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Bandits — The Film

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Bandits
Post Created by Jk the secret keeper
Illustrated by j. kiley
Film Review by Roger Ebert with Jk’s Interpretations in CAPS
Post Created On 1st August 2013
Posted On Friday 2nd August 2013
FILM FRIDAY

dedicated to roger ebert film friday

BANDITS: 5 stars

Bandits poster  great
Starring: Cate Blanchett — Bruce Willis — Billy Bob Thorton

Roger Ebert
October 12, 2001

“Bandits” is a movie so determined to be clever and whimsical that it neglects to be anything else. That decision wouldn’t be fatal if the movie had caved in and admitted it was a comedy, but, no, it also wants to contain moments of pathos, suspense and insight, and it’s too flimsy to support them. [I DON'T AGREE WITH ROGER HERE. IT DOES TAKE ON THE COMEDY QUALITY. HIS REVIEW WAS IN 2001. A SENSE OF HUMOUR CHANGES. ONCE CATE BLANCHETT JOINS THE FILM IT BUBBLES ALL OVER THE PLACE] It’s an anthology of unrelated tones; individual scenes may play well, but seem unaware of the movie they’re in. And the love triangle never decides if it’s romance or romantic comedy. If the movie won’t commit, why should we? [BECAUSE IT IS A WORTHY FILM TO COMMIT TOO.] It’s rare for a movie to have three such likable characters and be so unlikeable itself. Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton star, as “America’s most famous bank robbers,” and Cate Blanchett is Kate,

cate singing i need a hero crazy shot She makes a spectacular feast for her husband as she sings along with the song I Need A Hero. She’s having a grand time. And then her husband arrives. What a disappointment he is. No wonder she turns to such gentle men played by Billy Bob Thorton and Bruce Willis. How they come about to meet is one of the funniest scenes in the films. Jk

Bonnie Tyler — I Need a Hero

the executive’s wife who starts as their hostage and becomes their lover. Yes, both of them (or neither of them; the PG-13 movie is cagey about what happens in between those knocks on the motel room doors). She can’t choose. She likes Joe (Willis) because he’s brave, strong and handsome, and Terry (Thornton) because he’s sensitive and cute. [THE LOVE BETWEEN THE THREE OF THEM DOESN'T GO THE LURID ROUTE. IT STAYS SENSITIVE AND APPEALING. YOU UNDERSTAND THEIR RELUCTANCE TO CHOOSE AS THEIR LOVE TOGETHER GROWS]
bandits all three

Thornton’s character is the jewel–a neurotic, fearful hypochondriac who is lactose intolerant, hears a ringing in his ears, suffers from psychosomatic paralysis, and has a phobia about antique furniture. (You never know what’s real and what they’re making up in the movies; Thornton has a real-life phobia about antique furniture, in fact, and almost had a meltdown once during a visit to Johnny Cash’s antiques-filled home.) [BILLY BOB PLAYS UP THE HYPOCHONDRIAC VERY SUBTLY. YET AT THE SAME TIMR DIRECT.]

bandits 6 shot cate

The plot: The partners break out of prison after Joe steals a cement truck, and there’s a nice shot of it plowing its way through suburban back yards. Terry comes up with the idea of taking bank managers hostage in their homes the night before a job, so they can get into the bank before business hours in the morning. [THIS SCENE IS RIP ROARING HYSTERICAL. YOU CAN'T HELP BUT CHEER.]

Bandits-cate looking sad with bruce back to us

They steal a lot of loot, become celebrities, and stay on the loose for an amazing length of time, considering their driver, lookout and “outside man” is Joe’s moronic cousin Harvey (Troy Garity), who dreams of being a stunt man. [TROY GARITY (JANE FONDA'S SON) IS A BIT OF A SCREW UP BUT IT IS WHAT MAKES HIM LOVEABLE.]

cate looking pensive

The movie, directed by Barry Levinson and written by Harley Peyton (“Twin Peaks”), is told in a flashback and actually begins with the news that the two men have been shot dead after a failed hostage situation. Cut to a tabloid TV show whose host got an exclusive interview shortly before the final shootout. [THE NEWS MAN IS NOT TOO INTRUSIVE. HE PLAYS HIS ROLE RATHER WELL.]

Bandits-cate-blanchett-tears

Joe and Terry narrate their career, try to justify themselves, and say Kate was an innocent hostage and not a fellow criminal. [THEY OF COURSE DO THIS TO NOT INCRIMINATE CATE IN THEIR SCHEMES. SHE JUST WANTS TO BE WITH THEM. YOU CANNOT HOLD THAT AGAINST HER AFTER YOU MEET HER CARELESS HUSBAND IN THE FIRST PART OF THE FILM. HE'S A JERK. ALSO, THE WAY THE THREE HAPPEN TO COME TOGETHER IS WHAT MAKES THIS FILM TURN THE ROAD TO THE DEEPER COMEDIC SIDE AND PULLS IT OFF RATHER WELL.]

Bandits cate and bruce

Eventually the film works its way back to the fatal robbery it began with, and to the classic line, “The suspects are in a shootout with themselves.” The film has laughs sprinkled here and there. I liked the way the confused Terry asks Joe, “What’s on our mind?”

Bandits billy and bruce

And the way Kate’s preoccupied husband, [HE IS SO INSIGNIFICANT YOU BARELY REMEMBER HIS SCENES, EXCEPT YOU'D LIKE TO KICK HIM IN THE "JUNK" LIKE MEN CALL IN AND FEAR IT BEING HURT.] a self-involved hotshot, goes on TV to tell the kidnapped woman: “I’m going to Spain next week. If the kidnappers want to reach me, they can get in touch with my people.” And I liked the jolly little fireplug of a bank manager who is delighted to meet the “Sleepover Bandits” in person, but cannot take them seriously.

Bandits billy bob and bruce

Problem is, the movie doesn’t commit to any of the several directions in which it meanders. Is the romantic triangle poignant, or a gimmick? [FIGURE THIS ONE OUT YOUR SELF. I WAS SATISFIED/PLEASED.] Do the guys joke and make small talk during robberies because this is a comedy, or because they are pathological narcissists? [NO, IT IS BECAUSE THEY ARE NICE GUYS IN THE SENSE OF BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID. IT WORKS FOR ME.] The flashback structure is an annoyance, [NOT REALLY. I LOVE ROGER BUT I THINK IT WAS AT THE TIME WHEN HE FIRST REVIEWS BANDITS THAT PUTS HIM IN A GRUMPY MOOD WHEN HE REVIEWS THIS FILM. IT WAS IN OCTOBER 2001]

Bandits-cate-blanchett-billy bob going to kiss

and by the time it is justified, it’s too late: We’ve already been annoyed. One of the joys of Barry Levinson’s “Wag The Dog” (1997) [VERY FUNNY FILM 'WAG THE DOG' --- A MUST SEE, ALSO] was the way he juggled tones, moving from satire to suspense to politics. This time it’s the audience who feels juggled.[I FELT OVERJOYED WHEN CATE JOINED THE TWO AND MADE IT INTO THE COMEDY IT WAS INTENDING TO BE. HOLD OUT FOR A HERO. SHE GETS TWO. YES, THEY ARE BANK ROBBERS BUT RATHER POLITE ONES AT THAT. SEE THE FILM. YOU WILL SEE WHAT I MEAN. Jk the secret keeper]

Bandits three in one

[I LOVE THIS FILM AND HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT FOR ALL THE PERFORMANCES BUT ESPECIALLY CATE BLANCHETT WHO MAKES THIS FILM AND BILLY BOB THORNTON. BRUCE WILLIS IS RATHER SUBTLE AND LAID BACK BUT HE IS SMOOTH. AND TONY GARITY, HE IS JUST PLAIN SILLY BUT WHEN HE NEEDS TO DO WHAT HE NEEDS TO DO HE COMES THROUGH IN SPADES. IF YOU WANT A LIGHT AND HUMOUROUS ROMP THIS IS THE FILM TO SEE. SORRY ROGER, YOU ARE ONE OF THE BEST BUT I DISAGREE WITH YOU IN A GREAT MANY POINTS. BUT IT IS FUN TO JOUST WITH YOU WHEN I DISAGREE.]
Jk the secret keeper honouring but not playing agree b/c Roger Ebert is the champ. I just like to feel his presence when I think about a film and still like to know his opinion, agree or disagree. I vote thumbs up with a 5 star rating for fun and humour. Jk

Bandits Trailers


Filed under: actors, comedy, director, entertainment, film, film friday, film review, fun, humor, humour, movie trailer, relationships, romance, screenplay, story, words Tagged: actors, bandits, bank robbers, billy bob thorton, bonnie tyler, bruce willis, cate blanchett, comedy, comparison to butch cassidy and the sundance kid, film, film reviews, funny, humor, humour, i need a hero, movie trailer, photos, poster, roger ebert, sleepover bandits, song, three way triangle

Chapter #20: No Sympathy For the Devil

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Chapter #20: No Sympathy For the Devil
Letters of Import: Private Writings to a Psychoanalyst
Written by Jennifer Kiley
Illustrated & Awesome Waves by j. kiley
Post Created 2nd August 2013
Introduction & Chapter #1 Published 19th March 2013
Published Early Tuesday AM
Chapter #20 Posted 6th August 2013
WARNING: ADULT LANGUAGE AND CONTENT.
NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN.

ALL CHARACTERS ARE FICTITIOUS.
ANYONE RESEMBLING ANYONE LIVING OR DEAD
IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.

Letters of Import: No Sympathy For the Devil — Chapter #20

“You cursed brat! Look what you’ve done! I’m melting! melting! Oh, what a world! What a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness? Oooooh, look out! I’m going! Oooooh! Ooooooh!” — Wicked Witch of the West

I’m Melting! – The Wizard of Oz — Movie CLIP (1939) HD

Tuesday 5th February 2008

Annie,

I can’t believe what you announced at group today. It’s a shock beyond anything expected. What the hell happened? How could one of the members of group just die. No one has any answers. Dr. George was way too silent. His strange today was more than weird. It was eery. Remember what I told you about my last session with him. A week ago, he accused me of spreading a rumour. He told me it wasn’t true and accused me of making it up to get him in trouble. First, I never spread any rumour. Secondly, I had no idea what he was talking about. He kept saying it wasn’t true. What wasn’t true?

What I can remember is, he said, I told people, what people, he was having an affair with one of his clients. I’m not even going to theorize on this one. Now a client is dead. Someone I wasn’t really friends with either. In fact, she was a major character in the destruction of my relationship with Dr. George. He was always feeling a strong need to defend her against anything I had to say about her. I will be honest with you. She was a racist, homophobic, classist, poor excuse for a human being. I didn’t like her and she could have stabbed me to death and stepped over my body without any problem.

Now she is dead. What am I suppose to feel? Sorry, I didn’t kiss her ass. Sorry, she tore me apart any chance she had an opening in group. Let me be plain with you. She was jealous of me. I think she hated it, my being a lesbian. She hated I had a partner who loved me and cared about me. And I loved Scottie just as much. She had a husband who cheated on her or just was too damn lazy to show her any romance. He took her for granted. You heard her complaints about him. Maybe he just got tired of living with her and took the easiest and fastest way out. Murder.

I know I am sounding crass but no love or tears shall I shed for her. That may make me sound heartless but it is how I feel. It, also, doesn’t make me feel so fuzzy and warm knowing each one of us are going to have to talk to the police detectives. Not something I want to do in person. A good British detective mystery is my cup of tea but a brash and possible homicide in the old USA is not thrilling at all.

It doesn’t appear anyone knows what happened. I do feel sorry for her children. Don’t know them but they must be hurting. Trying to draw on some empathy and sympathy for her friends in the group. And Dr. George, I am beginning to get a bad feeling about him. He is going down. Meltdown, that is. Mentally, I think he has been losing it slowly for months now. This is just going to make him completely lose it. His pet is dead. What will he do now? I didn’t see him today in session. His receptionist called and cancelled our session but still kept my appointment set for next week.

Changing subject now. Angie’s death is creeping me out. Death is scary enough but having sat in the same room for many years doing therapy and a group member, like or not like, dies suddenly, no cause of death released as of yet, is just too much to take in. I need to fantasize.

How about just a touch on Brief Sacrifice? Where we left off in the screenplay, which is included in the film, Jame’s a Savannah cat belonging to Carter McLeod, author extraordinaire, has stumbled on the beginning of the solution to a riddle with a mystery attached. No one knew how to solve the code yet. Jasper, Jax and James, all three of Carter’s Savannah cats were honing in on breaking part of the solution. The first three letters of the code were S.I.T. It meant something. The initial stood for something which Carter felt would help unravel the rest of the codes letters and numbers.

“Time to get back to this.” Carter told her boys. “James, do you feel any vibes coming from the jumbled numbers or the other letters?”

James placed his right paw on what appeared to be a number this time. Carter took firm hold of his paw and lifted it. Underneath was the number 62. “What does number 62 mean? What does S.I.T. and 62 have in common?”

“James are you getting anything else? Maybe a word or name. Anything at all that makes sense.”

James reached out his right paw and places it over two different letters, the letter ‘R’ and the letter ‘M.’ When he seemed finished he crawled into his mum’s lap waiting for his reward. Carter ran her right hand from the top of James head and slowly slid her hand down the length of his body and at the end encircled his tail, finishing her petting by sliding her closed hand all the way up to the tip of his tail and then released. James purr was a contented and satisfying sound. He actually appeared to be smiling.

“Now, let us see what we have. The number 62. The letters S.I.T. and the letters R.M. What they mean, I have no idea. Maybe we should try to google them together online and see if the internet comes up with something.”

Carter opened up her laptop. Once loaded up, she opened her browser. Clicked Google on her Toolbar. The page was open to search. Carter typed in all the clues so far and waited while Google responded.

“Well, that can’t be right. Route 62 or Rotten Tomatoes review of I Heart Huckabees. That cannot possibly be right. Maybe if I enter each one separately. That’s how you gave them to us, James. Let’s give it another try.”

Once again Carter entered the first clue, but this time asked it a question about the letters. Are they initials for the title of a book or of a famous person? The S.I.T stands for the title of the book Somewhere In Time and the initials R.M. are the author’s name, Richard Matheson. A short synopsis, she reads aloud to her boys.

Somewhere in Time is the unforgettable story of a love that transcends the boundaries of time. Richard Collier, a man of the modern era, becomes obsessed with a woman of another time, a celebrated actress at the turn of the century. His fascination with Elise McKenna proves strong enough to physically transport him back to 1896, where he meets and woos the woman of his dreams. But for how long can their passion resist the relentless tide of history? Somewhere in Time inspired a 1980 film starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour that has become a genuine cult classic.”

“I know that movie. I love that movie. It is so romantic. I’ve seen it so many times. Why didn’t the letters click in my brain right away. James, I think you are onto something here. First thing, we need to do is get a copy of Somewhere In Time. I would wager the number 62 is a page number. Let me read a bit more.”

Carter looks down the page and finds some customer reviews of the book. She looks to see if maybe she might find something helpful. “Wow! What is this about. Here is a passage from the book I don’t remember them mentioning in the film.”

“Listen, guys, let me read this to you, ‘My name is Richard Collier. I’m thirty-six years old, a television writer by profession. I’m six foot two and weigh one hundred and eighty-seven pounds.’ I’ll move ahead to the ending line that makes me feel this is rather an important point. ‘I moved to Los Angeles in 1960. My brother moved to L.A. in 1965 and I moved into the guest house behind his house the same year. I left there this morning because I’m going to die in four to six months and thought I’d write a book about it while I traveled.’ The book is about time travel. The character telling the story is going to die. Need to think, but I don’t want to jump ahead until I find out what is written on page 62. If that is what 62 means.”

James starts to purr louder and rubbing his face on his mum’s hands. “Are you telling me James, I’m thinking in the right direction?” Purring and rubbing is getting more intense from James. Carter continues to read as she continues to pet James. Jasper and Jax decide they want in on some of the affection. They both join James in their mum’s lap, as much as they are able to fit into it and along side of it. As close as they all can get, they are singing their purrs in unison. They feel there mum’s happiness through their mum’ body.

“Here is something else, I’ll try to break it down for you three adorable cuties. According to this review by a reader of the book, which repeats some of what I read before. ‘Richard Collier is a 36-year old writer with a terminal brain tumor who falls in love with the beautiful actress, Elise McKenna. But there’s one big problem. She’s dead. She lived many years ago in another time. But that doesn’t stop Richard who figures out a way to travel back in time and win her heart.’ Travel back in time seems the relevant statement. Somewhere in Time is about time travel and romance. He discovers a photograph in a visitors room in the hotel of the actress Elise McKenna and becomes obsessed with her.”

Carter hugs each of her boys with a great big snuggle. She is smiling as her mind is traveling in all directions at once. The mystery, what if it has something to do with time travel. Is that too far fetched? “Guys, I think that is enough for today. How about some dinner? I will try to find us a copy of the book Somewhere In Time. Until we get that we can still work on the rest of the letters and numbers in the code. But I think we are way ahead on figuring this out. At least, I think and hope we are. It’s possible we are being misled. We will see. I’m not sure what it means, any of this, but sure is damned exciting. Time travel. WOW!”

Well, what a day for writing. A death, which is shocking, even if no love is lost, a life is over. In itself that is enough. But I must say my way of escaping the tragic is to write and create. Having Carter McLeod figure out a possible direction the film ‘Brief Sacrifice’ might be heading, that is satisfying and important to me. Of course, I knew it before telling you but it is fun giving you sneak peaks is fun. It, also, takes my mind off of what really happened to that person in our therapy group. It is really creepy. Not something I want to think about while Scottie is away.

I did talk to her, Scottie, that is. She is going to be home in three days. Finishing up re-filming a scene that didn’t come out right in any of the takes. So, Scottie has been spending time with an actor, female, brings out my jealousy. Scottie’s not about to get involved, but if you knew this woman, you would understand my concern. She’s shattered many relationships that appeared solid on the outside. This bitch doesn’t care whose life she wrecks. Mine, I don’t want her near.

Enough for now. I hope we will be able to schedule our first private session together really soon. It feels like I am going to need you. He missed our session this week. Next week, I intend to have it out with Dr. George. I am going to confront him. Hold nothing back. I promise you. He will receive my wrath for all his indiscretions and fucking with my head. Trying to make me feel insane, delusional, unable to see or understand what I am feeling. He is going down. I will need you to put me back together again after I fall off the wall down into my darkest hole. My prediction is I am heading down. Mania high is coming to a close with depression rising. A funny irony considering all the circumstances surrounding me.

We need to talk. Soon. Until next time.

Fondly & Needing You,
Madison

Sets & Animals for Film: Brief Sacrifice with Lead Character CARTER MCLEOD. [Portrayed by BAFTA Nominated Actor NATALIE STEPHENS] Savannah Cats are Carter’s. Screenplay: MADISON TAYLOR. Director: SCOTTIE ANDREWS

brief sacrifice library living room fireplace  970x546

film ‘Brief Sacrifice’ library living room fireplace in mansion where Carter McLeod lives with her three Savannah cats, Jasper, Jax and James.

James-a neutered male Savannah Cat lounging on sofa  645x499

film ‘Brief Sacrifice’ James is one of three neutered male Savannah Cats, Carter McLeod has as her companions. He is enjoying a good lounge on his favorite sofa.

Abstract Rose by Leo Savitsky

Abstract Rose by Leo Savitsky

Soon Annie will get to read Madison’s Letters. Some at a time. All will be revealed in time.

Annie Haskell --- Madison Tayler's Psychoanalyst's Office

Dr. Annie Haskell’s Office as a Psychoanalyst— Just count the weeks.

Maksim — Somewhere In Time — Theme Song For Letters of Import

rain in garden gif

Morning Disappears
Written by Madison Taylor
February 10th 2008

Venture in the story
Continuing on without breakage
Could the story continue on
No broken chain
No link to spare
To continue from here
Until despair wears down into nothing
Expanding energy
Nothing is there
Left to grasp

Blend together
Join the lines
Belong together
Flowing wave’s crashing
Shore pulling back again
Once more in repetition
An answer to the moon’s direction
The sea governed by the moon cycles
Stars are all one
All is one with them

Now answer
Consciousness’ stream
Finding the door freeing the words
Letting go
Follow a path long ago set
Not made but entered
Trusting it is a way
To be for now
To hunt the seas of old
Begin today
Starting again
Try not to break the bond
It connects
The next strand

With no holes to stop the flow
No one falling between the cracks
The earth opens up her crust
Sucks us all inside
Boils the remains
There will be hell

Now longing for the sea
Under the waves
Covering over us
Not swimming to survive another breath
Stars photograph their memories
Imagery from shining creatures
From the darkest of deeps
No eyes have seen

Humans contain in their visions
Salty kisses on eyelashes
Wiping away the blurriness of tears
Convey feelings following close
Songs lamenting
Repeating the vanishing
Disappearing tricks of death

Beating heads
Bashing the brains inside
With senses to understand
There is no understanding
Just an illusion guided
By a magician with mirrors
Reflecting nothing seen or lost
Not revealed

Without meaning
Truly nothing exists
Beyond a pin prick in the flesh
Pulled from off our bones
When they melt into the soil
Water washes away the nutrients
Back to the sea
Where it is spoiled
By greed of oil breakers
They heat our flesh
To burn in hell
Just to stay warm
One long moment

Perishing into dust
Winds carry away
To farthest reaches
The unknown universe
Time repeats
Continues on with ideas
Crying salty tears
Proving feelings
Are happening

Experience life
Time to borrow
Quickly it’s taken away
Shortness vanishes
Leaving behind
Urges to scream

Lands far away
Recognize they are not alone
Echo returns
Neither are we
We must hurry
Nothing lasts long enough
Recording its real existence
It is stolen away again
Again and again

The teacher stops
Repeating souls in mannequin form
Until the end of repeats
It is overdone
Finished
We are no more
Does anyone want the choice
Completely coming to a close
Never to be again
Thoughts of feeling
No more pain
The choice is life
To feel
Or death
To be numb
Forever more
Life would be
The choice

© madison taylor 2008

awe-some green 1Awesome Waves — Artist j. kiley

The Rolling Stones – Sympathy For The Devil (Live) – OFFICIAL

“A Dream
The beginning always starts out with a dream.
It is all a dream
In our own nightmares”
— Madison Taylor

english garden off the back marble patio  972x732

English garden off the back marble patio

Patrick when he was five weeks. He is a Bengal kitten. Madison gave to Scottie as a present for her Birthday. As he grows he becomes devoted to her.

