‘I can’t sell you hope when there isn’t any.’

Rural noir. Noir is ‘fundamentally nocturnal’, writes Oliver Harris, but in They Live By Night (Nicholas Ray, 1948), the city is seen in the daylight. It is the rural spaces, those close to nature that should signify peace, earthliness, purity, that are represented only in darkness. The open spaces here do not signify freedom but uncertainty and inevitable destruction. The open pathway leading Bowie (Farley Granger) to farewell his wife leaves him stripped bare as target to the unseen killers. A retreat to this landscape was, and always will be, fraught with deadly consequence. In noir they are always enveloped in danger, even when they are surrounded by nothing, by emptiness, by pure and (visibly) untarnished space. Bell is right: there is no place left to go.

‘Should’ve known you’d know where to find the boys and the booze.’

 Aside from the above line, there’s not too much I liked about Mommie Dearest (Frank Perry, 1981). Explain:

A little bit of a rehash (lite) of Sandra Dee’s Imitation of Life appeal to Lana Turner: ‘Oh Mother, stop acting!’ A bit too easy to run into this territory when depicting a celebrity-mother/daughter relationship.

*aside: this is a great film.

Supposedly, according to the script, Joan Crawford said something like ‘the real world expects us to live a certain way.’ Who knows if she did? But, I can believe it. Interesting to consider in contrast with Dyer’s Stars.  Stars were types, images, significatory. Did stars control this? Sometimes, yes- Dyer says Joan Crawford controlled hers. Or was it the media? Certainly not entirely bottom-up controlled by fans, but taken into consideration. By Crawford? Maybe this needs a thesis…

Film finishes with some crock about Christina saying she doesn’t have the last word, accompanied by a meaningful fade where the audience is meant to clue in and think ‘Oh, haha, no she doesn’t because we just saw this movie about her, isn’t that clever’.

Second adopted son (or, third, factually- these lines are nicely fictionalised for the plot) conveniently disappears so Perry can concentrate on the mother/daughter relationship for the second half of the film. Then reappears for a mourn at Crawford’s death. If only reality was that easy.

Theory at bedtime

Yesterday I got up early, had a coffee with a friend, picked up Paul Virilio’s War and Cinema from the library, then went home and it took me until 5pm to write a 500 word post for my World Screen blog. Very slow day.

Went to the gym (a house excursion!), cooked eggplant and chickpea soup. Read some Susan Sontag, Jean Baudrillard, and went to sleep at ten o’clock thinking about Sontag: ‘Most contemporary expressions of concern that an image-world is replacing the real one continue to echo, as Feuerbach did, the Platonic depreciation of the image: true insofar as it resembles something real, sham because it is no more than a resemblance.’

I’ve recently made myself a Facebook profile- is my obsession, and obviously thousands of other peoples’, with our images, constructed of our chosen ‘interests’ and our uploaded photograph collections, evidence of this disappearance of the real world? My online page resembles me, but so vaguely- it is a sham because it is no more than a resemblance, and a resemblance of only some of my parts. For a sum of my parts, I need myself, in the real.

That said, I’ve been having a lot of fun with my mobile phone camera lately. And am obviously moving in the direction of wasting yet another day for study.

Severin’s bended knee

Venus In Furs. The Velvet Underground.

Shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather
Whiplash girlchild in the dark
Clubs and bells, your servant, dont forsake him
Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart

Downy sins of streetlight fancies
Chase the costumes she shall wear
Ermine furs adorn the imperious
Severin, severin awaits you there

I am tired, I am weary
I could sleep for a thousand years
A thousand dreams that would awake me
Different colors made of tears

Kiss the boot of shiny, shiny leather
Shiny leather in the dark
Tongue of thongs, the belt that does await you
Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart

Severin, severin, speak so slightly
Severin, down on your bended knee
Taste the whip, in love not given lightly
Taste the whip, now plead for me

I am tired, I am weary
I could sleep for a thousand years
A thousand dreams that would awake me
Different colors made of tears

Shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather
Whiplash girlchild in the dark
Severin, your servant comes in bells, please dont forsake him
Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart