to whatever I want, like in the car by myself, I always go back to the music I listened to long ago. That was the music that really seemed to speak to me in some way, the music that you hear a song and you go "Oh, I love that song!" The same when I purchase something, I go back to the 1970s. I think the only music I have purchased that's newer than the 70s is Christmas music. Maybe it's because those passageways in my brain formed those connections, and then they stopped. You guys are mostly too young to have experienced that, but see if it holds true as you get older.

Bang the Drum Slowly

This was the title of the movie I saw at a movie screening at the Orem Library last night. The Library is showing baseball themed movies this summer, and indeed this was a baseball movie, sort of. It was released in 1973, and so it was kind of fun to see the fashion of my junior high days. It seemed a little slow moving, maybe methodical is a better word for it. I wonder if they would make it the same way now - probably not. It was apparently a big box office hit and critically acclaimed. Don't get me wrong, in many ways, it was a great movie.

There were two themes that really stuck out to me. The first was true friendship. This is a story of two baseball players, one the star pitcher of the New York Yankees, Arthur or Henry, the other a less than brilliant catcher, Bruce. The very first of the movie, the catcher is diagnosed with an incurable disease. The pitcher is a true friend, and determines to make this season a good one for his buddy. He tells no one, and even insists, when he hears Bruce might be traded, that a clause be added to his contract that he goes wherever Bruce goes. He protects him from a devious girl-friend, and tries to keep the manager from finding out that Bruce is ill. The other guys on the team don't treat him very well, and are always on him for something, the way he dresses, his hair, his hobbies, whatever. Arthur sees this, and quietly tells one person on the team that Bruce is dying. As might be expected, one by one the entire team finds out.

That is the other theme I find interesting. When the guys on the team find out, the start treating Bruce better. Not only does this help Bruce, it helps the entire team. They start out the season pretty well, but kind of slump in the middle. They have the potential to get to the World Series, but don't really play together. Bruce's illness kind of gives them something to rally around. Although, no one ever lets on to Bruce that they know. Things just change. They play better, they get along better, they win more often. And Bruce has his best season ever.

This brought to mind my last year's seminary class. Right at the end of the year, April 28th to be exact, one of my students was killed in an accident. She was hit by a train when walking on train tracks near a beach in Ventura. She was a smart, beautiful young woman with tons of potential. She was just six weeks shy of graduation. She was out class vice president. Our class was one that had known each other for years, they all grew up together. So they were friends, but there were divisions, especially where the girls were concerned. These two didn't like these two and were mean to them, etc. After Amanda's death, they all came together. They cried together, they clung to each other and to their faith. And they came to discover what did and didn't matter. One girl seemed to take Amanda's death particularly hard. At our final testimony meeting of the year, she shared what she had learned from this experience. She said that she learned that what is important is our relationships with other people and how we treat them. Because you just never know.

Why is it takes a tragedy for us to treat others with the kindness and respect? The movie was another great example of this. When his teammates found out Bruce was dying, suddenly they saw him differently. They accepted him and helped make his last days on earth happy.

I loved the final line of the movie. Arthur attends Bruce's funeral, and as he stands looking at his grave, he says, "From here on in, I rag nobody." Good advice for us all.

Theatre of the Absurd

Absurdism theatre includes plays from the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s as well as other works that evolved from these works. There are several characteristics of these types of plays, comedy mixed with horrific or tragic images, characters caught in hopeless situations and/or forced to do repetitive or meaningless things, dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism and the concept of the "well-made play" (from Wikipedia). The absurd theatre movement originated in Paris (big shock). Many of the playwrites were French, Jean Genet, Jean Tardieu, Boris Vian. Others were born somewhere else, but lived in France and wrote in French, such as Samuel Beckett and Arthur Adamov. The basic philosophy of these playwrights is giving artistic articulation to Albert Camus' philosophy that life is inherently without meaning.

These plays/productions to me seem to be very depressing. Apparently, they portray problems, human weakness, all the bad things life can bring, with no solutions. Life is simply hopeless and meaningless, and people are just basically rotten. One of the plays of this period is "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" This play won many awards in 1963, including the Tony Award for Best Play. The story is about two couples who get drunk in the home of one couple and "engage in relentless, scathing verbal and sometimes physical abuse" (Wikipedia), toward each other and sometimes the other couple. According to Edward Albee, the playwrite, who's afraid of Virginia Woolf means who's afraid of the big bad wolf . . . who's afraid of living life without false illusions. So, let's not try to be any better than the base, natural man that everyone has inside, and just give up. Because trying to be any better is a "false illusion."

The Getty!

I just got back from a visit to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. It was fabulous! I am a little ashamed to say that I have lived here for 20 years, and watched the Getty being built, but have never been. What an amazing way to spend an afternoon. And the best part, the Getty is FREE. You have to pay 15$ to park, but then you have to spend $15 to park anywhere in LA. If you ever come to Southern California to do the beach thing, and Disney land, spend an afternoon at the Getty.


I'm glad I came after studying architecture and also painting. I appreciated it so much more and enjoyed the experience so much more than I would have. The Getty is build on 700 acres on a hill overlooking much of the Los Angeles area. The architect is Richard Meyer, and after studying architecture, it was easy to see what his style was - very modernist. The tour guide asked us to observe and tell him what Meyer's favorite color was, what his favorite shape was, and what his favorite building material was. His favorite color was white, his favorite shape is the square, and his favorite building materials are metal and glass. Luckily, the Getty committee who hired him insisted that he use stone too, or it would have all been white squares of metal and glass squares for the buildings. The travertine marble used was really beautiful and helped the building blend in with the surrounding hills. Even the gardens it seemed were planned by sculptors rather than by landscape architects. All of the sycamore trees used on the property have half of their leaves carefully removed to allow just the right amount of filtered sun through.


But enough about the buildings and grounds. There was amazing stuff inside the buildings too. They had an exhibit of Illustrated Manuscripts from 1300 and 1400s that were pretty incredible. The detail and depth of the illustrations were amazing, and some of them were very small, as in a prayer book about the size of our smallest scriptures. It is remarkable that these books and illustrations are 600 -700 years old! Some of the detail was so tiny and the lines were so fine, I can't imaging what they would have used to create such detail.


They also had an exhibit of Italian religious paintings. One of my favorite was a picture of Christ. I am used to LDS artists depictions of Christ, particularly close-ups of his face. This one is different, but hauntingly powerful. There is such expression, pain and sorrow, yet there is love. It is a small painting, but one that really touched me. This painting is by Correggio about 1525, Counter-Reformation era.

I also got to see an original Van Gogh. That was one of the highlights of this trip. The painting is Irises. This was done while he was in the asylum for his mental illness. This seems to me to show a lighter, possibly happy side of Van Gogh. Perhaps he was feeling hopeful, maybe his treatment was going well. The colors are vibrant and clear and high key. I think the one white iris is interesting. No two flowers are the same, in the painting or in nature. But the white one is more different than the others. I wonder if Van Gogh felt like he was more different than other people. The white iris in this painting stands out in a positive way. It is strong and tall, and adds beauty and contrast to the other flowers, much the same way Van Gogh's paintings are more different and distinctive than other painters, and adds so much to the art world, and to all the world.

This is so long, but I have only scratched the surface of what I was able to experience today. I saw Monet, Degas, Titian, Domier, Courbet and so many more artist's paintings that I have not heard of. This experience was definitely a 10. We should all go!