Patrick when he was five weeks. He is a Bengal kitten. Madison gave to Scottie as a present for her Birthday. As he grows he becomes devoted to her.

Patrick at 3 mos is a curious fellow, always checking the unusual out 1093x479

Patrick at 3 mos is a curious fellow, always checking the unusual out

Patrick is our Bengal cat in tree. He loves Scotties. They are buddies.   1612x1212

Patrick is our Bengal cat in tree. It is protected area. Patrick cannot leave property from there. He loves Scottie. They are buddies.

Awesome lighted treehouse on the estate of chateau de rocher  642x432

Awesome lighted tree-house on the estate of Chateau de Rocher. A place of escape for Madison. She liked to run away when she was a kid. Climbing trees were her favorite places to hide. Scottie had this built for Madison as their 10th Anniversary present.

play is not just play meryl streep


Filed under: abstract art, actor, art, artist, artistic temperament, author, bipolar, creative high, digital art, director, divine madness, fiction, film, illustrations, imagination, inspiration, lesbian, letters, madness, mental breakdown, mentally creative, muse, music, mystery, novel, painting, photos, poem, poet, poetry, prose, psychoanalyst, psychological thriller, psychotherapy, screenplay, screenwriter, storytelling, words, writer, writing Tagged: abstract art, actor, art, artist, author, bipolar, cats, creative high, digital art, director, fiction, film, imagination, inspiration, lesbian, letters, madness, mental breakdown, mentally creative, muse, music, mystery, novel, painting, photos, poem, poet, prose, psychoanalyst, psychological thriller, screenplay, screenwriter, storytelling, words, writer, writing

The Words — FILM FRIDAY

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The Words
Post Created by Jk the secret keeper
Illustrated by j. kiley
Review by Roger Ebert & Jennifer Kiley
Post Created on 5th August 2013
Posted On 9th August 2013
FILM FRIDAY

dedicated to roger ebert film friday

title black background  the words

5 stars

There’s more than one way to take a life.

movie-poster-the-word book coverThe Words (2012)

Roger Ebert
September 5, 2012

Almost every word Ernest Hemingway wrote in the years immediately before 1922 was lost by his first wife Hadley, who packed the pages in a briefcase and lost it on a train. Hardly an American lit student lives who has not heard this story.

The-Words-bradley alone with briefcase

Hemingway’s lost prose lives on, in a sense, in the movie “The Words,” which opens with a writer named Clayton Hammond (Dennis Quaid) reading from his new novel in a Manhattan bookstore. But hold on. Don’t get ahead of the story. I know you’re thinking Hammond’s book is actually the long-lost Hemingway manuscript. But the movie adds another level. His book is about another novelist who finds the lost briefcase in a Paris antique shop.

The-Words-briefcaseMost of “The Words” is about that novelist. His name is Rory Jansen (Bradley Cooper), and he has a wife named Dora (Zoe Saldana). Dora is a famous name among novelist’s wives, but never mind. Her purpose here is to shoehorn a beautiful woman into the movie, which includes two others: Celia (Nora Arnezeder), a Parisian mistress, who is the one who leaves the briefcase on the train, and Danielle (Olivia Wilde), a graduate student who falls for Clayton Hammond at his reading.

The-Words-Australian-movie-posterThe original novelist at the beginning of this series of events is known only as The Old Man (Jeremy Irons), and he is seen only when already Old. If you’re thinking of The Old Man and the Sea, don’t blame me. After Rory Jansen finds the novel and publishes it as his own, he finds himself in the park one day, having a conversation with The Old Man, who tells him the story of how he came to write the novel and lose it.

the words old manI doubt if either one of us could pass a quiz on that plot. It’s a level too many and sidesteps a more promising approach: What if the movie were about the real Ernest Hemingway discovering that his lost manuscript had been found and published by a stranger? That would eliminate the need for the Dennis Quaid and Olivia Wilde characters, provide an opening for some juicy Hemingway dialogue, and create an excuse for a passionate affair between Hemingway and the succulent Dora. Of course you’d need some time compression, because the various events in the movie seem to span perhaps 90 years.

the-words-with manuscript old paperThe Words,” written and directed by Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal, may sound like a movie about literature, but it isn’t. It ingeniously avoids quoting more than a few words from the Hemingwayesque novel, and although Clayton Hammond reads more from his novel, there’s no suggestion that we’re dealing with the Son of Hemingway, or even the Cousin Of. The movie does however slyly leave open the possibility that his novel is the story of his own life.

words-entering manuscript on to laptopWhat does work are the performances, especially Jeremy Irons as The Old Man. He’s not as angry about Jansen’s plagiarism, as you might assume, and indeed the real Hemingway considered his lost manuscripts “juvenile work.” (In life, Hadley did save a few carbons, one of which was the short story “Up in Michigan,” which is a work of genius. We can only wonder what was lost.)

the-words-talking to old man in greenhouseWatching the movie, I enjoyed the settings, the periods and the acting. I can’t go so far as to say I cared about the story, particularly after it became clear that its structure was too clever by half. There’s also an appearance by J.K. Simmons as Jansen’s father, not a very necessary character, but it’s funny how often you see Simmons playing someone in a movie and
wish the whole movie was about him.

The-Words-manuscipt entering into laptopTHE WORDS
REVIEW WRITTEN BY JENNIFER KILEY
SATURDAY 4th AUGUST 2013

A GREAT REVIEW BY ROGER EBERT AND FACTS I DIDN’T CONSIDER WHILE WATCHING THE FILM MYSELF. I AM AN AVID HEMINGWAY FAN BUT WAS UNAWARE OF THE LOST MANUSCRIPT. KNOWING THAT NOW DOES ADD DIMENSION TO THE VIEWING OF ‘THE WORDS.’ I AGREE WITH ROGER EBERT THAT THE CHARACTERS DENNIS QUAID AND OLIVIA WILDE ARE PRETTY UNNECESSARY TO THE TELLING OF THE STORY. THEIR ONLY VALUE SEEMS TO BE SETTING UP THE PREMISE OF ONE WRITER WRITING ABOUT ANOTHER WRITER FINDING THE MISSING MANUSCRIPT.

the-words-2012 words form the bust of bradley cooperONE IS NOT SURE WHILE WATCHING ‘THE WORD’ WHAT IS THE REALITY AND WHAT IS THE FICTION. ARE ANY OF THE CHARACTERS IN THE FILM REAL. MAYBE DENNIS QUAID IS THE ONLY REAL CHARACTER TELLING THE REST OF THE STORY IN HIS BOOK. AT THE VERY BEGINNING OF THE FILM YOU SEE A PROMINENTLY VIEWED BOOK WITH THE TITLE ‘THE WORDS.’ IT DOES SET OFF THE FILM ON A JOURNEY TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IS HAPPENING.I FELT THE BACK STORY OF THE CHARACTERS FROM THE FAR LONG AGO PAST IS RATHER BORING. THAT COULD BE PULLED TOGETHER AND REFERRED IN A MORE MINIMAL WAY.

hug_between bradley and zoe

THE MOST INTERESTING PARTS OF THE FILM EVOLVE AROUND THE BRADLEY COOPER CHARACTER. I FOUND MYSELF MUCH MORE INTERESTED IN WHAT WAS HAPPENING TO HIS LIFE, HIS DECISIONS, HIS RELATIONSHIPS AND HIS DIALOGUE, ESPECIALLY WITH THE OLD MAN PLAYED BY JEREMY IRONS. IRONS WAS BRILLIANT. COMPARING THIS ALL TO HEMINGWAY’S MISSING MANUSCRIPT & THE OLD MAN BEING A CUTE REFERENCE TO HEMINGWAY’S BOOK ‘THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA’ WOULD HAVE BEEN AN INTERESTING INCLUSION IN THE FILM IF THE DIRECTOR AND SCREENWRITER HAD BEEN ASTUTE ENOUGH TO USE THAT IN THEIR PREMISE. IT WOULD HAVE DEFINITELY IMPROVED THE OVERALL INTRIGUE.

the words center of bradley's faceI REALLY FOUND THIS FILM ABSORBING AND HAVE WATCHED SEVERAL TIMES. READING ROGER EBERT’S REVIEW, AS I STATED, MAKES THE FILM EVEN MORE INTRIGUING. TOO BAD ROGER DIDN’T HAVE INPUT WITH THE SCREENWRITER. MAYBE THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE MORE RESEARCH AND INCLUDED THE REFERENCE TO HEMINGWAY OR MAYBE THEY KNEW AND DIDN’T GET THAT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN AN IMPORTANT ELEMENT TO INCLUDE IN THE STORYLINE.

bradley-cooper-zoe-the-words

I, FOR ONE, WOULD HAVE FOUND THAT FASCINATING IF THE LOST MANUSCRIPT HAD ACTUALLY BEEN ERNEST HEMINGWAY’S,THE ONE HIS WIFE CARELESSLY LOST ON HIM. HOW FRUSTRATING IS THAT AND HOW IMPORTANT THAT WOULD HAVE PUMPED UP THE WHOLE DEPTH OF THE STORY. THE WHOLE FILM WOULD HAVE TAKEN ON A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT AURA.

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JUST THE SAME, THE FILM IS WORTHY OF BEING SEEN IN JUST THE WAY IT IS PORTRAYED. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT. WRITERS, IN PARTICULAR, WILL ENJOY THE DEBATE IN THEIR OWN MIND, HOW ETHICAL OVERALL WAS THE DECISION BRADLEY COOPER’S CHARACTER MADE. SEE THE FILM ‘THE WORDS’ AND ENJOY AN INTRIGUING CONCEPT FOR A STORY. YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED. I ENJOYED EVERY TIME I VIEWED ‘THE WORDS.’ Written by Jennifer Kiley

the-words-movie-poster-as book coverCast: ‘The Words’

Bradley Cooper as Rory
Dennis Quaid as Clayton
Zoe Saldana as Dora
Olivia Wilde as Danielle
Jeremy Irons as Old Man

The-Words-Movie-jeremy back of head bradley smiling at old man

Written and directed by

Brian Klugman
Lee Sternthal

the_words_the face of a man with hesitant ethicsDrama, Thriller, 96 minutes

Rated PG-13 for brief strong language and smoking

JESS3_CBS_TheWords-Infographic_V4

The Words – Official Trailer (2012) [HD] Bradley Cooper

The-Words bradley zoe walking briefcase under bradley's arm

The Words Trailer 2 Official 2012 [HD 1080] – Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana

the words banner


Filed under: actors, author, book, director, film, film friday, film review, illustrations, manuscript, novel, photos, poster, story, storytelling, thought provoking, words, work, writers, writing Tagged: artistic literature, bradley cooper, dennis quaid, film, film friday, film reviews, france, jeremy irons, manuscript, manuscript theft, paris, plagerism, roger ebert, story within a story, the words, writer's block, writers, zoe saldana

Chapter #22: Outraged Fortune

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Chapter #22: Outraged Fortune
Letters of Import: Private Writings to a Psychoanalyst
Written by Jennifer Kiley
Illustrated by j. kiley
Published Introduction & Chapter #1 On 19th March 2013
Published Early Tuesday AM
Chapter #22 Published On 20th August 2013
WARNING: ADULT LANGUAGE AND CONTENT.
NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN.

ALL CHARACTERS ARE FICTITIOUS.
ANYONE RESEMBLING ANYONE LIVING OR DEAD
IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.

Letters of Import: Outraged Fortune — Chapter #22

Tuesday 19th February 2008

Annie,

You would be proud of me today, Annie. I finally stood up to Dr. George in a once-and-for-all confrontation. I told him off during our private session. The usual mood of unrest was between us. But today the hostility seemed more heightened. The session started almost immediately with animosity. I spoke honestly about my feelings regarding a specific group member who I felt had been treating me with contempt and judgement. She’d made it impossible for me to feel safe and supported in the group especially by Dr. George.

Other members of the group were contemptuous toward me, also, with two exceptions. Kristina was one women who supports me and the other woman is you, Annie. I must tell you, I am so grateful to you for standing by me, helping me feel some sense of security. Well, for some time in our private sessions, whenever I was honest about how a group member made me feel, he would say I was being critical and always come to their defense, without any words of support for me. Not even to say I’d made good observations, maybe we should talk about why I felt that way. What specifically is it they do that bothers me. Instead he would tell me my reality was imaginary. He told me my feelings were inappropriate and I was overreacting. What I thought was happening wasn’t remotely close to accurate. He accused me of delusional, irrational thinking.

Well, I tried to be reasonable and told him specifics of a particular day. I was exacting in detail of what was said and how. I held nothing back. My angry persona was fed up with my therapist’s bullshit and let him have it full force. I told him this group member was racist, homophobic, classist and her language was disgraceful, calling lesbians and gay men, derogatory terms, and with black people, she used the ”N” word. People who didn’t have her wealth, they were beneath her and didn’t deserve to live. I am holding back and being rather kind describing her language and the way she thought about and acted toward others.

He told me I was cruel and used unimaginable criticisms. That was enough for me. All those years of therapy holding back the anger sent my angry persona flying into an extremely powerful rage, telling Dr. George to go fuck himself. It didn’t matter it was Angie who was the center of the emotional storm setting off the rage and the insulting behavior of Dr. George. She was dead and possibly murdered, but delicacy, when it concerned Angie, meant nothing to me. For years Angie had been treating me like shit. Mourning her loss did not fit when I felt such loathing for her. Yes. I knew her children didn’t deserve the pain, but maybe they were lucky to be out from under her influence. Please don’t feel I went too far saying those words. Enduring this monster from Hell for too many years, has been an act of punishment for the entire group.

Dr. George couldn’t stop himself. A sign he was losing his professionalism completely. He repeated his words, I was cruel and unfeeling, calling me the monster. I lost it. My limit had been reached of what I would take from him. My angry persona went into a blinding rage and did something we hadn’t done since we were young. We pushed our body out of our chair, crossed to his office door, opened it and walked through it. With the greatest of forward motion, using all our strength, we slammed his door as hard as our strength would allow, sending an echoing of splintering wood throughout the clinic. I preceded to walk vigorously through the halls proceeded to the Clinic exit, leaving the building swiftly, knowing I had no intention of returning.

You will hear about my indiscretion, I am sure and it will be a biased version told by my ex-fucked-up doctor. I hear his words now saying I was disrespectful of him and of Angie’s memory. I tell you the truth, Annie. Angie was a terrible person. No one liked her, she was intimidating. Dr. George will tell everyone at the morning meeting I am having a mental meltdown, adding I said horrible things about Angie, I am crazy, unbalanced, delusional, irrational, a touch mad or crazy, whichever you prefer. I am none of these. Dr. George is the one who fits this description. Standing up for myself, I would say I am a complicated and have lived a rather colourful and traumatizing life,and someone who needs the assistance of psychotherapy to help me through the mix up, fucked up feelings crashing around in my brain.

I am depressed half the time and so fucking moody, anxious, suicidal on a regular basis but then the opposite. I float high and creativity floods my mind. Time stops. I move through space alone. The Universe is mine. It’s a grand and bloody good high. A no drug zone.

What a liberating experience, finally standing up to Dr. George. He’s been draining my soul of energy from the start. I had to find the force in myself to get past his influence. I know you’re thinking or I’m projecting thoughts onto you, ‘Why did I stay with him?’ Fear. Fear of finding the truth. Would I lose control. Go over the edge if I entered the real world. I felt I needed the familiarity of being destroyed by someone in authority. Dr. George was the perfect fit.

Started with my parents, family and abusers rolled into a perfect trauma circle, followed by bosses, but then came college and I thought I was released. College was an experience outside of time. I was stoned most of my waking hours. I even had an affair with the husband of one of my professors. I didn’t want to have sex with him. I hate sex. I hate it more with men. I didn’t want sex with him. It’s part of what is wrong with me. In college, I met my first real love. A woman of high intelligence and a sense of humour I couldn’t resist. Her opening comment to me, something so simple: “Do you have the notes for the last Western Civ class?” I turned around to see whose face went with the voice, the sensual sound that woke me from my fog. “Why, yes I do.”

“Did you study for the test?” Her next question. Of course, I had. I was one of those students who were always prepared and didn’t have to make an effort or more like didn’t want to make an effort because it all came too easily for me. It fucks you up, you know, to be that way. You miss out on the connection to what you’re learning. Now I concentrate and dig into what I want to learn. Now, I want to understand.

After we got to know each other, she told me, honestly, she thought I was a snob before she first approached me. Me. I’m an extremely shy introvert, yes, but not a snob. More afraid to talk students. Chose to hang out with professors, instead. They were easier to talk to. Once this female student and I got to know one another, we became inseparable. A growing friendship we could acknowledge but nothing more that was between us. It would have been too much for both of us. But love did happen. The lover came out in both of us during a stoned and wine induced high. My response to her saying we needed some guys to have sex was and I quote: “Why do we need men?”

It was the night I drove out some demons temporarily. Love happened there. It was the highest high. So, that was what was missing, I was/am a lesbian. Now, don’t misunderstand. It isn’t that easy. She left for another college, the transfer went through a short time later. I went into a deep depression. Dropped acid. Wanted to kill myself and my life suddenly took a totally new fork in the pathway to my future.

Now, before I close this letter out, I want to mention something about ‘Brief Sacrifice.’ Carter, through the clues, had found the passage on page 62, in the book ‘Somewhere In Time,’ that James, one of her three Savannah cats, the other two were Jasper and Jax, had led her to. This week James points out further information to break the code to open the leather briefcase. There is a number dial on the front of the briefcase on the flap locking it shut. There were, also, instructions on what to read in ‘Somewhere In Time.’ A certain passage was necessary to help understand the meaning for opening the briefcase. The meaning regards what’s contained inside what is inside the briefcase. The double inside meaning is there is a triple layer to penetrate to get to the contents. Once the contents are revealed, the real mystery will begin.

The passage is a long mantra needing to be memorized after being read and repeated until its effects transport you. It is self-explanatory. Carter opens up ‘Somewhere In Time’ looking for what the clue wants her to find. It, also, states once the passage is discovered it needs to be altered according to what the contents in the inside of the inside secret reveals. Those contents will explain what the alteration should be. For now it is just necessary to locate the passage, read it, write it down and then memorize it completely as if it were your life mantra for meditation.

The passage is found on page 95 and reads as follows: “[Some parts I will omit because of length but will include those which make sense of what is being said in Richard Collier’s mind.] It’s Thursday, November 19, 1896. You’re lying on your bed in Room 527, eyes closed. The sun has gone down and it’s dark out. Night is falling on this Thursday at the Hotel del Coronado: Thursday, November 19, 1896. The lights are being turned on in the hotel now. The light fixtures are for both gas and electricity but the gas is not used…”

“…At this moment, every room is heated by a fireplace. This room, 527, is being heated by a fireplace. At this moment in the darkness of this Thursday, November 19, 1896, a fire is burning in the hearth across from you; crackling softly, sending waves of heat into the room, illuminating it with firelight…”

“…Elise McKenna is in the hotel at this very moment; perhaps in the theatre checking some detail of her production…scheduled for tomorrow night…So, too, is her manager, William Fawcett Robinson. So, too, her acting company. All their rooms are being heated by fireplaces; as is this room, Room 527, on the late afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1896…”

“You’re lying quietly, at peace, your eyes closed, in this room in 1896, November 19, 1896…Soon you will get up and leave the room and find Elise McKenna. Soon you will open your eyes on this dark afternoon in November 1896 and walk into the corridor and go downstairs and find Elise McKenna. She is in the hotel now. At this very moment. Because it is November 19, 1896. November 19, 1896.”
(And so on, for another twenty pages,)

Richard Collier’s thoughts: ‘I’m thinking more and more of the fact that, in going back, I am to be the cause of the tragedy which fills this face; I have her photograph in front of me on the writing table. Have I a right to do this to her? I know I have already done it. Yet, there again, increasingly, I sense a variable factor in the past as well as in the future. I don’t know why I feel it but I do. A feeling that I have a choice of not going back if I wish. I feel this intensely.’

“What do you suppose this means, James, Jasper. What about you, Jax? Wouldn’t you go back if you had the chance. He, obviously, is drawn to her. She wouldn’t have appeared to him before she dies if she didn’t want the experience. Right? But what is all this saying to us? Are we somehow going to find something to do with time travel in all this mystery? What if it is? What would we do with it? Well, actually, there are many things I would like to discover. There are many mysteries that have never been solved or resolved in an honest way. If someone went to the past, they could watch as history unfolds. Secrets hidden away. Never solved deaths. It all intrigues me. I know there are a list of mysteries. To find out the real truth. Hmm. How many lies have we been given in place of the truth.”

“Let’s try those numbers and letters you figured out James. I want to see if they work. What’s inside and inside what is inside of this briefcase, has me going mad. Come on, guys, first number is 7. [Carter rolls the dial to the 7.] The next number is 49. [Carter rolls the next dial around to 49.] What is next James? The number is 3. [Carter repeats the motion to 3.] Next up is a letter. What is it, please. The letter is ‘J’ capitalized. [Carter goes to the next set of dials and takes the first one to the letter ‘J.’] Next letter is a capital ‘E.’ [Carter takes the dial to the capital ‘E.’] What is the last letter, James? We are almost there. The letter is the capital letter ‘N.’ [Carter slowly roles the dial delicately, so no error is made. She stops when the capital ‘N’ comes up.] Okay, guys, here is what we have been working towards. Are you three ready to find out if we did it right? Or more excited that we did and we are about to open this leather beauty and discover the hidden treasure. Okay, slide the lever over. Please release the lock. Just please let’s hear a click and release.”

Carter slid the lever to the left and in a split second the sound of silence, listening. Did it click? “YES!!! Boys, the lock opened. Flip the flap over and open the briefcase, right now.” The flap gracefully fell back over to the other side of the briefcase and the mouth opened. The insides were opened. Now time to look inside. Carter and James, Jasper and Jax all gathered round. Carter pulled back the opening and reached inside to bring out the contents. In her hand she held a sleek silver case 3 inches high, 7 inches wide, and 5 inches deep. Placing it gently on the coffee table, Carter and her boys just stared at what lay before them. It glistened. The silver was shiny like a highly polished magic mirror. Everything in the room reflected off of its surface.

What to do next. How were they going to open this silver box? There were no seams. No lock. The surface was totally smooth, as though it was melded into its shape. It was light, Carter told her babies. “Whatever it contains holds some powerful magic. I am sure it is hollow and something is hidden within that holds great power. Look at the clues. We will find a way inside. We will learn the mystery of this mini-monolith of unyielding precious silver. We look to you James. You probably already know what we are looking at. You are looking through it into its mystery. You know. I can tell. It is in your glistening eyes. When ever you are ready, James.”

Carter smiled. They made a huge pile in Carter’s lap for a group hug of fur and flesh blending in warmth and love, sprinkled with a sliver of curiosity.

And so ends the tale today.

At least, I have my storytelling to escape into, Annie. Murder. Rejection. Madness. Scottie is back but is sleeping right now. I haven’t talked to her yet about Dr. George. She will laugh, I am certain. Her relief will shine all over her face. Ideas of ways to rid me of Dr. George have been circling her mind almost from the day I walked into his office. I stopped writing for a time after I started seeing him. He really sucked the soul right out of me. So does his supervisor, Dr. Reagan, my psychiatrist. She either enjoys conflict or she has no idea what she is talking about. I’ve always wondered about all those multiple degrees on the walls of professionals. They are paper without a story. Written up shortly after someone offers up proof they did their dissertations and a certain number of hours treating patients at a crazy institute. The keepers are the crazy ones and the inmates are their captors.

I hope you are not like any of the others I’ve seen. They fucked with my mind. Some I fell in love with or had crushes on. It was those who thought they would bond and then rip my heart out by leaving before my time was up for needing them. It all sucks but I am afraid I am addicted to the process. It is my faith or belief system. Looking inside to see the bigger picture. The universe or Goddess or the Matrix is connected through the insides of us all. We know or try to find out the secrets or a clue that might help make dying and our soul leaving us not such a terrifying thought. We know it is an eventual experience. Is it really our soul to begin with or to end with?

Until next time. I miss you. I need you to take care of me for a while. Guide me in a direction that points to a better place to live inside myself. You are what I have and need now.

Fondly & Needing You,
Madison

Sets & Animals for Film: Brief Sacrifice with Lead Character CARTER MCLEOD. [Portrayed by BAFTA Nominated Actor NATALIE STEPHENS] Savannah Cats are Carter’s. Screenplay: MADISON TAYLOR. Director: SCOTTIE ANDREWS Production Co.: INFINITE IMAGINATIONS, INC. [TRIPLE III] {Madison Taylor & Scottie Andrews Formed Their Production Co. 10 year ago in 1997.}

'Brief Sacrifice' English Garden 734x492

‘Brief Sacrifice’ English Garden

Brief Sacrifice film Savannah cats---Jasper & Jax when 10 week old kittens

Brief Sacrifice film Savannah cats—Jasper & Jax when 10 week old kittens

'Brief Sacrifice' Film Set Library 626x626

‘Brief Sacrifice’ Film Set Library

Every Detail in the Two Story Living Room Is Done with Precision from the Crown Moldings to the Carvings on the Fireplace  800x600

Every Detail in the Two Story Living Room Is Done with Precision from the Crown Moldings to the Carvings on the Fireplace

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Edelweiss

Annie Haskell --- Madison Tayler's Psychoanalyst's Office

Dr. Annie Haskell’s Office as a Psychoanalyst

Maksim — Somewhere In Time — Theme Song For Letters of Import

rain in garden gif
Deeper Clarity
Written by Madison Taylor
Monday 19th February 2008

Deeper clarity
Opens my eyes so I might see
The world I live in
How it surrounds and grounds
Further inside of me
Where I cannot touch the way it feels
The numbness cuts out the things not so real
What I love seems to feel lost
Disconnected from the center
Wandering blindly in search of meaning

Invisible sight beyond clarity
Lead me to the obscurity of lose
Where is the understanding?
What holds a world together?
Appearing as a disintegrating edifice
Of unrecognizable signs of life
Meaning is lost
Unable to grasp a hold of security
Drowning from lack of contact
It disappears

With it I follow into invisibility
The universe is disappearing
Usually stated ‘before my eyes’
But without feeling
The touch of anything
Makes transparent
All physical reality
No senses to perceive a truth
No truth to acknowledge existence
Lost in the desert of sand and wind

Nothing recognizable
Blown away with the last breath
Dreams are forgotten
Did they ever exist?
Or were they made up and destroyed
All in one instant
Never established as possible
Or real
Just pretend as children do
The sky is blue

As for a reflection of the ocean
Why then is the ocean blue?
But from a reflection from the sky
They echo each other’s reality
Which makes me think
We are all mirrors reflected images
Repetitions of all existence
Bringing the conclusion
We all are one
In a reflection of a continuous one

And what gives the one meaning?
Isn’t a connection to something
What gives something meaning?
Are we all a dream
In one mind
Played out on a stage
Of an imaginary universe?
Does this bring clarity
Or more confusion?
Where is the understanding?

Where is the meaning?
What is the purpose of it all?
Why are we here? Now?
Or at any time?
Slipping into the dark hole
The proverbial black hole
Where darkness takes hold
Sight isn’t necessary
Nothing there to be seen
Holding a physical dimension

A magnetic union
A force powerful enough
To pull you away from reality
And higher ground
Losing the controls
Battling is futile
Surrender is necessary
Tripping over boulders of truth
Gripping hold of anything solid
While the quicksand pulls at you

Trapping you without warning
All the meaning is evaporating
Clarity is lost in a mind shut down
Bipolar twisting as a tornado
The magnetic force failing
Depression is in full control
Must go with its commands
Fighting is resistance inside out
No strength remains
The power is drained

Where once there was joy
Now there sits despair
No one cares to be scared
It is buried too deep to remove
The mind is on its own
It has no power here
To analyze a solution
Surrendering on one’s own terms
Nothing acceptable but waiting
Lasting till the emotional storm passes

Eventually-level ground returns
Back to self with reality in place
Black holes out of reach
From sucking the soul
Right out of the body
Whole again
Sane again
Resurfacing to regularly scheduled channels
Illusions escape my memory
Realness of truth restored.

© madison taylor 2008

Messed Mindscape  808x608

Messed Mindscape

Messed Mindstate — The State of Mind

“A Dream
The beginning always starts out with a dream.
It is all a dream
In our own nightmares”
— Madison Taylor

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English garden off the back marble patio

Patrick when he was five weeks. He is a Bengal kitten. Madison gave to Scottie as a present for her Birthday. As he grows he becomes devoted to her.

Patrick when he was five weeks. He is a Bengal kitten. Madison gave to Scottie as a present for her Birthday. As he grows he becomes devoted to her.

Patrick is our Bengal cat in tree. He loves Scotties. They are buddies.   1612x1212

Patrick is our Bengal cat in tree. It is protected area. Patrick cannot leave property from there. He loves Scottie. They are buddies.

Living Room Ope Wide with Windows

Living Room Open Wide with Windows

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Chateau de Rocher Art Gallery

Dreams of Elysium by Ann Marie Bone  Scottie gave this painting as a present to Madison for your Birthday. She had fallen in love with the colours and the dreamlike state she would transcned into when she meditated while gazing into it  900x669

Dreams of Elysium by Ann Marie Bone Scottie gave this painting as a present to Madison for her Birthday. She had fallen in love with the colours and the dreamlike state she would transcend into when she meditated while gazing into it.

Bedroom Madison and Scottie Share with High Windows --- Great During Thunderstorms & Rain

Bedroom Madison and Scottie Share with High Windows — Great During Thunderstorms & Rain

Glass Ceiling  3977x2848

Glass Ceiling

play is not just play meryl streep


Filed under: actor, art, artist, artistic temperament, author, chapter, creative high, delusional thinking, depression, dialogue, director, fiction, film, illustrations, imagination, inspiration, lesbian, letters, life style, magic realism, manuscript, mentally creative, murder, muse, music, mystery, novel, painting, photos, poem, poet, poetic, prose, psychiatrist, psychoanalysis, psychological thriller, psychotherapy, relationships, screenplay, screenwriter, sexual abuse, sexuality, song, soundcloud, storytelling, writer, writing Tagged: art, artist, artistic temperament, bipolar, brief sacrifice, carter mcleod, chateau de rocher, deeper clarity, delusional thinking, depression, director, dissociate, dr. annie haskell, dr. george, film, film set, hip-hop, infinite imaginations inc., invisibility, letter, letters of import, madison taylor, mind, mindstate, murder, music, painting, poem, poet, prospecta, scottie andrews, screenwriter, script, song, the state of mind, thoughts, time travel, writer

Chapter #23: Incredible Shrinking Mind

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Chapter #23: Incredible Shrinking Mind
Letters of Import: Private Writings to a Psychoanalyst
Written by Jennifer Kiley
Illustrated by j. kiley
Published Introduction & Chapter #1 On 19th March 2013
Published Early Tuesday AM
Chapter #23 Published On 27th August 2013
WARNING: ADULT LANGUAGE AND CONTENT.
NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN.

ALL CHARACTERS ARE FICTITIOUS.
ANYONE RESEMBLING ANYONE LIVING OR DEAD
IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.

Letters of Import: Incredible Shrinking Mind — Chapter #23

Tuesday, 26th February 2008,
Dear Annie,

Whoa, what a day. Two sessions. One is group. What a bloody surprise happened. Dr. George kneeled before me. I refused his calls. Scottie relayed messages. He wanted me to have a closure session. My doctor called him, at my request. Told him to stop calling me. I never wanted to see him in private again and no, I did not want to do any ending to our therapy except to never show up again.

Today, while group was going on, he abruptly interrupted, turned to me and with pleading in his voice, he offered me a deal. You, if I did a closure session with him. No way, but I looked at you with a question coming from my mouth. Keep in mind, I was just overwhelmed and in shock. From the first moment I looked into your eyes back on October 2nd 2007, I knew I wanted you to be part of my life. It was an intuitive reaction. “You would be my analyst? Do therapy with me? Is this true or am I being manipulated. I am not certain who to believe or trust. Myself, you, Annie. I know he’s too fucked up to believe. Just tell me if it’s the truth.”

You spoke gently and softly, looking directly into my eyes with complete and utter sincerity and spoke loud enough for me to hear. “Yes, I will be your new therapist. I want to be. No deal. Just yes.”

“Do I have to speak to him?”

“Only if you want to. I advise it, so you can let go. Doing it for yourself, not for him.”

“The only way I would agree to meet with him, one, not in his office, two, not alone, and three, if you, Annie would mediate. I do not ever want to be alone with him again. I don’t really want to talk to him, but if you are there to protect me, then I will agree to meet. It must be neutral territory and as soon as possible.”

“Let’s do it after group. I will find an empty office or room where we can have privacy. It will happen. You will be finished with Dr. George. After today, everyone will be finished with Dr. George. Due to Angie’s death, Dr. George is under suspicion and has been suspended as of the end of today for an undetermined amount of time. Sorry, Doctor, I feel they have a right to know. I will cover the group until we can decide on when the group should be ending. It may be four weeks. It may be six weeks. We will discuss this next week.”

Wow, what a lot to take in. Everyone was so shocked, including me. What followed was even more traumatizing and a relief like one giant balloon exploding.

We decided to stay in the same room where the group met. Everyone left except you, me, and the jack-ass. The circus act began. Dr. George went all weird, offensive and defensive. What he said made no sense to me. I refused to look at him or in his direction, not even once. The whole time, my eyes were on you. If I spoke, it was to you. Dr. George was filled with denials. He denied accusing me of being delusional, calling me crazy. He continued lying, attempting to make himself appear the innocent victim of my supposed abusive nature.

“I will tell you in my own words what the last session was like and why it ended as it did. I left in such a rage and physically smashed his office door closed during my dramatic exit. I wasn’t looking for applause. I knew if I stayed even a second longer, I would have been too vulnerable and too close to a catatonic meltdown. It was time for anger. I knew it was the only way to make a break from his literally strangling me, like I think he did with Angie.”

“Knowing she was dead, but not knowing how or by whose hands, I did not feel safe with him. He has been acting out of control. Behaving inappropriately for a therapist. Treating me with disgust. His language and words have been cruel, saying I was cruel and unfeeling. I lacked empathy or compassion. His abusive barrage in words, firing them at me like bullets. Telling me I spoke about Angie with disrespect, forgetting how she has been on me for years for being a lesbian, a queer, dyke, butch, lezzie, with no writing talent. She told me so many times my movie scripts sucked. They weren’t even high enough to get a passing grade of B. She has no concept of imagination, mystery, intelligent dialogue.”

“Angie was a rich bitch who ruled her world and had the film producer husband who hadn’t looked at her for years, so she fucks every man she meets. The definition and use of the slang word ‘cougar’ was made famous and hit the rags because of her indiscretions. She just loved the publicity. Her murder case, I use it intentionally, is eating up the headlines. ET can’t get enough. Dr. George was obsessed with her at the groups’ expense. My private sessions, when they weren’t about his obsession with himself, they would be about her. I am so sick of Angie and Dr. George, I want to go bulimic on them.

It was an absolute necessity to walk out and smash his door to wake him up. He needed to get the message directly. It was over long before we even started. He sucked the energy out of me like an intellectually emotional vampire. He wanted my mind and my imagination destroyed. He was so fucking jealous. He had already trapped my soul, which with Scottie’s help, I was somehow able to steal back. Now it is over, a fait accompli.”

“I have you Annie. You seem to be sensitive and together inside. You speak so gently but with directness. I like the way you are, the way you think, and most importantly, I love the way you make me feel inside. I feel confidence when I am around you. Also, I feel something very difficult for me to feel, trust with very little doubt and safe. You make me feel safe and protected. It’s not something I am use to experiencing. I look forward to learning to trust those inner feelings.”

I felt satisfied when the closure session was over. Dr. George mumbled as he left the room. Neither of us said anything. No goodbye. It didn’t matter. I never felt like we ever said hello. Had no idea who he was but some frustrated, self-obsessed, lonely man who said things obscene to see how far he could push the limits and disgust people. Well, he’s gone now.

Dr. George closed the door after he left the room. I turned to Annie and spoke, “Someday, I will write a story about what happened, and when I am ready, I will turn it into a film for my revenge. It will be about him, his scattered and obsessive brain with himself, sex and the male sex organ. It will, also be about the group and this Clinic, but Dr. George will be the lurid character. Writing the script and making a film should fill my need for satisfaction, renewal and recovery. My only clear memory is of meeting him and the group, the rest is a blur, until I met you and now the wild ride in trying to escape begins coming to an end.”

My heart is full and my thoughts are echoing inside my mind smashing into themselves. All I can think about clearly is, it is our time now, Annie. In two weeks, we will have our first private session. You gave me a new address. Not the Clinic. A new office makes it perfect. I wonder if it looks like I imagined?

Now I want to escape into story time. This is where I usually tell you something from my script ‘Brief Sacrifice.’ It’s going to be released soon by our production company “Infinite Imaginations, Inc. III.’ It’s getting exciting.

I’ll make it really short.

The story is heading for a huge reveal. I will admit it is about time travel. Remember the glistening silver box with no seams or possible entrance. Carter and her feline sons need to break more code they haven’t discovered yet. There is great significance and import to what is contained within. It has powers no one can imagine.

I will give you a hint. Nikola Tesla is secretly involved. Look him up. He worked on many secret projects, no one was aware of his special work. He kept them to himself and hid them away. The governments of the world were watching him. When he died young, the US government took away all his possessions, filing everything away in a secret location. If they couldn’t figure out where he hid his secrets, they weren’t going to let anyone else find them.

Remember the leather briefcase was found at an estate sale. Somehow, whoever died had the briefcase in their possession. It is necessary for Carter to track the trail backwards to find its’ origins. The adventure continues when Carter, James, Jasper and Jax hit the road with briefcase in hand. Carter is smart to hide the silver case within the old one. Seeing the old case, no one would suspect its’ contents.

What a day. It is so strange how life can turn around and be new from only a few words, seconds of discomfort and holding your breath. Now I have gained so much. I look forward, better said, I have been looking forward to working with you Annie for an unknown measurement of time. It has now arrived.

Maybe it is time, I tell you about the letters and poems I write to you. The music I chose to listen to as I write and imagine I am talking to you. Sometimes, I even say the words out loud as I write. It feels more like I am talking to you sitting across from me listening silently.

Until next week. I will wait for now, for our first session on Tuesday, March 11th. I mark the date. It’s something I like to do, remembering the important moments. Numerology, I love studying numbers. Group next week, at least he won’t be there but you will run the group. How divine is that. See you then.

I wait with anticipation for our first private talk. Maybe you can help me figure out who I am, who is hiding in the shadows of my unconscious.

With Relief I thank you for being there for me.

Fondly & Filled with Anticipation
Madison

 

throughout life soul mate poster

Sets & Animals for Film: Brief Sacrifice with Lead Character CARTER MCLEOD. [Portrayed by BAFTA Nominated Actor NATALIE STEPHENS] Savannah Cats are Carter’s. Screenplay: MADISON TAYLOR. Director: SCOTTIE ANDREWS Production Co.: INFINITE IMAGINATIONS, INC. [TRIPLE III] {Madison Taylor & Scottie Andrews Formed Their Production Co. 10 year ago in 1997.}

'Brief Sacrifice' English Garden 734x492

‘Brief Sacrifice’ English Garden

Every Detail in the Two Story Living Room Is Done with Precision from the Crown Moldings to the Carvings on the Fireplace  800x600

Every Detail in the Two Story Living Room Is Done with Precision from the Crown Moldings to the Carvings on the Fireplace

Purple Tulips with White Flowers and Yellow ones in background --- Photographer Unknown   2687x3061

Purple Tulips with White Flowers and Yellow ones in background — Photographer Unknown

Annie Haskell --- Madison Tayler's Psychoanalyst's Office

Dr. Annie Haskell’s Office as a Psychoanalyst

Maksim — Somewhere In Time — Theme Song For Letters of Import

rain in garden gif

You May Be a Fantasy
Written by Madison Taylor
Monday 25th February 2008

You may be a fantasy
But you are my fantasy.

When I am near you,
You knock me over.

The Strength of your love
Overwhelms the inside of me.

Yet we have never joined together.
This is strictly in my mind.

My psychic connection to you
Is more powerful than the sun.

You radiate energy that would
Overheat even the hottest flames.

Touch my heart.
Heal me.

Take my hand.
Let me feel you.

Smile and breathe in my soul
And the energy will flow.

You may never live in my world.
But your essence lives in my heart.

The pain blends with the love
Creating an inspirational awakening.

Stay with me
Though I may not have you.

Love me
Though we may not be lovers

I just need you.
Just need me a little.

And only for one moment.
I want you to be mine.

© madison taylor 2008

sinking streaming obstacle course by j. kiley (c) jennifer kiley 2013
Sinking Streaming Obstacle Course by j. kiley (c) jennifer kiley 2013


Beyond the Time — Iva — Ivana Ancic

“A Dream
The beginning always starts out with a dream.
It is all a dream
In our own nightmares”
— Madison Taylor

english garden off the back marble patio  972x732 English garden off the back marble patio

Patrick is our Bengal cat in tree. He loves Scotties. They are buddies.   1612x1212

Patrick-our Bengal cat up in his tree-Scottie’s buddy

Havana Brown Kitten  Madison and Scottie's kitten One of the Two   800x600

Havana Brown Kitten Madison and Scottie’s kitten One of the Two—This cutie is Toker when he was a wee one

Havana Brown Cats  Madison and Scottie's kitties  1205x803

Havana Brown Cats Madison and Scottie’s kitties Toker and Mikey—I think the names are in the right order—they do look alike

Bedroom Madison and Scottie Share with High Windows --- Great During Thunderstorms & Rain

Bedroom Madison and Scottie Share with High Windows — Great During Thunderstorms & Rain

play is not just play meryl streep


Filed under: actor, brief sacrifice, chapter, characters, director, film, lesbian, letters, mystery, photos, poem, poet, psychoanalyst, screenwriter, screenwriting, storytelling, writer Tagged: actor, brief sacrifice, carter mcleod, chapter, characters, director, dr. annie haskell, film, lesbian, letter, letters of import, madison taylor, magic silver box, mystery, mysticism, new psychoanalyst, photos, poem, poet, psychoanalyst, savannah cats, scottie andrews, screenwriter, screenwriting, storytelling, writer

Amazing Visions Part #2

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Amazing Visions Part #2
Post Created by Jk the secret keeper
Videos Chosen at Vimeo by j. kiley
Post Created Tuesday 27th August 2013
Posted On Wednesday 28th August 2013
Lightness of Being

The videos that j. kiley chose were from ones chosen after the viewing of 100s of videos, all of fine quality and artistic expression. I was looking for something that stood out visually. Something outstanding. That would AWE your sense of VISION. Something you wouldn’t see with your senses under any other circumstances with the exception of doing some mind altering drugs or some heavy meditation or a fast that went beyond your body’s endurance that it brought you to a state of altering your perceptions.

The videos that were finally selected are going to be shown three at a time over a period of many weeks and months. Do not necessarily expect each week to be seeing ‘Amazing Visions.’ I would like to do a variety of inspirations under the heading of ‘Lightness of Being.’ It does encompass everything from humour, comedy, jokes, beautiful photographs, baby animals, things that lift your spirit or make you feel AWE. I hope to be inventive in what I present.

Tonight is the second presentation of ‘Amazing Visions.’ I hope the effect I felt is shared by those adventurous enough to watch the videos I have chosen for the delight and AWE of your senses. Do take a look. Each is different but each is unusual in its effect. A great deal of time and artistry went into the making of each video. In order not to spoil any surprises I let all experience what they will. Be AWED I do hope but at the same time I will say please do not have any expectations of what you will see or experience. Written by Jennifer Kiley

Montreal by Winter

***”Montreal by Winter” is a personal artistic project showcasing the relationship between Montreal, its citizens, and winter. During summer the city is full of excitement and the host many internationally acclaimed festivals. However during winter, Montreal has a real beauty, a dynamic life, and a special charm…that makes you forget the few degrees below zero.

Executive Producer: Stephane Hoareau for Timecode Lab
Director & Timelapse: Stephane Hoareau
Edit: David Gaudet / Stephane Hoareau
Music: Ordinary World by Boris Nonte Vega
Contact: stephane@timecodelab.com
Website: timecodelab.com
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Restless

***Shot and Edited in 7 days for the Intersection competition at The World Ski & Snowboard Festival in Whistler, BC (April 11-18, 2013)
Behind the scenes photos: facebook.com/leozuckermanmedia
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Miniature Melbourne

***Winner – Best Timelapse: APA Short Video Contest 2013
Official Selection: Chronos Film Festival 2013
***A short tilt-shift time-lapse film featuring the city of Melbourne, Australia. This piece is 10 months in the making and features a range of different events and festivals held in the city throughout the year.
***Music: “Reflections” by Tom Day. Big thanks to Tom for his sound effects and audio mix soundcloud.com/tomday
***Equipment: Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17-40mm f/4L, 24-105mm f/4L and 70-300mm f/4-5.6 USM
***The tilt-shift effect and grading was applied in Photoshop, and the film was edited in LRTimelapse, After Effects and Premiere Pro CS6.
***Most of the shots were captured from the Eureka Skydeck, which is a lookout at the top of Melbourne’s tallest building. Other locations were the Shrine of Remembrance memorial, car parks and bridges around the city.


Filed under: amazing vision, artistic, artistic temperament, creativity, film, videos Tagged: amazing vision, amazing visions, artistic, creativity, film, videos from vimeo

Favorite Top Ten Films of All Time #6

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Favorite Top Ten Films of All Time #6
List Created by Jennifer Kiley
Illustrated by j. kiley
Movie Trailers by Jk the secret keeper
Post Created on 21st August 2013
Posted On Friday 30th August 2013
FILM FRIDAY
dedicated to roger ebert film friday5 stars

Favorite Top Ten Films of All Time [#6]
List Created by Jennifer Kiley

holiday poster with everyone

I made a decision doing two films from my Favorite and Best 10 films per week was overwhelming to myself and to the readers of my post. It is far to much to absorb and create at one time. The focus gets to distracting. So it will be one film per week which will extend the length of time to present the 20 films all together. I do have a surprise when the Favorite Top Ten and Best Top Ten Films have been revealed and reviewed with trailers, photos and posters. I hope when we get their it will be a good surprise and enlightening. Until then, tonight’s Favorite Top Ten Film at # 6 is another Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant film which is so moving and enjoyable. It is ‘Holiday.’ I am not sure how many have heard or seen this film but it is a film about individuality and believing strongly in your own thoughts, who you are and believing in your future, not one someone else chooses for you, no matter what the bribery may be, you stay true to yourself.

Holiday collage of photos from film

HOLIDAY
(1938) Director: George Cukor. Cast: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Doris Nolan, Lew Ayres, Edward Everett Horton, Jean Dixon, Henry Kolker, Henry Daniell, Binnie Barnes. Screenplay: Donald Ogden Stewart and Sidney Buchman (based on the play by Philip Barry). © 1938 Columbia Pictures

holiday  the film hepburn & grant

I have not had a good week. I wouldn’t even say I have had a great year. Beyond that, I would certainly say the movies have not had a great year—and why is it, we cinephiles frequently ask ourselves, that a coincidence like this never really feels like a coincidence? Has the drought at the multiplexes made 2003 rougher than it already was (which I’m not even going to get into), or—as I like to believe in my more romantic moments, blending my own life’s ups and downs with those of the medium I love—have those yearly slings and arrows only felt so wearying because there have been no good films to cushion the impact a little?

Holiday cary w fiancee & her father & kate

Chicken, egg, chicken, egg. I’m sure I’ll never get to the bottom of this personal riddle, and yet my basic thesis that there must be some connection was only reinforced last week when I lucked into a rare theatrical screening of a glorious print of a wonderful old film. It’s one of those banalities that gets endlessly repeated because really, it’s just true: a great movie can really lift the spirits, despite all the practical, external odds against it doing so.

The film in question was Holiday, a wondrous 1938 collaboration among those famous friends Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and George Cukor that nonetheless gets shockingly little attention and exposure. Much like Bringing Up Baby, Hepburn and Grant’s other co-starring vehicle from the same year, Holiday fizzled at the box office. Hepburn reteamed with the same costar, director, playwright, and screenwriter two years later for her career-reviving smash The Philadelphia Story, but the wild enthusiasm for that project somehow never translated into a deserved second chance for Holiday. In fact, Holiday already was a second chance, since it had been filmed before and with considerably greater box-office success in 1930, with the now-forgotten Ann Harding nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award as Linda Seton, the role Hepburn inherits in the remake.

Holiday cary fiancee and father deciding his future he doesnt like it

Harding’s Holiday only exists these days as one ailing print housed in the Library of Congress and is rarely if ever trotted out for public viewing. The Hepburn-Grant version is more accessible, but not as much as you’d think: the programmers at Turner Classic Movies seem to like it, and yet video copies can be tough to locate, even for rental, DVDs are nonexistent as near as I can tell, and the movie often gets ousted from rep-house retrospectives of Hepburn’s and Grant’s personal portfolios in favor of more celebrated titles. Even Sylvia Scarlett, an even worse flop for the Hepburn-Grant-Cukor trio and much disliked by the actors themselves, stumbled into a cult-classic status that Holiday never really achieved: it remains, I’d say, the best Hepburn picture that her fans may not have seen, aside from that one incandescent shot of she and Grant in elegant white-tie regalia, striding swanlike over the back of a velvet couch.

cary-grant-holiday feeling under pressure from fiancee and her father

What all this means is that to see Holiday at all these days, particularly on the big screen, is itself a sort of triumph over adversity. And what a triumph it is! The film is spellbinding without being a mystery, ravishing without being ornate, heartachy despite being a lovely comedy, and full of surprise gestures and unexpected flights of feeling and fancy that are unique even among the superior class of romantic ’30s films to which it rightfully belongs. The focal character is Grant’s Johnny Case, and yes, he is a dashing and puckish romantic clown with the cleftiest of clefted chins.

holiday sisters with cary

Still, though, without Alfred Hitchcock or Clifford Odets anywhere in sight, Grant explores new dimensions of his familiar persona in this part (and in 1938, his persona wasn’t all that familiar anyway; Hepburn, after all, despite her “box-office poison” reputation, is still billed first). Johnny is a laugher and a prankster, but there’s a strong and swift-acting business acumen lurking just beneath the devil-may-care surface. He’s in love with love, but there is gravity in that love: he is offended, even angered, when people do wrong by romantic ideals, and a few of his line readings genuinely bark and bristle in the face of generically familiar obstacles like obstreperous fathers-in-law and waspish relatives. Neither the film nor the character really depart from the known terrain of romantic comedy, but it feels like there’s more at stake in Holiday than a film of this type always suggests, which is largely the result of Grant’s swaggering, scintillating, but strongly backboned performance.

holiday kate reflecting

Meanwhile, Hepburn is flexing and sharpening her character just as deftly as Grant does his, but without losing any of that soft luminosity that Cukor was always so good at discovering in her hard-angled face. As Linda Seton, she is not the Grant character’s initial love interest; these two meet because Grant’s Johnny is engaged to Hepburn’s sister Julia, well played by an actress named Doris Nolan whom I’d frankly never heard of. It may feel like something of a foregone conclusion that Johnny’s affections will eventually be withdrawn from Julia and redirected toward Linda, but for a long time the reasons and logic by which this transfer will happen simply aren’t clear.

holiday all of carys friends in playroom with kate and brother

Barry’s play and the resultant script refuse to compromise in any of the familiar areas: Nolan’s Julia sours a little but she isn’t inscrutable or indefensible; Hepburn’s Linda is too loyal to and defensive of her sister, sometimes extravagantly so, to comfortably intrude on Julia’s amorous bliss; Grant’s Johnny is too pragmatic and driven, and too subliminally desirous of approval, to toss all other cares to the wind and ride off with the woman who’s easier, who’s more like him, who better understands his distinctive blend of confidence and abandon.

katharine hepburn holiday  cary grant

A lesser movie would invent some deus ex machina plot device to rearrange these characters where the final scene needs to find them. Holiday, enormously to its credit, never really does that. The characters all keep behaving according to their definitive patterns—laughing, debating, sobbing, drinking, somersaulting, kicking each other playfully in the behinds—and suddenly, at an invisible moment, a corner gets turned. Behavior is rather elaborate in this story, to include willful self-seclusions, impetuous disappearances, and public backflips. And the dialogue is such finely spun silver, glittering in its jokes but chilly, sometimes, in its sad ring, that these obvious pleasures alone seem like more than enough for one film, or for three.

holiday  cary edward everett horton & his wife in film

But Holiday, and this is where Cukor comes in, manages by some sorcerous trick to foster another, ineffable level, a dimension that feels like pure feeling, quiet but tangible epiphanies, where the real action is really happening. A single scene in Holiday might comprise a puppet-show, an acrobatic exhibit (Grant and Hepburn are gloriously athletic), and a whole host of comic experts in the cast, including the perennial Edward Everett Horton and the touching Jean Dixon, firing off those great jests and jousts that none of us dumb louts can ever think of at the right, comparable moments in real life…and yet, with all this commotion and carrying-on, we realize that what the scene has really been about is a sea-change, a silent transmission, a feeling deep-hidden in Hepburn or Grant that passed, say, from curiosity to fascination, from flirtation to longing.

holiday  lew ayres brother drinks disappointed with life at piana in playroom cary and kate

How does this happen? How are we made to feel it? Poignant, careful framings that measure the characters finely against the spaces (marginal, grand, intimate, echoey) they inhabit. Good sonic judgment that maintains a notable silence when most comedies would supply a fracas or a high, peppy glissando. Sleek, simple outfits that are tailored exactly right and then forgotten about—this isn’t an MGM movie. All of this used to be called good direction. At rare moments, when a Kenneth Lonergan (You Can Count on Me), a Curtis Hanson (Wonder Boys), or a Lukas Moodysson (Together) emerges, it still is. Some directors still remind us that humanism, naughty nostalgic word though it is, is still a style, and a fine one at that.

holiday cukor_38_hepburn grant tipping over couch playing in playroom

By whatever magical process, Holiday tells us a story that isn’t what we expect, because its methods for reaching a guessable conclusion are so creative, so boisterous, so deeply and manifestly felt by everyone involved. Why didn’t audiences in 1938 want to see this? Perhaps a film about wealthy people was a turn-off after a near-decade of economic debacle, but that didn’t stop many another Hollywood lark from sailing footloose and fancy-free into the public’s favor. Besides, Johnny’s and Linda’s and Julia’s relation to the wealth they have is sad and ambivalent and illuminating, without the film growing didactic or asking in some embarrassing way that we shed tears for the so-called idle rich. Holiday cuts through the tough interrelations of money, family, and feeling with a trenchancy that many, more dogmatic movies regularly fail to do; it certainly makes Kaufman and Hart’s beloved You Can’t Take It With You, which inspired that year’s Oscar winner as Best Picture, seem just as thin and flyaway as (admit it) you probably already suspected it was.

Cary-Grant--Katherine-Hepburn holiday in playroom during new years eve party

That, and Holiday is funny, an absolute gas. And it’s visually lovely. And it’s touching and compassionate. What else do we want out of movies? What else do we want out of life? Boy am I feeling better, and without feeling manhandled by the clumsy, unformed giddiness of Gumpish minds or the ungainly, audience-tested soothsayings of Something’s Gotta Give. Holiday is a holiday, and it arrived for me at just the right time—but truly, is there ever a wrong time for something this right? A

Favourite Moments — Holiday

Holiday 1938

Stars — A Video Tribute to Film — Holiday 1938

Scene from Holiday 1938

Breathe Slowly [Holiday 1938] Alesha Dixon


Filed under: actors, characters, comedy, dialogue, director, drama, entertainment, film, film friday, film review, humor, humour, illustrations, movie trailers, photos, poster, relationships, romance, screenplay, screenwriter, script, song, storytelling, videos Tagged: brother, cary grant, comedy. drama. wealthy, engagement, film, film clips, film friday, flim review, future, george cukor. 1938, holiday, in love, katherine hepburn, sisters

Remembering Memories

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Remembering Memories
Post Written by Jennifer Kiley

Illustrated by j. kiley
Post Created on Sunday 31st August 2013
Posted on Sunday 31st August 2013

SPECIAL EDITION

Julie Harris and James Dean in 'East of Eden

Julie Harris and James Dean in ‘East of Eden’

In Honour & Dedicated to Julie Harris R.I.P. [1925-2013]

For anyone who would like to see something with Julie Harris, to help remember her. She has 16 choices on Roku. Specifically, I am watching ‘Belle of Amherst’ playing Emily Dickinson, the poet, an on stage recording. I thought I would let you know ‘Belle of Amherst’ is being shown for Free on Netflix if you have a subscription & on Roku.

julie harris and james dean

I am a huge fan of Julie Harris. Loved her in ‘East of Eden’ where she is one of two women who got to kiss James Dean on the screen. The other actor was Natalie Wood in ‘Rebel Without a Cause.’ I love Julie Harris with James Dean in ‘East of Eden.’ All of the photos I’ve posted are from this film. One of my other favorites is ‘The Haunting,’ which I have seen more times than I can count or remember.

julie harris and james dean 3

I have always had the biggest crush on James Dean. When I lived in New Haven I did a gay radio show at Yale and met a female doppelganger of James Dean in Lesbian form and she was a sculptor. It was attraction and a touch of love at first site. She wasn’t that kind of woman. She was a flirt like myself but she broke hearts, one was mine. I made the mistake I could break through the bronze exterior. Her name was Morgan.

julie harris and james dean east of eden-1954

Who doesn’t fall just a bit for a woman who looks like James Dean, is a sculptor and sexy as hell & attracted to you, too. I was a professional musician at the time myself. Wrote my own music, lyrics, too. What a fantasy so real as this does one get to live, even if just for a moment in time. I get to have the memories. I saw her art. She heard me sing.

Julie_Harris-& james dean

We looked into each other’s eyes and lost ourselves for awhile in a dream of tokes and tequila. Here’s to memories still alive and happening now some other place in time. I knew Morgan a year before I met Shawn. We rescued each other from the madness and live a stones throw from an artistic college and in a small village with our animals at home where someone mows out lawn once a week unless it rains.

JulieHarris.James Dean

Four of my favorite names: Shawn — Julie — James — Morgan. I have added others which also resonate love Niamh — Patrick — Lorca — Carter. Four of these names I have named our cats. Four are for women I love in special ways each one of them.

Julie_Harris_and_James_Dean_in_East_of_Eden_trailer

There is one more name I have known for almost forever but someone else uses it. Now it is special to me as she rides the waves and finds abstractions as a place where memories are held. I feel she, also, has the visions of the divine before we are allowed to see what we see with our usual vision.

JULIE-HARRIS

I am taking the rest of this to ‘the secret keeper’ where it will feel better between the pages of other posts to keep it warm. [We started out on our FB page.] Too soon it will be lost here and forgotten.[on FB] I want to be able to look up the words and faces and the wonderful abstract painting I created, I will add to it. [ended up stealing the abstract & putting it in my book on 'tsk' --- 'Letters of Import.'] Jk the secret keeper

East of Eden — Best Scene of James Dean & Julie Harris

Bell of Amherst — the Stage Production

The Haunting [1963] Trailer

Julie Harris in ‘East of Eden’ R.I.P. [1925---2013]

East of Eden Trailer


Filed under: actors, book, characters, death, dialogue, director, drama, entertainment, film, film clip, illustrations, love, movie trailer, novel, photos, prose, screenplay, special edition, videos, words Tagged: actors, bell of amherst, characters, death, dialogue, director, drama, east of eden, emily dickinson, entertainment, film, film clip, illustrations, james dean, john steinbeck, julie harris, love, movie trailer, novel, photos, prose, rebel without a cause, screenplay, special edition, the haunting, videos, words

Chapter #24: Tyranny Is Over—Time to Go Out and Play

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Chapter #24: Tyranny Is Over—Time to Go Out and Play
Letters of Import: Private Writings to a Psychoanalyst
Written by Jennifer Kiley
Illustrated by j. kiley
Published Introduction & Chapter #1 On 19th March 2013
Published Early Tuesday AM
Chapter #24 Published On 3rd September 2013
WARNING: ADULT LANGUAGE AND CONTENT.
NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN.

ALL CHARACTERS ARE FICTITIOUS.
ANYONE RESEMBLING ANYONE LIVING OR DEAD
IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.

Letters of Import: — Chapter #24: Tyranny Is Over—Time to Go Out and Play

Tuesday — 4th March 2008

Dear Annie,

I returned to group as though nothing had happened and continued my interaction with group members. My angry persona was alert to anyone who might make me feel uncomfortable or threatened. I, also, knew Annie was safe. She would be cautious and alert to the behavior of everyone. Nerves would be on edge. Her perceptions would be focused toward any negative acting out. The thought gave me a sense of safety and security.

My worries were not needed. Group was so relaxing, taking into consideration only weeks ago a member had tentatively been murdered. I believe the police are not calling it yet. No one is making any official determinations. I’m not so sure what is holding up what the cause was to Angie’s surprising demise.

It seemed all members of the group including Dr. Haskell, even Dr. George, have been questioned by the police. Dr. George is the person actually called in the local police station. Last Friday, they came to the mansion to meet with Scottie and me. Strange, though, after asking us both where we were at the time of the possible homicide, they separated us. A woman detective talked with me and a male detective went off somewhere with Scottie. It made no sense to me why they would talk to us separately. We weren’t suspect or witnesses. They asked all the questions I could imagine would be necessary. It worried me either one of us would be under suspicion.

These thoughts were running freely around in my mind like streams of consciousness waiting for a dam to stop them or a least slow them down. I tried deep breathing to calm myself. My mind just suddenly started picking up a sense of agitation. I felt the feeling inside my body what I feel prior to something falling down from the heavens, moments before all Hell rips open wide releasing the demons and chaos ensues. My accuracy was usually at 100%. Chicken Little, at this moment be running around manically, screaming: “The rapture is upon us. Prepare! Fire and stones with flowing lava are falling down from the sky. People are floating away. It is the End. All will be destroyed. Prepare for the Time to End.”

My mind was off on its destructive bent. I couldn’t speak. There was a knock at the door. It was loud and demanding entrance. You went to the door Annie. Before you reached it, the pounding became more persistent. It’s loudness didn’t hurry Annie’s movements. Opening the door, Annie was facing the male and female detectives who came to my place on Friday. Why were they here now?

Annie, you were so bold. After you opened the door, here is what I heard you say: “Why are you here? This is a private place, not somewhere the police should be invading. The people in this room have experienced enough trauma. This is a refuge from the world. It is meant to be sacrosanct. I am afraid we are in session. I will not allow you to disturb my clients here, in this manner. You will have to find a different place to meet with anyone in this room, including myself. I must ask you to leave. It is essential the group continue with their session. Thank you. I must close the door now.” And they backed away without one word uttered.

The door closed. Annie returned to her seat without a word. She looked at all our faces and seemed to stop longer on my face. She looked deeply into my eyes, causing me to slip into timelessness. My breathing stopped. My mind was flooding with a warmth filling up my body starting at my feet, the intensity level of heat increasing throughout my entire body. What were your eyes doing? Why were you looking into my eyes, Annie, making me feel like I was melting away into a state of invisibility? Were you making me disappear or were your eyes consuming me? The momentary feeling of fading away diminished slowly until it was gone and I returned back to a balance of wholeness.

The remainder of the time was devoted to talking about the group coming to an end. A majority felt it was time. Only two members weren’t certain they were ready to see it end. You relieved everyone’s anxiety quickly. You told us two new groups were being formed. The first group, you said you would run, but wouldn’t be starting for awhile. It would be to do therapy work on trauma, specifically child abuse, sexual and physical, but not ruling out other forms of trauma. The second group would be starting sooner and be a mixture of male and female, dealing with a variety of issues.

Annie, I was more curious about your group. Therapy for those who went through being abused. The members of your group, would fit me perfectly. It sounds exactly like what I need. Dealing with my childhood has never been something I have been able to talk about or even really remember very well. My memories are not terribly clear. I remember being abused but only in rare flashes filled with intense pain and sensations from sexual and physical brutality. My mind shuts down abruptly whenever any of these types of images come through. They’re like pornography with physical sensations of torture turned on.

One definite form of abuse to add to the list is being emotionally tortured. It occurred around crying, beatings and the strong need to apologize. The catalyst was doing something wrong, whether it was true or not. The necessity to beat me, followed by my tears and the sound of crying. The mere sound of crying set off a madness in the abuser. The beatings were already intense but the sound triggered a sadist, whose beatings became severe. What was happening or what was wrong with me. If the command to stop crying was not met immediately, the level of severity was increased and more force was applied. My flesh would develop welts. The clothing would be removed from the areas where the blows were struck. The commands were persistent. If my crying continued, so did the punishment.

I am not able to complete the memory. It blurs and what I need to remember is gone. Memory reminds me of icebergs and the Titanic. Most of what happened is under water. A nightmare of being surrounded by water. Feeling trapped. There is no moving forward and behind, the entire area is flooded. The nightmare filled the darkness with dreams of my childhood, when I was able to sleep. I stopped being able to sleep at night. Instead, I would fall asleep in classes all the time or stay home. I was sick often, so I stayed home and watched soap operas and napped. It was the only way to get any sleep. It got me hooked on soaps, plus I learned a lot but not necessarily what I needed to understand about my life or what was wrong with me. It was when I started thinking, all I wanted was to die and I thought I was going crazy. I had no understanding of why, only I wanted the reverse, not to die and not going crazy. What was going on in my mind was developing into a real conflict.

I think it’s why I like to make up stories about time travel. In the case of ‘Brief Sacrifice,’ it’s a way to discover the truth about what happened in the past. Issues unresolved, where lies have been told in the place of real honesty. I need to know what really happened. Not settle for a set story to cover the guilt of others complicit in the crimes committed. Going back in time, I will be able to discover the real not what has been told and my level of gullibility to accept the lies at first. I started becoming extremely suspicious. Didn’t trust anyone was telling the truth. Too many cover-ups exist. They need a huge light to shine down on the lies. Enough. An inventor developed something top secret. No one knows but Carter McLeod and her three Savannah cats, Jasper, Jax and James, are close to uncovering the secret of the most fantastic inventor, Nikola Tesla. The invention they are close to finding, will change lives forever. It isn’t free electricity for the entire world, his rich investors made sure to stop it from happening. Our U.S. government made the project disappear. Tesla lost his financial support. He ended up penniless when he died young. Once again the U.S. moved in and confiscated all his belongings. Everything disappeared, except except one item no one knew about. Tesla was brilliant the manner in which he hid the item. He didn’t want just anyone to discover it.

Keep thinking. What could be so powerful and mysterious, Nikola Tesla would go to such extremes to keep it so well hidden. And why Carter McLeod? Is she the one Tesla meant to find it? Was it all planned or originating in serendipity?

Something wicked this way follows. Beware of a thief in the dark.

Just how close is the McLeod Clan? It would be perfect symmetry if a member of Duncan McLeod’s clan could find the treasure. Duncan would be pleased.

Until next Time—Think Immortal!

Also, I need to think Annie. In a week, I will have my first official therapy sessions with you, Dr. Annie Haskell. I am excited but, also, anxious. Let it be a GREAT Session. And all future sessions be as good and Healing.

Fondly & Filled with Anticipation
Madison

Annie Haskell --- Madison Tayler's Psychoanalyst's Office

Dr. Annie Haskell’s Office as a Psychoanalyst

Maksim — Somewhere In Time — Theme Song For Letters of Import

rain in garden gif

Entering My Mind—But Gone Now
Written by Madison Taylor
Monday 3rd February 2008

Entering My Mind—But Gone Now
You entered my mind
The moment you entered my life.
It was an extraordinary afternoon,
No expectations.
Not a normal routine
For some time,
You were there,
A stranger,
Entering my life.
Beware of strangers offering kindness,
Lethal is their bite.
Like a vampire,
You sank your teeth in deep,
Leaving a taste of your essence
To absorb through my flesh.
Waking dreams in my sleep

I put my trust in you
The way to disaster
Going down quickly
Wanting something in you
You gave to me
With many restrictions
Never a warning
You’d crush me someday
Thought you would stay
Awhile—a long time
Everyone leaves
In life it’s a given
My senses know
Long before it happens

Great denial spews forth
In honest statements
Through misdirection
No support in action
Not a liar
Neither truthful be
Your truth is dead to me

Observing your movements
Across a blackened pavement
Of solid ground
Seeing only a stranger
Less familiar than expected
No urge strong or otherwise
To call out to you
Wanting you to see me
Seeing you
No need
No desire for acknowledgement
On either side
You for me or me for you
Is it I who wasn’t the person you knew
And you, who was always a stranger to me, too.

© madison taylor 2008

ethereal  matrix  by j. kiley © jennifer kiley

ethereal matrix by j. kiley © jennifer kiley

Tina Arena — I Want to Know What Love Is

Foreigner — I Want to Know What Love Is [extended version]

“A Dream
The beginning always starts out
With a dream.
It is all a dream
In our own nightmares”
— Madison Taylor

Patrick is our Bengal cat in tree. He loves Scotties. They are buddies.   1612x1212

Patrick-our Bengal cat up in his tree-Scottie’s buddy

Havana Brown Kitten  Madison and Scottie's kitten One of the Two   800x600

Havana Brown Kitten Madison & Scottie’s. This cutie is Toker. He has a twin brother Mikey

Havana Brown Cats  Madison and Scottie's kitties  1205x803

Havana Brown Cats Madison and Scottie’s kitties Toker and Mikey—I think the names are in the right order—they do look alike

Bedroom Madison and Scottie Share with High Windows --- Great During Thunderstorms & Rain

Bedroom Madison and Scottie Share with High Windows — Great During Thunderstorms & Rain

play is not just play meryl streep


Filed under: abstract art, art, artist, artistic temperament, author, bipolar, book, brief sacrifice, chapter, characters, digital art, fiction, film, kitten, letters, letters of import, novel, painting, photos, poem, poet, psychological thriller, remembering memories, screenplay, screenwriter, song, soundcloud, writer, writing Tagged: abstract art, art, artist, artistic temperament, author, bipolar, book, brief sacrifice, carter mcleod, chapter, characters, digital art, dr. annie haskell, dreams, fiction, film, kitten, letter, letters of import, madison taylor, novel, painting, photos, poem, poet, psychoanalysis, psychoanalyst, psychological thriller, psychotherapy, scottie andrews, screenplay, screenwriter, song, soundcloud, writer, writing

Fav Top 10 Films #5: When Audrey Hepburn Won Marilyn Monroe’s Role

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Breakfast-at-Tiffanys-Poster

Favorite Top Ten Films of All Time [#5]
Breakfast at Tiffany’s: When Audrey Hepburn won Marilyn Monroe’s role
List Created by Jennifer Kiley
Illustrated by j. kiley
Movie Trailers by Jk the secret keeper
Post Created on 21st August 2013
Posted On Friday 23rd August 2013

FILM FRIDAY
dedicated to roger ebert film friday5 stars

Favorite Top Ten Films of All Time [#5]
List Created by Jennifer Kiley

#5th — Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Breakfast at Tiffany’s: When Audrey Hepburn won Marilyn Monroe’s role

How Truman Capote’s novella became a great Hollywood film by Sarah Churchwell

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Audrey Hepburn the perfect Holly Golightly in the film of Breakfast at Tiffany’s

This is a fascinating review. I do not agree Audrey was miscast but I do agree that she was perfect for the role of Holly Golightly. It is a moving, complicated, sad, romantic, thought provoking, amusing film, I feel one of Blake Edwards’ and Audrey Hepburn’s masterpieces. The review coming up by Sarah Churchwell was brilliantly thought out. And tells the tale well of Breakfast At Tiffany’s and the rebirth of two people who have had it rough in their lives. A worthy film to watch for enjoyment but also to find compassion for two lost souls and the learning to love and to feel like you can belong to something and someone. Not in a way that smothers but in a way that sets you free so you are able to love.

I must mention my two favorite scenes in the entire film, not that I didn’t love every scene. But there is a scene out on the fire escape when Holly is playing the guitar and singing Henry Mancini’s “Moon River,” it is so vulnerable a moment. If you are familiar with this song and have seen the film you understand why. The other scene is during a rainstorm, and Holly and Paul aka Fred are searching for something very precious. It makes you frantic and sad and angry all in one moment, through an entire scene. If you see the film for the first time, remember to look for these two scenes. There are plenty of other scenes that move you but not the same as these two.

All Marilyn Monroe fans will be interested in reading this review, also. It seems Truman Capote wrote the novella with her in mind to eventually play the role of Holly Golightly. I love Marilyn but somehow after seeing Audrey Hepburn imprint herself on this role. I cannot imagine Marilyn doing it at all. It doesn’t seem to fit in my mind. It would have been interesting to see her do it on the stage. That would have been a treat if I had been old enough back at the time Marilyn was alive. A note I found out after writing this is that Marilyn rejected doing the part because her coach felt the character was of ill repute and it wasn’t a good impression to make playing someone who people would see as a “whore.” Of course, the way Audrey Hepburn plays the role, one only sees Audrey being her admirable self in a character who is carefree on the outside and heartbroken and terrified of too close a relationship and commitment with anyone, man nor beast.

So enjoy reading a unique approach to Breakfast At Tiffany’s. I will leave you the words, it deserves to be on my Favorite Top Ten List of Films. I feel if you take the time to see Breakfast At Tiffany’s, you will feel the same. It is a delight to watch Audrey develop into a butterfly during the course of the film. Enjoy reading the rest of the review, the photographs, posters, movie trailer(s), interviews, and film clips, and a documentary on the making of Breakfast at Tuffany’s and in the documentary, the joy for Blake Edward fans, being able to see and him talk about a film he was extremely proud to be part of and his delightful in being the director. From my impression, Audrey and Blake had quite the interesting relationship.

I know that Blake’s wife Julie Andrews became friends with Audrey and the ordeal over Jack Warner choosing Audrey to play Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady was never really a problem between the two of them. In fact, Audrey told Julie she wouldn’t take the role if Julie didn’t want her to. But then she discovered that Jack Warner was never going to give the role to Julie ever. In fact, he went on to give the role of Guinevere in Camelot to Vanessa Redgrave. For those who don’t know Julie played both the roles on Broadway. So Audrey decided that if Julie was never to get the role then why not her play the role. She really wanted to do it.

Of course, once Audrey began the part, they decided not to let her sing. To me that is so bizarre to cast someone who can’t sing at the level the part called for seems rather ridiculous. If it is a a singing part, you hire an actor who can really sing. [I only say that now. I am grateful that Natalie Wood played the role of Maria in West Side Story but didn't get to sing either. It was usually Marni Nixon who dubbed for most of those females who couldn't do it.]

Now, I use to be so upset with Audrey until I discovered this information and that Julie was truly alright with Audrey playing Eliza. Now I am over it but I really would have liked to see Julie playing Eliza. If she had then what would have happened with Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music? I’m sure she would have done those roles but the timing would have been so off. Instead she gets an Oscar & Golden Globe for Mary Poppins and a nomination for Maria in The Sound of Music and best picture also. And she became the number one star for the 70s. Take that Jack Warner.

And now onto the intriguing review of Breakfast at Tiffany’s written in 2009 by the British Journalist for The Guardian, Sarah Churchwell. Introduction by Jennifer Kiley

Production year: 1961
Country: USA
Cert (UK): PG
Runtime: 115 mins
Director: Blake Edwards
Adapted from Novella Written by Truman Capote
Cast: Audrey Hepburn: Holly Golightly (money for the powder room)
George Peppard: Paul Varjak (kept man-writer-based on Truman Capote except that Truman was gay & Paul is not)Holly calls him Fred
Patricia Neal: (Paul’s designer/keeper)
Buddy Ebsen: Doc (Holly’s Husband-robbed the cradle-Holly ran away from that life)

Sarah Churchwell
The Guardian
Friday 4th September 2009

It doesn’t take much these days for a tale to be described as a “Cinderella story”: anything resembling a makeover, however superficial, will usually suffice. But Breakfast at Tiffany’s really is a variation on the Cinderella theme, the tale of a young girl who escapes a dangerous adolescence and transforms herself through aspiration – a sheer act of will – but who may not live happily ever after. Like Cinderella, it is a story about struggling to escape. And it is a story about self-fashioning. Breakfast at Tiffany’s suggests to every woman – and many of the men – in the audience that they could reinvent themselves, liberate the golden girl hidden beneath ordinary, even debased, trappings.

audrey-as-holly-in-sleep-mask_with cat on back

Much of the writing about the film of Breakfast at Tiffany’s acknowledges that when Hollywood bought the rights to the story, Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe to play Holly Golightly. Most accounts treat this as yet another of Capote’s many idiosyncracies, if they consider it at all – who could imagine Monroe instead of Audrey Hepburn in one of her most iconic roles? But for anyone familiar with either Monroe or the novella, it’s not really that much of a stretch
.

Breakfast-at-tiffany-s holly singing moon river

In fact, as many of the film’s first critics observed, Hepburn is entirely wrong for Holly, a character who turns out to be a vagrant from west Texas whose real name is Lulamae Barnes. It is difficult to conceive of a woman less likely ever to have been called Lulamae, let alone “a hillbilly or an Okie or what” (as Holly’s agent OJ Berman refers to Lulamae) than Audrey Hepburn. She could be an ingénue, a naif, anything French you like. But a redneck? A hick from a Texas dirt-farm? That’s even more implausible than Cary Grant as an Oregon lumberjack in To Catch a Thief some five years earlier. Every inch of Audrey Hepburn exudes aristocratic chic.

breakfast-at-tiffany-s-after stealing the maskz as a joke with g.p.

Monroe, by contrast, whom Capote knew well, though raised in California rather than Texas, was originally named Norma Jeane (with an E, like Lulamae), and her parallels with Capote’s Holly do not end there. She was a depression-era orphan who was both exploited and saved by older men. As an adult she would allude to childhood molestations (when reckoning how many lovers she’s had, Capote’s Holly dismisses “anything that happened before I was 13, because, after all, that just doesn’t count”). She has an upturned nose, tousled, “somewhat self-induced” short, blonde hair (“strands of albino-blonde and yellow”) and “large eyes, a little blue, a little green”.

Breakfast-At-Tiffany-s-audrey-hepburn-being woken from sleep

She is befriended by an extremely short, powerful Hollywood agent who recognises her potential and helps her reinvent herself, renaming her and providing her with access to education and a more sophisticated veneer. She runs away to New York just as success in Hollywood seems assured – although Holly, unlike Monroe, knows she doesn’t have it in her to be a star, because she lacks the drive that precisely characterised Monroe (as Capote understood). Like Monroe, Holly is in it for the “self-improvement”, as she tells the narrator. She’s been around the block, for which she never apologises, and she ends as an icon, a fertility symbol (the narrator sees a picture of Holly carved as an African fetish). Most of all, Monroe, like Capote’s Holly, “is a phony. But on the other hand . . . she isn’t a phony because she’s a real phony”. The novella’s Holly, her agent knows, is “strictly a girl you’ll read where she ends up at the bottom of a bottle of Seconals”. Mind you, the novella was published in 1958: four years before Monroe ended up at the bottom of a bottle of Nembutals. It’s a fable about a Monroe manqué, who lacks her ambition – and may thus escape her fate.

[I do not agree with the statement Marilyn ended up at the bottom of a bottle of Nembutals. There are many theories which do not support that conclusion. It is possible some found Marilyn asleep after taking something to help her drop off. But I believe the Nembutals were introduced into her system in a manner where they would dissolve long enough to disappear from her system before an autopsy could be done. There were no Nembutal found in her system. Yet, she supposedly died from an overdose. Nothing she took herself. The amount which would have killed her she couldn't have taken without passing out before all the pills were swallowed. A curious dilemma, and also, her body had been moved from the location where she died and she was placed into her bed. She was found lying in the wrong position for the way the evidence was recorded. So, I object to the making of a comment about Marilyn "ending up at the bottom of a bottle of Nembutal." She didn't and I still believe someone took her life. There were too many reasons for others to have done it than for Marilyn to have been able to succeed at taking the lethal dose. My opinion by Jennifer Kiley]

Breakfast-at-Tiffany-s-audrey-hepburn-looking tearful

Blake Edwards’s film adaptation was released in 1961, a little less than a year before Monroe died. And much to her disappointment, she didn’t win the part that had been written for, and about, her. Holly could have been the performance of a lifetime – as it would have been the performance of her lifetime. Moreover Holly, despite being blonde, is decidedly not dumb, and Monroe was desperate to escape being typecast.

Hepburn, Audrey (Breakfast at Tiffany's) with g. peppard

But Hepburn won the part, and in retrospect it is easy to see why. Hepburn, far more than Monroe, had become indelibly associated with the transformative Cinderella makeover. Although Holly, like Monroe – and like Capote, in fact – all sprang from a Platonic conception of themselves (in F Scott Fitzgerald’s famous phrase), for them the fissures between the earlier self and the public persona always showed, and threatened to split them apart. Hepburn was the only one whose stardom seemed to reflect her authentic self – as if she were not an actor but a true princess, an authentic queen.

holly at door with mask up on forehead

In one way, Capote was certainly an authentic queen. But he was never able to shed his sense of belonging on the margins. The neglected child from Louisiana, the prodigy who transformed himself into a celebrity, never believed that he belonged in the castle. As he wrote of his own alter ego, the unnamed narrator of Tiffany’s, he lived perpetually with “his nose pressed on the glass”, wanting “awfully to be on the inside staring out”. Capote, who was born Truman Parsons, was himself an aspiring Cinderella; like Holly he was renamed, reinvented, and left eternally waiting for the right fairy godmother.

holly hanging with g.p.

Cinderella was not, originally, a poor child raised to the rank of princess. In the stories of Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, Cinderella begins life in privilege and wealth – in earlier versions she’s even a princess – who is wrongly deprived of her rightful status by those who envy her power and beauty. It is less a story of metamorphosis than of revelation: the transformation only reveals the original self. On screen, we never saw Norma Jeane become Monroe: we knew her only after the fall. But for Hepburn, every definitive role leading up to Breakfast at Tiffany’s – and continuing to My Fair Lady – featured her being transformed, the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis. And unlike Monroe, who was always seen as having transformed into something artificial, Hepburn was only ever transformed back into her own luminous, immanent self.

holly singing moon river with guitar playing in arms

The story of our culture’s subsequent love affair with the film of Breakfast at Tiffany’s – and not with the novella, which may be admired, and certainly has the cachet of its author, but is hardly well-beloved, much less well-read – is really about our love affair with Audrey Hepburn, the movie star. The persona she consistently projected was of authentic, intrinsic refinement, of chic sophistication that was never brittle or cold, of an instinctive stylishness that reached its epitome in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The moment when Hepburn first emerges in the film still ranks as one of the great screen makeovers of all time.

The title credits roll over a scene of condensed, symbolic wishing: Hollywood as dream factory. Hepburn is standing, very slim, in a long, black column dress with a glittering, enormous collar necklace and the trademark black sunglasses that Jackie O would adopt a few years later. (Jackie O’s supposedly iconic looks markedly resemble Hepburn’s from a few years earlier.) The camera encourages us to gaze longingly with her through the Tiffany’s window at diamonds and other jewels; and then she strolls up the street, munching the doughnut that we know is probably the only doughnut Hepburn ever ate in her life. But it is precisely these little touches of normality, of the ordinary, that humanised Hepburn’s image.

holly with cat in apt with unopened boxes

The next time we see her, she is asleep, wearing an absurd eye-mask and dangling ear-plugs with little blue tassels. She groggily awakes and pulls on a man’s tuxedo shirt – one of the film’s few insinuations that she may entertain “gentlemen callers” overnight – and, hair awry, opens the door to George Peppard, playing Capote’s alter ego: straightened, masculinised and elongated (Capote was just 5ft 3in). Paul Varjak – as the film arbitrarily names the writer who will be cast as Holly’s obligatory love interest – is locked out; Holly lets him in and realises that she has an appointment. A frantic rush to get dressed ensues, as Holly hunts for alligator pumps, brushes her teeth, puts on an enormous hat, and emerges from the bedroom as – voilà! – Audrey Hepburn. The camera lingers lovingly on a close-up of her dazzling smile as she asks, half-coyly, half-sweetly: “Surprised?” “Amazed,” responds Varjak – and so are we, the transformation is so quick, so easy, so absolute. Or we would be amazed, if it weren’t for the fact that we were always waiting for it.

walking around NYC trying to look for something to do thats illegal

One of the things that makes this transformation so effective is its apparent effortlessness. All she needs are the right hat and a little black dress (it was Hepburn who turned the Little Black Dress into the wardrobe staple it remains today) and there she is, like magic, with the wave of a fairy godmother’s wand. From Now, Voyager to Pretty Woman, Hollywood has sold stories that centre on metamorphosis, when ugly ducklings become beautiful swans or streetwalkers become homemakers. The appeal of transformation is the appeal of self-improvement: some women are born beautiful, some have beauty thrust upon them – but Hollywood promises that beauty can be achieved. The romance of Breakfast at Tiffany’s is not really with Peppard (in the only leading role he’ll be remembered for) but with Hepburn herself, with the fantasy of artless sophistication she embodies. Hepburn (again, unlike Monroe) never appeared to try too hard.

Holly Golightly at Tiffany's Windown in Blake Edwards Breakfast at Tiffany's

Holly Golightly at Tiffany’s Windown in Blake Edwards Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Hepburn’s iconic transfigurations extend back to her first, Oscar-winning, starring role in Roman Holiday in 1953 (the same year, incidentally, of Monroe’s breakthrough role in Niagara). In a kind of inside-out Cinderella story, Hepburn, as Princess Ann, has one perfect day in Rome, riding around on the back of Gregory Peck’s moped, before the clock strikes midnight and she returns to her duties, without Prince Charming, but secure in the knowledge of his love. And part of her metamorphosis comes when she crops her hair, trades a few accessories, including her shoes, rolls up her sleeves, unbuttons her collar, and instantly achieves the insouciant gamine look that would become her trademark.

Breakfast-at-Tiffanys-Poster-4

Hepburn’s next film, Sabrina, featured a more prolonged transformation, again from pony-tailed adolescent into pixie-cropped personification of soignée style. Sabrina added a fairy godfather in the form of a French baron so old that his intentions – and hence her morals – are never in question. Soon after came Funny Face, and another makeover, the first that the story represents as requiring an army of fashionistas and photographers (but only because it takes that many to overcome her character’s resistance to being objectified). Eventually, with My Fair Lady, Hepburn would play the ultimate transformed object in Eliza Doolittle, a woman who is initially not at all the author of her own transformation. When Hepburn started playing the Princess, she stopped being Cinderella – for good. It was almost as if she didn’t have to, because her definitive persona had been fixed. The princess had emerged.

The film of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, like Capote’s novella, sees Holly as half-Cinderella, half-Pygmalion – Doc, who saves her, and begins to educate her, however primitively; like a female Huck Finn, lights out for the territories, escaping the confinements of “civilization”.

Audrey-Hepburn-in-Breakfast-at-Tiffanys

But Hollywood would never release Hepburn into the wild – not least because she so patently doesn’t belong there. The film also has a romance with New York, which it doesn’t want her to leave. So along comes the final Pygmalion, the writer Paul Varjak, who finishes domesticating Holly. Capote’s Holly is too mobile and erratic for a Hollywood just emerging from the 1950s. She is a vagrant playgirl; her only permanent state, as she prints on her calling cards, is that she is “Miss Holiday Golightly, Travelling”. And it means something very different for a woman to be a tramp than for a man.

full-breakfast-at-tiffany's-poster

This is why, for the story to work as a romance, Holly’s indiscretions need to be cancelled out, as it were, by those of a lover who has also fallen prey to the lure of sexual economics, who has also sold himself. It is not just that Hollywood has to inject a love story wherever it finds a beautiful woman (although that is certainly the case) but that the man must ultimately redeem her, and himself, from a life of sexual opportunism that she describes in euphemistic terms as receiving money “for trips to the powder room”, and he describes as “having a decorator”.

Audrey Hepburn wiht George Peppard

Audrey Hepburn wiht George Peppard

Like Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Breakfast at Tiffany’s is fundamentally a story of the American dream. Capote’s novella, if not about nightmares, is certainly about the costs of the dream. The film – like most Hollywood movies – is determined to view dreams as wish-fulfilment. And by no coincidence it took a European movie star with aristocratic heritage to bring the American dream to life in all its sentimental romance, because the American dream is, in part, a dream about being the real thing, about belonging. Like Holly Golightly and Monroe, Jay Gatsby is a real phony. But Hepburn was a dream of authenticity rather than imitation, of success rather than failure, of security rather than escape.

looking cat in the rain b.a.t.

You can call it sentimental, even cheap and manipulative. Capote certainly did, and many critics followed suit: an early review declared that Hepburn was “viciously, pathologically miscast” as Holly. This is undeniable – but it is also why the film works on its own terms, and has become so culturally distinct from the novella. Despite how much of the story and even of Capote’s dialogue it keeps, it is a fundamentally different tale because its tone and mood is so at odds with Capote’s. The film is, in a word, sunny; it is full of hope. The novella is full of shadows and terrors.

Found Cat in the rain near where holly let him out of the car

Found Cat in the rain near where holly let him out of the car

In the end, though, shadows are no truer than sunlight. Edwards’s film is unquestionably escapist, and it eagerly encourages us not to think about how sordid and sad its characters and story actually are. That’s what romance is. And in fact Capote’s novella is rife with its own sentimentalities, in love with a romantic notion of loss and escape. Capote’s Holly is essentially a variation on the hooker with a heart of gold, and the novella is dominated by a kind of willed cynicism, a veneer of sophisticated experience belied by the ending, in which the narrator sighs over his unconvincing hope that this “wild thing” has at last found a home. The film Breakfast at Tiffany’s is dominated by a willed innocence, a romance with romance itself. But in fact the innocence of Capote’s Holly is willed, too – which is what Hollywood gets right. As she tells the narrator in the novella: “I haven’t anything against whores. Except this: some of them may have an honest tongue but they all have dishonest hearts. I mean, you can’t bang the guy and cash his checks and at least not try to love him.” The morality lies in the effort to have an honest heart, genuinely to feel the emotion: and the film shares this moral code. Hollywood has always pandered to us, selling a vast, vulgar and alluring but false beauty. The makers of the film are, metaphorically speaking, banging Holly; they’re exploiting her story, selling her out, maybe even corrupting her – but they are also trying very hard to love her, and they want us to love her, too.

Inky Cherie — Moon River — Composed by Henri Mancini for Breakfast at Tiffany’sA very delicate rendition of Moon River. A Beautiful voice with very little accompaniment.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s Trailer

Audrey Hepburn – Moon River

Andy Williams — Moon River — Clips from Film

Breakfast at Tiffany’s: Paul says “I love you” – Library Scene

Documentary on Breakfast at Tiffany’s Movie – Blake Edwards & others discuss the film


Filed under: actors, author, book, characters, dialogue, director, entertainment, film, film clip, film friday, film review, humor, humour, love, movie trailer, photos, poster, relationships, romance, screenplay, song, soundcloud, words Tagged: actors, audrey hepburn, author, blake edwards, book, breakfast at tiffany's, characters, dialogue, director, entertainment, film, film clip, film friday, film review, holly golightly, humor, humour, love, movie trailer, photos, poster, relationships, romance, screenplay, song, soundcloud, tiffany's, truman capote, words

Chapter #25: Private Dancer

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private writings by jennifer kileyChapter #25: Private Dancer
Private Writings To A Psychoanalyst
Written by Jennifer Kiley
Illustrated by j. kiley
Published Introduction & Chapter #1 On 19th March 2013
Published Early Tuesday AM
Chapter #25 Published On 10rd September 2013

WARNING: ADULT LANGUAGE AND CONTENT.
NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN.

ALL CHARACTERS ARE FICTITIOUS.
ANYONE RESEMBLING ANYONE LIVING OR DEAD
IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.

Crypticistic Synopsis:

I am writing to Dr. Annie Haskell. My form of storytelling is through letters containing dreams, thoughts, poems, music, describing my script ‘Brief Sacrifice,’ already made into a film but not yet released, psychotherapy, inspirations, reflective comments, the inner workings of the mind, soul, body, emotions, and bipolar. I prefer mentally creative, interesting, or having a brain misfiring. Included in the mix are childhood abuse, car crashes, near drownings, drugs [the illegal kind at present], hallucinations, hypersexuality, time warps, finding answers to unsolved mysteries, infatuation, imagination, fantasy,

and a need to discover my bliss.
See you inside.
— Namaste! Madison Taylor


Private Writings: — Chapter #24: Private Dancer

Tuesday — 11th March 2008

Dear Annie,

What do I say to you about our first day of private therapy.

If you could imagine my waiting for you to come out to get me in the waiting room. My insides were flipping over. The chair could have floated out from underneath me, I was ascending to the ceiling so often. Then it came. Your hand gently resting on my shoulder. The electric current woke me from a trance. My ear buds were in. Music was high, playing ‘Everything I Do, I Do It For You.’ I’m sure you’re familiar with Bryan Adams.

You touched me. It was the first time. So unexpected but I didn’t flinch. Your hand felt so safe. No touch does from people. Why, then was it okay with you? Therapy began in a moment I never will forget.

I didn’t say anything. Just followed you to your office. It was exactly how my mind imagined it. There is a photograph in my head. Your office is exactly identical. I have been seeing the future again.
What did we talk about? I was in a daze. Being alone with you was overwhelming. After the long wait of wishing for just this day. It seemed like being inside of a dream I’ve been dreaming forever. You have been buried, living inside my mind. You are the one.

Explaining what I mean is beyond human words. It is buried in memories outside of time. A recurring sense of familiarity without any connection till now. It is of times past. Other lives. Reincarnation. Having been together before now. We knew and lived in other times together. What I am writing sounds certifiable to most. Look how people tease Shirley MacLaine. People believe but are embarrassed by believing in such seemingly bizarre, other dimensional phenomena. I do believe mostly, but have doubts when others question the strength of my beliefs.

I am so easily influenced. What I believe floats with the breeze and seems too easily changeable as is the direction of the wind. It is not because I don’t belief what I do belief, it’s my need to question everything. Which leaves me feeling confused, as though I stand on the solidness of quicksand most of the time.

Everything in life confuses me. In a moment I will believe in something being as real as anything can be. In a flash the connection is broken. Reality turns into a nightmare of chaotic brainwaves of disbelief. A crumbling of my reality into a collection of delusional thoughts, a puzzle where the pieces don’t fit together any way you try to make sense of them.

I lose track. Stop knowing what to believe. Testing anything becomes too frightening. The fear, is my reality is false, and my delusions are true. What does one do when thinking and feeling like the world is alien, which trips back and forth at will, no control from within me.

I think it is why I like fantasy. Watching movies. Reading books. Writing outrageous fiction. Creating cryptic poetry. The abstract is more acceptable. It can be whatever it wants to be. Change when it wants to. It is simply accepted. A true shape-shifter. Maybe I am one. Never the same. Always someone different.

Will you be able to help me. I need a complete internal make-over. Inside of me lives a very fucked up mess. Filled with fear. Wanting to love but retreating as soon as it feels too close. Reaching for it. Shutting down when it is given. I would say I am really screwed. The up part I let it be cut off. Most of the time I don’t feel up. When I do, it drives everyone crazy except me. I don’t live outside my body. I don’t notice the extreme agitation and rage. I become fixated and driven. I have no idea why I feel the way I do, except most of the moments when I am awake I chase after the muse to keep up. Exactly like Alice with her White Rabbit. I fall down the Rabbit Hole on a regular basis.

The Mad-Hatter is a really great friend, if one can be friends with someone as crazy as you are. Actually, maybe it is easier. Is there a direction we can take to relieve the pressure? The urges to want out of this world. Oh, yeah, the state of suicidal thinking is a regular visitor in my head. We are co-operating companions. I won’t let her harm me, she knows it is true, so the deal is, I let her exist as long as she lets me have my moments of being in my bliss or high, so I can write and create. She even helps sometimes find those hidden meanings and depth I find so elusive. She knows the secret passageways to memories. Knowledge one can’t find in the wide awake world. Too much bright light can hide the views of the darkness. The answers lie in the darkness. The ones I am seeking.

So what did we talk about. I asked you to tell me who you were. Not using those words. You told me you had a daughter in high school, ninth grade I believe. She wants to be an actor. The plays and musicals she’s been in, all were as the lead. See if my memory fails or leads me to the correct answers. Memory failure is common with me. To begin with, she played Maria in West Side Story. Let me think, she was Juliet in Shakespeare’s modernized production of my beloved ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ Marvelous play. Such an ending, an example of extremely bad timing all around for all those ending up dead. Quite a high number but not as severe as Hamlet.

Which brings me to Hamlet. Her school switched things up a bit on Elizabethan rules, had a lady playing a young man in the way of Hamlet. Your daughter was the lucky one to win the sweet role. The sheer fact at her age to succeed at doing a shortened version of Hamlet or any version is extremely difficult. But you told me she always received excellent write-ups in the local paper and school paper, on all her performances. Which makes me feel and think I would like to meet her someday. Make an attempt to write her the perfect part in one of my screenplays. We will discuss this. If she has aspirations toward being a professional actor, Scottie, my partner in life and career, is a director. We have our own production company, ‘Infinite Imaginations, Inc. III.’ If you would like and she agrees, we could arrange a screen test, see how she appears through the eye of the camera.

If you help to fix me, I would be overjoyed to help you with your daughters future in the world of film. It would, actually be my pleasure. You would know she’d be safe with Scottie watching out for her. And I’d write her an Oscar winning role. Not over-confident, am I?

This leads me right into my favorite part of writing to you. I love telling you about my work and particularly my latest script, ‘Brief Sacrifice.’ We left off with Carter pursuing a lead, following the trail of the Magic Silver Box without any seams and impossible to open. Carter needed the input of her three companions, Jasper, Jax, and James, her Savannah Cats. James’ specific psychic ability was the best way to sort things out but they must follow the trail of its origin.

The first destination was the Estate where Carter purchased her Treasure. Hopefully, they could provide information as to the origins or name of the deceased whose Estate was being sold. If Carter had that name, it could lead to other connections.

After arriving, they found the caretaker. He directed Carter to the lawyer’s office who managed the deceased estate. The firm was hired by Jackson Sharp, to take care of closing out the estate. They directed Carter to where she could locate him.

When she found Jackson Sharp, he invited her in, as though he was expecting her. After the amenities, he asked her and her companions to make themselves very comfortable, for he, Jackson Sharp had a story to tell them.

He started out his story as follows: “The deceased was the Leader of the Organization: The Friends of Nikola Tesla. He managed the Friends of Nikola Tesla since shortly after his, Tesla’s, death at a young age . He died penniless after creating amazing inventions. He worked for Edison, whom he had no affection for but was fortunate to have acquired the support of an extremely wealthy entrepreneur in Morgan and later joined by another wealthy benefactor.”

“Tesla was moving forward with his inventions until he came upon a way for everyone in the world to have free electricity by simply putting a specially devised pole in the ground. The best part is the power from these sources would not only make electricity free, it would eventually create absolutely no need for the use of fossil fuels. Oil that is, Texas gold.”

“Well, his wealthy benefactors did not want this invention to ever see the light of his invention. They buried him. Withdrew their financial support. No one was ever going to see his dream in action. It did sneak into the invention of the Tesla Electric Car, which is doing very well.”

“After Tesla’s death, the U.S. Government absconded with all his possessions where he was living, and hid them away. Did they get everything, though? I believed in Nikola Tesla, myself, once I heard the story from the old man who died. I’m sorry I cannot tell you his identity, it was my promise to never reveal his secret.

“Tesla was brilliant. Did anyone believe he would not have secret locations where he would hide his own secret inventions. Especially after all which had been stolen from him. He was sure to want to leave a legacy for the future where he hoped there would be those who would understand his genius and his amazing capabilities. I am privileged to those secrets. During the remaining years of his life, the old man, with a group of secret individuals of like minds, protected Nikola Tesla’s answers to the future of humankind.”

“These secrets are set to be passed down through generations until humankind is worthy of the powers Nikola Tesla put into his work and dreams. Even the powers of electricity free for all is well hidden away until the world can rid itself of the parasites who live off the energy of the masses. Who cast them aside as though they meant nothing. The .01% of the population are those parasites who are starving the world as they destroy the beauty in nature and make slaves of the majority of humankind. Their day will fall. They will disappear for good.”

“On that day, all the secrets will be revealed. Humankind will make a change. All will be new. The world will be recreated. This is Nikola Tesla’s dream and what Friends of Nikola Tesla are protecting until the time comes for his Dream to be put into full action.”

“All of this is contained in a special Silver Box filled with Magical abilities. This Magic has the capability to alter the world enough so that Change and Truth can be revealed. If I am not mistaken,” Jackson Stark said. “You are in possession of this Silver Box ?”

“Yes, that is correct, but how did you know?” Carter said.

“It was meant to belong to you. You were chosen. I will explain, but let us rest now. I will have arrangements made for you, Carter, and your companions to stay here for while. It’s just for your own protection.”

“What protection? Why do we need protection?”

“The contents of the Silver Box is being searched for as we speak. Many extremely dangerous people will not stop ever until it is found, those who have knowledge of it and those who are in possession of it, are all destroyed. What you hold in your possession is truly Magical, with powers you will find very difficult to understand. It is too soon to get into what it is. The time will be soon enough.”

“Now let me show you to your suite, where you can make your selves comfortable. I will prepare a delicious meal for everyone. Don’t worry Jasper, Jax and you, too, James. I know James, you are the Special One with all the psychic talents. It’s rare to find a cat who matches up with a companion who understands his ability. You can, can’t you, Carter! You have the Magic, also. That is partly why you were all chosen. But there you are. I am getting ahead of myself. I will leave now. Get comfortable. You will find snacks for all in the small refrigerator over against the wall, just over there. Now, I take my leave. Dinner will come shortly, I promise. I will ring you on the intercom. Rest. You will need it for what’s ahead.”

He disappeared. They did as he said and all rested.

And I will stop there. Leave you wanting more.

What a day. A dream comes true. Fear is rising. But telling you my tale of Magic calms me down.

I know I didn’t say anything about the group. What I would have to write would take away from the specialness of having you all to myself today. I don’t want to think about group anymore. I wish it would just end. Be done with it. The only reason I still go now is to see you. Now I can do that on my own. I will leave group at saying there is little I will miss. The past too many years have only been a disaster I should have ended long ago. But I know now, why I didn’t. It was meant for me to live through, till the day came I would meet you, Annie. Serendipity. Maybe. Sometimes what leads up to it can be extremely painful. I needed to learn what I didn’t need, to discover what I do need, and want. Enough from that lesson. Let it be over now. Enough!

Time to stop.

Until I see you next time.

Fondly and Gratefully, I sign off with much appreciation to you, Annie.

Always Want To Know You,

Madison

Annie Haskell --- Madison Tayler's Psychoanalyst's Office

Dr. Annie Haskell’s Office as a Psychoanalyst

Somewhere In Time — Soundcloud — John Barry — Theme Song For ‘Private Writings’

Forget-Me-Nots

Forget-Me-Nots

rain in garden giftrusting
written by madison taylor
monday 10th february 2008

trusting the newness
memories overturning
in graves their awakening

arms pull warmth to me
body’s touching silky skin
caressing gently my dreams

feeling hands inside
flesh responds in still silence
open wanting pleads let go

© madison taylor 2008

a matter of time --- artist katherine patrick

a matter of time — artist katherine patrick

The Fire Rises — Soundcloud — Soundtrack ‘Brief Sacrifice’

Nothing Out There — Soundcloud — Soundtrack ‘Brief Sacrifice’

Hans Zimmer Mix — Soundcloud — Soundtrack ‘Brief Sacrifice’

Invaders — Soundcloud — Soundtrack ‘Brief Sacrifice’

“A Dream
The beginning always starts out
With a dream.
It is all a dream
In our own nightmares”
— Madison Taylor

Patrick is our Bengal cat in tree. He loves Scotties. They are buddies.   1612x1212

Patrick-our Bengal cat up in his tree-Scottie’s buddy

Havana Brown Kitten  Madison and Scottie's kitten One of the Two   800x600

Havana Brown Kitten Madison & Scottie’s. This cutie is Toker. He has a twin brother Mikey

Chateau de Rocher Art Gallery  999x752

Chateau de Rocher Art Gallery

play is not just play meryl streep


Filed under: abstract art, actor, art, artist, artistic temperament, author, bipolar, book, brief sacrifice, cats, chapter, characters, companion animals, cover abstract time, dialogue, director, drama, fantasy, film, haiku, music, mystery, painting, photos, poet, prose, psychoanalysis, psychoanalyst, psychological thriller, psychotherapy, screenwriter, script, sexual abuse, shame, soul, soundcloud, spiritual love, storytelling, suicidal thinking, talk, writer Tagged: actor, art, artistic temperament, bipolar, book, brief sacrifice, carter mcleod, cats, chapter, characters, child abuse, dialogue, director, drama, entertainment, fantasy, film, friends of nikola tesla, haiku, jackson sharp, madison taylor, mystery, painting, photos, poet, prose, psychoanalysis, psychoanalyst, psychological thriller, psychotherapy, scottie andrews, screenwriter, script, shame, soul, soundcloud, spiritual love, storytelling, suicidal thinking, talk

Fav Top Ten #4: An Affair To Remember

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affair-to-remember-title-screen posterFav Top Ten #4: An Affair To Remember
Review Written by Jennifer Kiley
Video One: Clips From Film with Music
Video Two: Theme Song by Josh Groban
Illustrated by j. kiley
Post Created Thursday 12th September 2013
Posted On Friday 13th September 2013
Friday the 13th
FILM FRIDAY

dedicated to roger ebert film friday5 stars

an affair to remember in diningroom on ship looking at each other

an affair to remember in terry's state room

An Affair To Remember — Forever Deborah Kerr & Cary Grant

an affair to remember empire state building off behind terry b&w

an affair to remember b&w on shipThe video above the black and white photographs of Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, has a French singer in the back ground, which makes the scene far more sentimental than a film trailer ever could and conveys the intense feelings of love developing between the two lead characters. If you know the story or have seen the film “Sleepless In Seattle,” you will know the two characters, after they wait for a year, if they are still in love, they are to meet at the top of the Empire State building in NYC.

sleeplessinseattle all 3 on top of empire state building

BDDefinitionAffairtoRemember in water on ship watermark removeWe know how “Sleepless In Seattle” ends but do we know what happens in “An Affair To Remember?” It is the most touching love story ever made. If you do not cry tears at the end of this film, I would say, in a non-judgmental way, you are the Tin Man, who never had a heart. He needs to make a visit to the Wizard for a new one, or it has been broken, or you have encased your soul in a vault. It is impossible not to get a lump in one’s throat and tears to build up in one’s eyes. Cary and Deborah are so perfect together. The characters they portray are instant successes as romantic figures. It is impossible not to care.on island near house of grandmother closer shotThere are many reasons to cry while watching “An Affair To Remember.” Each one, pulls at your heart and announces you are alive. Love is teased in the beginning scenes, on the cruise back to the States from overseas. Nickie Ferante, [Cary Grant] and Terry McKay, [Deborah Kerr] meet most fortunately for both, for they are able to offer each other a buffer of protection from the rest of the passengers on the ship, who are in constant pursuit of their company, in which they, themselves, want to pass on. There is no interest at all with them to mingle with anyone else but each other.

An-Affair-to-Remember-with grandmotherDuring the trip, Nickie takes Terry to his Grandmother’s island, when the ship makes a stop there.  Terry has a beautiful conversation with Nickie’s Grandmother. They bond really quickly. When it seems to Terry, Nicke’s Grandmother is cold, she retrieves a beautiful shawl and places it over her shoulders. It is during these moments when his Grandmother promises, someday the shawl would be a gift to Terry. After a wonderful time and a visit to the chapel, Terry and Nickie return to the ship.An-Affair-To-Remember at chapel on GM's islandThere they continue to pursue their quest for a peaceful, uninterrupted, and uneventful return to the states. Their trips were to have time away from their beloveds back home. It was all meant to be a time for them to think over their almost cemented relationships. Those who were waiting for them on their return. On the boat, everyone is after Nickie Ferante, a celebrity of a sort, a playboy who is tentatively spoken for by a wealthy heiress. She has a great deal to offer Nickie and his life style, plus he is cassé. Terry McKay has a similar situation but not the notoriety. She is being pursued by a wealthy gentleman back in NYC, who is a good person, and she is also cassé.in doorway to terry's room on ship Grant, Cary (An Affair to Remember)_02While on board, the trip is long, Terry and Nickie spend meals together, walks around the promenade talking and enjoying the others company. The rumours start to spread, though. Neither can afford for their friendship to be released to the press. This is when they start to pretend to not notice the other. It becomes amusing to the other passengers, the way they behave. It even has fall-out in the dining room when they attempt to dine alone and end up at tables back to back. It causes great laughter amongst the other dinner guests.cary-and-deborah-back-to-back 2

anaffairtoremember-empirestate see from boat their backs to usThey are fated. However, they do get caught on camera, but Nickie is quick, grabs the camera and destroys the negative. When it comes time for the ship to dock, they realize their feelings have developed into something more than just friendship. The answer is unsure, what should they do? A decision is made, after a designated length of time, if they are still feeling what they feel now, they will meet at the top of the Empire State Building.

Now you know fairy tales never end the way you want them to.

An-Affair-to-Remember going to kiss on ship

In the meantime, Nickie is going to try to earn money in order to be the man Terry needs, and Terry is going to try to earn money to bring to the relationship, in order to assure it does thrive. They need to find their independence and make it on their own. Both are adamant about doing this. Nickie has always been a potentially great painter. So he decides to go down the road of the artist. Terry, having a similar bent, has a glorious voice and turns to performing. All seems to be going well. It takes time but Nickie begins to find buyers for his paintings and Terry is becoming successful in her singing career. 

It is almost time for the fateful day to occur.

an affair to remember just getting off ship terry hugging fiance nickie watchesThe top of the Empire State Building is quite active. Both are intent on being there. But it doesn’t exactly happen the way it is supposed to. And this is as far as I will take the story. I have set it up. Watching is much more enjoyable.  It causes one to be misty eyed. And it is more than just a “chick flick.” I hate the term. If something is emotionally based and causes one to cry, why is it only females who are allowed to enjoy this kind of story? Why aren’t men allowed to watch this and have the same reaction as a woman? Crying is perfectly acceptable when confronting something excitingly joyful or exceedingly sad.an affair to remember in the theatreWhat happens next, is what leads one to the crying and the praying. Some major events occur which change the whole story.  Nickie has a gift for Terry. It is beautiful. Nickie and Terry run into one another, after the Empire State Building, when the opera audience is leaving, he sees with a man by her side, still sitting, as he walks up the aisle with a woman by his side. Nickie-Terry-in-An-Affair-to-Remember-movie-couple in her apt at endIt is awkward. If you want to find out any of the reasons I have left out, you must see the film. You will not be disappointed. As I said before, fairy/faery tales do not develop the way we want them to, nor do they always have the endings we expect. Faery tales don’t necessarily come true, the way they are in wishes and dreams. Cary-in-An-Affair-To-Remember-cary-grant present from grandmother

large_an_affair_to_remember_blu-ray_5 on couchIn order to know what happens. What might have gone wrong. Or how this tale ends, you must see “An Affair To Remember.” I promise, you will not regret it. Watching this film is an experience you will never forget. As the film titles states. it’s “An Affair To Remember.”   Written by Jennifer Kileyrememberpainting an affair to remember

An Affair To Remember — Song from Film — Sung by Josh Groban

Nickie-Terry-in-An-Affair-to-Remember-movie-couples last shot


Filed under: actors, characters, dialogue, director, entertainment, film, film clip, film friday, film review, love, music, relationships, romance, screenplay, sexual attraction, song, videos, words Tagged: an affair to remember, artist, cary grant, cruise, deborah kerr, empire state building, film, film clips, film review, love affair, love story, nickie ferante, ship, singer, terry mckay

Fav Top Ten Films #3: Marnie

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marnie-tippi-hedren-sean-connery-1964 posterFav Top Ten Films #3: Marnie
Post Create by Jk the secret keeper
Film Review Written by Jennifer Kiley
Illustrated by j. kiley
Post Created On Tuesday 17th September 2013
Posted on Friday 20th September 2013

FILM FRIDAY
dedicated to roger ebert film friday
5 stars

Marnie (1964) A+
Director Alfred Hitchcock
Written by Jennifer Kiley

“Marnie” is released to the public following  “The Birds,”  which was preceded by “Psycho.” At the time “Marnie” was not a financial success at the box office but has become a cult film, which this writer has seen in the triple digits since I was a kid, and felt a strong connection to the film. I may have been too young to grasp all the subtleties but it enthralled me.marnie1 washing hair

marnie changing appearancesIt is like watching a car accident for some people, I have never been able to look away. Whenever I find it is on television these days, I pull out my own DVD, unless it is on an ad free channel, and settle in to watch it again. There just is something about “Marnie.” It is addicting and compelling. To watch a young woman go through so much turmoil and the people she meets all seem to be out to try and take something away from her.in taxi marnie arriving at mother's home

marnie mark at desk in lightning storm

In the first scene, Margaret Edgar,  alias Marnie is introduced as she’s walking on the platform of a train station. The film’s protagonist, played by Tippi Hedren of “The Birds” fame, is constantly changing her appearance away from her natural blonde, to a disguise of varying hair colours, in order for her to take on new identities.

Marnie_Tippi_Hedren_&_Sean_Connery holding her during lightning storm

marnie  sis trying to figure out marnie while talking to markShe moves from job to job, always as someone different. Now, there is a reason she does all these makeovers. Simply put, she is a kleptomaniac. She gets hired into job where the bosses are thrown by her beauty and hire, more times than not, without any references. The dirty old men that they are, get what they deserve.  She rips them off of lots of money from there supposedly secure safes.

Hedren, Tippi (Marnie) breaking in to rutland safe

marnie at race track sitting at table mark and marnieOne of these times, Mark Rutland happens to be visiting her employer and cannot help but notice her beauty and her strange tick. She pulls down her skirt just a shade, to give the appearance of being modest, when in actuality it is to lure in her victims or to unconsciously exhibit her dislike of any man looking at her in a sexual manner.tippi-hedren sean-connery alfred-hitchcock-marnie returning moneyWe learn that she’s a thief, an unstable woman who moves from job to job, changing names, physical appearance, and wardrobe.

sean_connery_tippi_h in state bedroom on ship in robesShe is hired as a secretary by Mark Rutland (Sean Connery), He, of course immediately after he observes her pulling down the hem of her skirt. Unfazed, she steals money from his company’s safe and then disappears.

marnie mark holding marnie getting ready to kiss her

marnie on ship mark trying to kiss her but she has frozen upMark, however, is smarter than she thinks he is, and upon discovery of the theft, he searches for her and finds her. At this point, Mark announces his intent to marry her, instead of reporting her to the police. Marnie has no alternative but to comply.

MARNIE_naked just before mark forces her to have sex

Marnie_Trailer Tippi_Hedren naked mark pulled off robe he is about to have sex with herMark slowly becomes aware of Marnie’s problems, including her kleptomania and her being emotionally fragile. Eventually, he realizes she had a troubled childhood and this is the cause of her problems.marnie lying on bed looking in a trance

marnie after she almost drowned mark rescued herMark is sincere in wanting to help Marnie. Trying to give her a sense of hope but instead, in the beginning he causes her more pain than comfort. There is an element of a Freudian psychological condition growing within her, which needs examining and exposure, in order for her to regain any sense of balance in her life.Marnie-sean connery shirt pants in mansion bedroom area

marnie in bd mark and sister of dead wife standing next to bedMark wants to play the psychiatrist who helps her. In one scene when Marnie is having a nightmare, Lil gets to her first, but Mark quickly dismisses Lil away. He attempts to question Marnie. They end up playing free association, at Marnie’s suggestion. She says to Mark, “I bet you can’t wait to play psychiatrist.”marnie mark playing word association with marnie

Marnie saying goodbye to mark on his way to workThat’s how the game begins, as a challenge. Marnie felt she would push Mark away if she played along with his attempts to help. If she succeeded, she thought he would just leave her alone. It backfires on Marnie. It starts out simple, but the words Mark starts slowly to trick Marnie. He gradually builds up the speed of firing the words at her until he gets to “red.”marnie with her horse forio

marnie with mark and horse forio head against his headWhat happens when Marnie hears this word, you need to see the film to watch how this develops and what happens when Marnie is made to confront the word “red.”Marnie descending stairs for the party white long dress

marnie and mark at party strutt is thereThroughout the film, the colour “red” is significant, and Mark is trying to figure out what is its significance. He does want to help her but he has his own nature with which to contend.  Mark keeps trying until he eventually gets a lead in which he feels could resolve Marnie’s nightmares.

marnie2
marnie1-1 back from the hunt death of horse

Mark is gentle with Marnie, once he establishes with her, he is in control. Not to destroy her, but to help her regain a sense of well-being. He realizes she has many sensitivities, one of which is her loathing the touch of a man, any man, including him. He is patient and tries to be loving, tender and understanding. But >he is  motivated by intense feeling of desire. Marnie is beautiful and desirable.

Sean Connery (Mark Rutland)

marnie preparing for the fox hunt
Near the end of the film, a mutual expression of love grows into a feeling of hope. He takes Marnie to see her mother. But before he does this he explains to her, they will work out somehow the thefts she committed. With some understanding and explaining and offering up the amount of money she stole, Mark feels people will be understanding when they discover just what Marnie went through when she was young.

Marnie (1964)

Eventually, his lust and patience collide. The gentleman loses the battle with sensitivity. He is no longer, in a moment of temptation, able to hold back his urges. His need to have his wife, Marnie, overcomes his control to be reserved and understanding. He is overcome by a powerful urge to possess what he desires. In the following obvious statement, “I’ve really trapped a wild thing this time,” demonstrates some of his need to dominate and to control her completely.

tippi_hedren_marnie about to shot injured horse foriomarnie handing gun to mark at houes after shooting forio her horse

Mark and Marnie show up at her mother’s place. After they literally push their way into the house, past Marnie’s mom, a lightning storm explodes. Marnie begins to react with fear. Her mom, Bernice wants them to leave. When Marnie tries to seek comfort from her mother at any time, Bernice cannot handle the closeness and rejects her daughter repeatedly, always saying the same phrase: “Marnie, honey, you’re achin’ my leg.” It’s when Marnie rests her head in her lap, she is always rejected. A relationship so tenuous and confusing. Marnie never understands why her mother always pushes her away.marnie in rutland safe colourIn the final moments of the film, a great deal is explained by the scenes which show exactly why Marnie developed into the person she has become. Now you know I am not going to tell what happens in this review. It is a must see film and the ending is a real killer.marnie  night sailer is killed by marnieThe last frames of the film show Mark and Marnie driving away, heading toward the docks, there appears a ship in the harbour. There are sea gulls flying about and children are playing jump rope while singing a song.Marnie end of film with mark at mother's place she is telling the whole story of the deathThe dock is obviously a mat but the film was made a long time ago and it does give the odd impression you are on a stage. As though the reality is all a dream. As the effect of the revealing sequence appears to be a dream.marnie when a child when she kiled sailor end of filmTo explain the colour “red,” it is left to the observer to put the pieces together. What does “red” symbolize to most people? Is it a fusion of sex, violence, and death? Is this the overriding emotional struggle throughout the film? These questions can only be answered by watching this visually enhancing film, with tension continually building until its conclusion, where all is revealed in a most dramatic and disturbing finale.marnie mother telling about letter sweater and getting pregnant with marnieCast

Marnie Edgar (Tippi Hedren)
Mark Ruthland (Sean Connery)
Lil Mainwaring (Diane Baker)
Sidney Strutt (Martin Gabel)
Bernice Edgar (Louise Latham)
Cousin Bob (Bob Sweeney)
Man at the Track (Milton Selzer)
Mr. Ruthland (Alan Napier)
First Detective (Henry Beckman)
Rita (Edith Evanson)

Crew

Produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Screenplay: Jay Presson Allen
Based on the novel by Winston Graham
Camera: Robert Burks
Editor: George Tomasini
Music: Bernard Herrmann
Production design: Robert Boyle
Costumes: Edith Head
Tippi Hedren (Marnie) and Louise Latham (Bernice Edgar)

Marnie Trailer — Hitchcock — Tippi Hedren — Sean Connery


Filed under: abuse, actor, actors, animals, audience, characters, death, dialogue, director, film, film friday, film review, illustrations, movie trailer, photos, poster, psychological thriller, sexuality, words Tagged: abuse, actor, actors, animals, audience, characters, death, dialogue, director, film, film friday, film review, hitchcock, illustrations, marnie, movie trailer, photos, poster, psychological thriller, rape, sean connery, sexuality, tippi hedren, words

Fav Top Ten #2: The Americanization of Emily

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Fav Top Ten #2: The Americanization of Emily
Post Created by Jk the secret keeper
Illustrated by j. kiley
Commentary by Jennifer Kiley
Review by Bosley Crowther NYTimes
Post Created Wednesday 25th September 2013
Posted On Friday 27th September 2013
FILM FRIDAY
dedicated to roger ebert film friday
5 stars

IF YOU DO NOT WANT SPOILERS DO NOT READ THE CAPTIONS UNDER THE PHOTOGRAPHS. THEY TELL THE STORY AS IT UNFOLDS. I WROTE THEM FROM MEMORY FOR I HAVE SEEN THIS FILM SO MANY TIMES I HAVE THE SCRIPT WRITTEN INSIDE MY BRAIN. FOR ME IT DOESN’T SPOIL THE FILM KNOWING THE BASICS OF WHAT HAPPENS BUT I WOULD SUGGEST READING THE REVIEW & LOOKING AT THE PHOTOGRAPHS. IF YOUR ARE DRAWN INTO THE IDEA OF THIS STORY & FILM IT IS AVAILABLE THROUGH ROKU STREAMING ON VUDU, AMAZON, REDBOX STREAMING & IF SO ENTICED THE DVD IS AVAILABLE FOR SALE. ENJOY THE IMAGES, THE CLIPS AT THE END. CHECK OUT THE TRAILER AND CHECK OUT THE REVIEW. HOPE YOU ENJOY THEM ALL. JULIE ANDREWS & JAMES GARNER ARE EXTREMELY ROMANTIC IN THIS FILM. SO HIGHLY RECOMMEND FOR A DATE NIGHT. I LOVE THIS FILMS & GIVE IT #2 ON MY TOP TEN FAVORITE FILMS OF ALL TIME. IT ACTUALLY SHOULD BE TIED FOR FIRST PLACE. I SAW JULIE ANDREWS IN THIS FILM BEFORE I SAW MARY POPPINS & THE SOUND OF MUSIC. SO, THIS FILM WAS MY INTRODUCTION TO THE SEXY FAIR LADY. IN THIS FILM SHE IS SEXY, SPIRITED, AND GREAT. ENOUGH SAID. CARRY ON.

Emily driving Commander Charlie Madison back to the hotel after they collected supplies of food for his Admiral while they're staying London just near the time of D-Day WWII

Emily driving Commander Charlie Madison back to the hotel after they collected supplies of food for his Admiral while they’re staying London just near the time of D-Day WWII

The Americanization of Emily
Film Review by Bosley Crowther
Published October 28th 1964
NYTimes Emily (1964)

If you enjoy watching Julie Andrews playing a role in which she doesn’t sing, but in which she does make some beautiful music with a delightfully unheroic man, then nothing should deter you from going as swiftly as you can to see “The Americanization of Emily.”

Cmdr Madison saying goodnight to Ms Barham the first time she drove for him. He is about to give her a quick pat on the bottom which he receives his just rewards

Cmdr Madison saying goodnight to Ms Barham the first time she drove for him. He is about to give her a quick pat on the bottom which he receives his just rewards

Charlie faking an "old war wound" in order to ask Emily to join a dinner  &  bridge to entertain the Admiral & his special guest

Charlie faking an “old war wound” in order to ask Emily to join a dinner & bridge to entertain the Admiral & his special guest

Here is a film that not only gives the charming Miss Andrews a chance to prove herself irresistible in a straight romantic comedy but also gets off some of the wildest brashest and funniest situations and cracks at the lunacy of warfare that have popped from the screen in quite some time.

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Emily is giving Charlie a hard time near the beginning of the film after his invitation to the dinner party

Emily is giving Charlie a hard time near the beginning of the film after his invitation to the dinner party

Indeed, when you think about it, you recognize the amazing fact that the comedy is as fascinating as the romance James Garner, the antihero has with his graceful female star.

Charlie has just told Emily she is a bit of a prig. Her response is I don't mean to be.

Charlie has just told Emily she is a bit of a prig. Her response is I don’t mean to be.

Emily talking with a fellow bunk mate who is changing her hair colour for the due as a guess for Charlie's dinner party. She tells Emily that Charlie throws together quite a spread.

Emily talking with a fellow bunk mate who is changing her hair colour for the due as a guess for Charlie’s dinner party. She tells Emily that Charlie throws together quite a spread.

James Garner plays the expert “dog robber” — aide to an American admiral dwelling in a luxury London hotel in 1944 who is head of a skillful and deadly satiric thrust at the whole myth of war being noble and that “to die a hero is a glorious thing.” And it is his taut and stalwart perseverance in acting an unregenerate coward that keynotes the yarn that Paddy Chayefsky has brilliantly adapted from a novel by William Bradford Huie.

the-americanization-of-emily-movie-poster-1964

Emily while lying on her bunk thinking, she asks her friend, "Do you think I am a bit of a prig." Her friend tells her she is.

Emily while lying on her bunk thinking, she asks her friend, “Do you think I am a bit of a prig.” Her friend tells her she is.

What Mr. Garner is expressing in this sharply outspoken film, which conceals the deadly point of its thesis within some mischievously nimble farce, is that the philosophy of pacifism is the highest morality and that wars will be abolished only when people stop thinking it is noble to fight. “So long as valor is a virtue, we will have soldiers,” he says in a speech in a scene with Julie Andrews and Joyce Grenfell as her mother. It is to discredit this virtue that his character takes the attitude that dead heroes are simply dead men, less fortunate or commendable than living cowards.

Emily begins talking about her passion for any wounded man in uniform. How her husband and her got married on his last night before he is shipped out and he goes and gets himself killed. She tries to comfort who come home wounded from battle.

Emily begins talking about her passion for any wounded man in uniform. How her husband and her got married on his last night before he is shipped out and he goes and gets himself killed. She tries to comfort who come home wounded from battle.

Emily shows up at the store where Charlie gives away goods like Hershey Bars, cloths, perfume and nylons. Things that are impossible to get over in Europe during WWII. Emily tell Charlie she would love to come for dinner & bridge. He offers her a dress. She refuses & tells him she has her own, she doesn't "need any Hershey Bars."

Emily shows up at the store where Charlie gives away goods like Hershey Bars, cloths, perfume and nylons. Things that are impossible to get over in Europe during WWII. Emily tell Charlie she would love to come for dinner & bridge. He offers her a dress. She refuses & tells him she has her own, she doesn’t “need any Hershey Bars.”

This philosophy at first shocks and initially repels the charming young English widow, a motor-pool driver, with whom he has an affair. But it even more seriously startles his gung-ho superiors when they start to execute their admiral’s orders, conceived to elevate the image of the Navy, that a sailor must be “the first dead man on Omaha Beach.”

Emily shows up in her gorgeous black dinner dress. Charlie is impressed & makes sure Emily know he is pleased.

Emily shows up in her gorgeous black dinner dress. Charlie is impressed & makes sure Emily know he is pleased. Before leaving for the night, Emily asks Charlie, “Do you have a woman?” His response, “Frankly, Ms. Barham that’s none of your business.”

the-americanization-of-emily-julie-andrews-james-garner-1964 poster

It is a tense and sensitive area into which the comedy finally gets as it wildly propels our cowardly hero toward a cross-Channel landing craft and a lonely spot on the Normandy beachhead with a movie camera in his hands.

Emily is in his room sitting on the bed when he returns from tucking the Admiral in for the night. As Charlie enters the room & sees Emily, he states, "As a matter of fact, I don't have a woman." They fall into each others arms on the bed. At some point, he starts talking again and Emily tells him, "Shut up and kiss me."

Emily is in his room sitting on the bed when he returns from tucking the Admiral in for the night. As Charlie enters the room & sees Emily, he states, “As a matter of fact, I don’t have a woman.” They fall into each others arms on the bed. At some point, he starts talking again and Emily tells him, “Shut up and kiss me.”

The Admiral moments before bursts into the bedroom & states, "The first man on Omaha Beach must be a sailor." Then just leaves. Emily and Charlie sit up fast  & stare in the direction of the open door. Emily says, "That was rather piquant, wouldn't you say?" Charlie says, "Yes, I would say that was rather piquant."

The Admiral moments before bursts into the bedroom & states, “The first man on Omaha Beach must be a sailor.” Then just leaves. Emily and Charlie sit up fast & stare in the direction of the open door. Emily says, “That was rather piquant, wouldn’t you say?” Charlie says, “Yes, I would say that was rather piquant.”

But this deadly touch does put a climax to the serious implications of the film and provides an opportunity for resolving the previously faltering romance.

pic emily and charlie in rain poster with title and a blue arm unzipping y

Emily introduces her mother to Charlie at a tea party at their house. Her mother is in mourning over the loss of her husband and son during the war. Charlie talks about his feelings about war & a story of his wife back home. Emily wants to know what wife but he gets into a talk on "war" & "cowardice." Emily discovers eventually about Charlie's wife being upset when he comes home unexpectedly, so the only Mrs. Madison is his mother who lost a son already in the war. There is a great deal more to the scene. There is a clip near the end of the post which shows some of this part of the film. A good taste.

Emily introduces her mother to Charlie at a tea party at their house. Her mother is in mourning over the loss of her husband and son during the war. Charlie talks about his feelings about war & a story of his wife back home. Emily wants to know what wife but he gets into a talk on “war” & “cowardice.” Emily discovers eventually about Charlie’s wife being upset when he comes home unexpectedly, so the only Mrs. Madison is his mother who lost a son already in the war. There is a great deal more to the scene. There is a clip near the end of the post which shows some of this part of the film. A good taste.

In addition to the splendid performances that Mr. Garner and Ms. Andrews give—his with an edge of crisp sarcasm, hers with a brush of sentiment—there is great acting by James Coburn as a swiveling “Annapolis man,” and Melvyn Douglas as the eccentric admiral.

Emily is looking on curiously. This is about the time he mentions his wife.

Emily is looking on curiously. This is about the time he mentions his wife.

Charlie is telling Mrs. Barham what he thinks about war heroes, war widows & glorifying the death that happens in war. She hears him & admits the death of her husband & eventually says that she will accept his Hershey Bars even if Emily won't.

Charlie is telling Mrs. Barham what he thinks about war heroes, war widows & glorifying the death that happens in war. She hears him & admits the death of her husband & eventually says that she will accept his Hershey Bars even if Emily won’t. She, also, thanks him for his honesty. It puts a whole new spirit inside of her. She tells he was kind. She hopes he will come again.

Also marvelous in small roles are Miss Grenfell, Keenan Wynn as a terrified man in uniform and Liz Frazer as a motor-pool driver who gladly accepts the Americans’ silk stockings and Hershey bars.

Charlie while on leave rows Emily out to an island to be alone & make love.

Charlie while on leave rows Emily out to an island to be alone & make love.

Emily tells Charlie he's a rogue but it seems she doesn't mind making love to one.

Emily tells Charlie he’s a rogue but it seems she doesn’t mind making love to one.

Under Arthur Hiller’s brisk direction of Mr. Chayefsky’s script, which includes some remarkably good writing with some slashing irreverence, “The Americanization of Emily” comes out a spinning comedy that says more for basic pacifism than a fistful of intellectual tracts. It also is highly entertaining, and it makes a great case for pure romance.

Emily continues by telling Charlie she feels they are basically incompatible & she hopes she doesn't get pregnant. He tells her later, "Oh, I do hope you do get pregnant."

Emily continues by telling Charlie she feels they are basically incompatible & she hopes she doesn’t get pregnant. He tells her later, “Oh, I do hope you do get pregnant.”

Charlie proposes. After which he says a speech which includes the line, "What is a lion doing in a man's home anyway. I would die for you, my family, my country, a world, in that order."

Charlie proposes. After which he says a speech which includes the line, “What is a lion doing in a man’s home anyway. I would die for you, my family, my country, a world, in that order.”

The Cast
THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY, screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky, based on the novel
by William Bradford Huie; directed by Arthur Hiller; produced by Martin Ranshoff.
Running time: 117 minutes.
Lieut. Charles E. Madison . . . . . James Garner
Emily Barham . . . . . Julie Andrews
Adm. William Jessup . . . . . Melvyn Douglas
Lieut. Comdr. “Bus” Cummings . . . . . James Coburn
Mrs. Barham . . . . . Joyce Grenfell
Adm. Thomas Healey . . . . . Edward Binns
Sheila . . . . . Liz Fraser
Old Sailor . . . . . Keenan Wynn
Capt. Harry Spaulding . . . . . William Windom
Chief Petty Officer Paul Adams . . . . . John Crawford
Capt. Marvin Ellender . . . . . Douglas Henderson
Admiral Hoyle . . . . . Edmond Ryan
Young Sailor . . . . . Steve Franken
Gen. William Hallerton . . . . . Paul Newlan
Lieut. Victor Wade . . . . . Gary Cockrell

The Americanization of Emily charlie in the rain unregenerately eating a hershey bar

Charlie's friend & fellow officer Bus cuts his orders to make a film of the first man on Omaha Beach is a sailor. The film for the Admiral, who is going just a bit crackers.  Charlie tells him he won't go.

Charlie’s friend & fellow officer Bus cuts his orders to make a film of the first man on Omaha Beach is a sailor. The film for the Admiral, who is going just a bit crackers. Charlie tells him he won’t go.

The Americanization of Emily Trailer

Emily drove Charlie to the plane to take him to the front line where they will take off in transport heading for Omaha Beach. They are saying there goodbyes. Charlie had given Emily the marriage papers. All she needs to do us sign them. But there is a hitch. He is all excited because he knows they are going to be late arriving. By the time they get there, everyone will have shipped off. But Bus is not aware of this. Emily doesn't find it funny. She finally tells Charlie, she can't marry him. She doesn't like the prank he is playing on his country. Charlie told Emily she is the coward. She can't stand the fact that he will come back alive. She prefers her men die in battle then she doesn't have to make real commitment. She tells Charlie, "I'm going to slap your face, Charlie." He tells her, "Go ahead, I'm a coward. I won't slap you back." This makes Emily furious. She gets to slap him a few times. Tears running down her face. But the rain covers her tears. Charlie says goodbye as he peals back the wrappings on his Hershey bar and states what is written on the poster. A great statement.

Emily drove Charlie to the plane to take him to the front line where they will take off in transport heading for Omaha Beach. They are saying there goodbyes. Charlie had given Emily the marriage papers. All she needs to do us sign them. But there is a hitch. He is all excited because he know they are going to be late arriving. By the time they get there, everyone will have shipped off. But Bus is not aware of this. Emily doesn’t find it funny. She finally tell Charlie, she can’t marry him. She doesn’t like the prank he is playing on his country. Charlie told Emily she is the coward. She can’t stand the fact that he will come back alive. She prefers her men in battle to die before she has to really make a commitment. She tells Charlie, “I’ll slap your face, Charlie.” He tells her, “Go ahead, I’m a coward. I won’t slap you back.” This makes Emily furious. She gets to slap him a few times. Tears running down her face. But the rain covers her tears. Charlie says goodbye as he peals back the wrappings on his Hershey bar and he states what is written on the poster above. A great statement.

Charlie was wrong. When they arrived D-Day had been postponed because of rain. They got drunk & the next day in a drunken state they were loaded on a transport, given cameras & on their way to Omaha Beach to shot the first man on Omaha Beach being a sailor.

Charlie was wrong. When they arrived D-Day had been postponed because of rain. They got drunk & the next day in a drunken state they were loaded on a transport, given cameras & on their way to Omaha Beach to shoot the first man on Omaha Beach being a sailor.

The Americanization of Emily [1964] “I Need A Girl” Clip

This is Charlie running up on Omaha Beach. The first sailor to arrive. Reason for this bravery is Bus was shooting at him. It's pure panic you see.

This is Charlie running up on Omaha Beach. The first sailor to arrive. Reason for this bravery is Bus was shooting at him. It’s pure panic you see.

The Americanization of Emily — “War Is Not Moral” Extended Clip

Emily is sad & numb. Her mother keeps burning the Daily papers. Bus shows up to pay his condolences & tells them the grand plan for Charlie. He is the first dead man on Omaha Beach & he is a sailor. The Admiral will have a statue erected for him. Mrs. Barham & Emily's reactions are "Why on Earth would do that. Isn't it bad enough he died. No, we must get on with our lives. Charlie wouldn't want any of this." Bus is confused. He thinks they should be proud Charlie's a hero but they are not going to celebrate Charlie's death & they feel Bus should stop all this nonsense.

Emily is sad & numb. Her mother keeps burning the Daily papers. Bus shows up to pay his condolences & tells them the grand plan for Charlie. He is the first dead man on Omaha Beach & he is a sailor. The Admiral will have a statue erected for him. Mrs. Barham & Emily’s reactions are “Why on Earth would you do that. Isn’t it bad enough he’s dead. No, we must get on with our lives. Charlie wouldn’t want any of this.” Bus is confused. He thinks they should be proud Charlie’s a hero but they are not going to celebrate Charlie’s death & they feel Bus should stop all this nonsense.

Julie Andrews & James Garner tribute — Clips from “The Americanization of Emily

Americanization of Emily the film shows the absurdities of war

Charlie I back from the dead and Emily has been flown to the location by the Admiral to go meet him.

Charlie comes back from the dead and Emily has been flown to the location by the Admiral to go meet him. But this is not the complete ending.


Filed under: actors, author, book, characters, death, dialogue, director, drama, entertainment, fiction, film, film clip, film friday, film review, humor, humour, illustrations, movie trailer, novel, photography, photos, relationships, romance, screenplay, screenwriter, script, sexual attraction, sexuality, thought provoking, violence, war Tagged: actors, anit-war, cowardice, d-day, dialogue, dog-robbers, film, film friday, film review, heroes, james garner, Julie andrews, movie, omaha beach, paddy chayefsky, screenplay, screenwriter, script, the americanization of emily, war

The Fifth Estate

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the-fifth-estate-uk-poster
The Fifth Element
Post Created by Jk the secret keeper
Post Created on Monday 30th September 2013
Posted On Friday 4th October 2013
FILM FRIDAY

dedicated to roger ebert film friday5 starsBenedict Cumberbatch shines as Julian Assange in Bill Condon’s over-ambitious take on WikiLeaks, which opens this year’s Toronto film festival.

Catherine Shoard
The Guardian
Friday 6th September 2013

For an employee of the Guardian, particularly one with jetlag, Bill Condon’s WikiLeaks thriller can seem more hallucination than movie. An account of the ascent of Julian Assange and his collaboration with this newspaper (among others) in the publication of classified documents, it plays like one of those dreams in which your office looks normal enough from the outside, but step within and everything’s subtly different. It’s more Scandinavian, somehow; with car park pillars and glass walls to which people attach crucial bits of paper, as on Crimewatch. The editor has developed a sudden taste for shagpile rugs. And why did you never notice the deputy is a dead spit for the dishy one on Downton Abbey?

benedict-cumberbatch-the-fifth-estate

The Fifth Estate
Production year: 2013
Directors: Bill Condon
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Daniel Bruhl, Laura Linney, Peter Capaldi

The_Fifth_Estate_poster

Such tweaks will not get an artistic license revoked. In fact, in adapting both a book on the affair by Guardian journalists David Leigh and Luke Harding, as well as tech activist Daniel Domscheit-Berg’s account of working for Assange, The Fifth Estate is a project in whose sources one can place considerable faith. Certainly, Condon does. At times it can feel he’s risked coherence for chronology, giving us his own surfeit of data without offering sufficient kit with which we can sift it.

THE-FIFTH-ESTATE-TRAILER-facebook director assange berg actors

The plot tracks Assange from the time he recruited Domscheit-Berg, through early online celebrity, before his meeting with Guardian investigative reporter Nick Davies (David Thewlis), who, in consultation with editor Alan Rusbridger (Peter Capaldi) and deputy Ian Katz (Dan Stevens), began working with Assange towards a coordinated launch of hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic cables and war reports. The timeline bumps a bit, but still pushes forward confidently, with our hacker heroes forever arriving in a new city, before some fresh turn of events requires them to slam shut their laptops and rush off again.

secretnetwork the fifth estate poster

The template is David Fincher’s The Social Network, which took the creation of Facebook and turned it into the character study of a neurotic loner with the world at his fingertips. Both films go big with the swishy visuals, this one deploying a bombardment of text and newsreel to suggest the morass of info, plus flight map-style graphics illustrating its flood across the globe. Both films are eager to show that computing is an arena for creative genius, with much clacking on laptops like Steinways. Both also suffer from the problem that watching someone type isn’t, after a while, that exciting. Condon further ups the dramatic ante with Lynchian visualisations of Domscheit-Berg’s inner life, plus a lot of techno.

the-fifth-estate-trailer-benedict-cumberbatch-nails-it

And both films choose as their key arc the relationship between men most closely associated with the site’s inception. But while The Social Network kept the focus on the anti-hero, relegating Eduardo Saverin’s role to support, this one bumps up the best friend to a lead, overestimating our interest in Domscheit-Berg’s lovelife. Not that the film is really that interested either. At heart, The Fifth Estate is a good, old-fashioned bromance – Assange even gets to meet the parents (spoiler: it doesn’t go well).

Benedict-Cumberbatch-as-Julian-Assange

As for Cumberbatch, he’s both the asset and the slight undoing; so magnetic as to render hopes of a two-hander redundant. It’s a virtuoso impersonation, from the deep drawl to louche geek twitches. Suited, he could pass for Nick Cave after a night or two in the fridge. Mostly, though, this Assange is as extraterrestrial as Cumberbatch’s Khan in last year’s Star Trek, a lip-smacking vampire typing through the night. From a distance, he looks like a lizardy angel, courageously saving the world; close up he squints and snuffles like a bleached, greasy mouse.

fifth-estate-daniel-bruhl-benedict-cumberbatch

Introducing the film last night, Condon said he wanted to explore the limits of truth-telling: when was a lie too important not to expose, and when was it so crucial you must not dream of doing so? In that, he has succeeded admirably: this is highly competent catnip for the watercooler crowd. Toronto has prepared itself well for the forthcoming week with a hot potato. Now roll on the cheese.

the-fifth-estate-wikileaks-movie-597x337 poster

The Fifth Estate [Official Trailer]


Filed under: actors, characters, culture, dialogue, drama, educating, entertainment, film, film friday, film review, illustrations, movie trailer, non-fiction, politics, poster, reality, words Tagged: actors, assange, cumberbatch, film, film review, non-fiction, photos, posters, the fifth estate, the guardian, wikileaks

Benedict Cumberbatch: [The Fifth Estate] Answers Assange

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special edition day anyBenedict Cumberbatch: [The Fifth Estate] Answers Assange
Post Created by Jk the secret keeper
Illustrated by j. kiley
Post Created on Saturday 12th October 2013
Posted On Saturday 12th October 2013
SPECIAL EDITION

Actor Benedict Cumberbatch

the-fifth-estate-uk-posterBenedict Cumberbatch: [The Fifth Estate] Answers Assange’s Open Letter

Benedict Cumberbatch participated in a Reddit Ask Me Anything session on Friday in support of his new film, “The Fifth Estate,” and he was asked about Julian Assange’s open letter to the actor. In a missive dated Jan. 15, 2013, Assange admonished Cumberbatch for participating in the new film, which tracks the rise of WikiLeaks.

“I believe that you should reconsider your involvement in this enterprise,” Assange wrote, before then adding that he wouldn’t meet with Cumberbatch, a request the 37-year-old actor made before the film’s production began. “By meeting with you, I would validate this wretched film, and endorse the talented, but debauched, performance that the script will force you to give.”

Cumberbatch said the letter did give him pause, but also emboldened him into taking the role. His detailed response is below:

He accuses me of being a ‘hired gun’ as if I am an easily bought cypher for right wing propaganda. Not only do I NOT operate in a moral vacuum but this was not a pay day for me at all. I’ve worked far less hard for more financial reward.

This project was important to me because of the integrity I wanted to bring to provocative difficult but ultimately timely and a truly important figure of our modern times. The idea of making a movie about someone who so far removed from my likeness or situation who brought about an ideal through personal sacrifice that has changed the way we view both social media, the power of the individual to have a voice in that space, and be able to question both the hypocrisies and wrongdoings of organizations and bodies of powerful people that rule our lives. …

This resonated deeply with my beliefs in civil liberty, a healthy democracy, and the human rights of both communities and individuals to question those in authority.

I believe that the film, quite clearly, illuminates the great successes of wikileaks and its extraordinary founder Julians Assange. As well as, examining the personalities involved and what became a dysfunctional relationship within that organization. While the legacy of his actions and the organizations continue to evolve and only history will be the true judge of where this is leading us.

‘The Fifth Estate’ is a powerful, if dramatized, entry point for a discussion about this extraordinary lurch forward in our society. I wanted to create a three dimensional portrait of a man far more maligned in the tabloid press than he is in our film to remind people that he is not just the weird, white haired Australian dude wanted in Sweden, hiding in an embassy behind Harrods. But a true force to be reckoned with, achieved the realization of the great ideal.

I’m proud to be involved in tackling such a contentious character and script. There is only personal truth in my opinion, and the film should provoke debate and not consensus. It should be enjoyable and ultimately empowering to realize that Julian has spearheaded a movement that is the foundations stone of ‘The Fifth Estate,’ people journalism and what that is capable of including finding out the ‘truth’ for yourself.

The Fifth Estate [Official Trailer]


Filed under: actor, entertainment, film, letter, movie trailer, photo, politics, poster, screenplay, script, special edition Tagged: actor, benedict cumberbatch, cumberbatch responds to assange, film, julian assange, movie trailer, not right wing propaganda, open letter, special edition, statement, the fifth estate, wikileaks

Best Films Top Ten #11: Fried Green Tomatoes

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Fried Green Tomatoes Poster

Fried Green Tomatoes
Best Films Top Ten #11
Special Feature
Post Created by Jk the secret keeper
Written by Jennifer Kiley
Illustrated by j. kiley
Posted Created on Tuesday 15th October 2013
Posted on Friday 18th October 2013
FILM FRIDAY
dedicated to roger ebert film friday

5 stars

Fried Green Tomatoes
Love Story of Idgie & Ruth
Written by Jennifer Kiley
17th October 2013

Romantic. Sad & Joyful. Celebration of two women who love each other. The KKK try to tear their family, life & world apart. They held their common bond in Buddy through his namesake in Ruth’s child Buddy Jr.

The film opens with Idgie, at a single digit age, not wanting to wear a dress for a sibling’s wedding ceremony. She climbs into her tree fort & refuses to come down.

I should take a few steps back. The story of Idgie Threadgoode and Ruth Jamison is told to us through the memories of Ninny Threadgoode. She lives in a nursing home, where one day wanders into the visitors lounge a confused woman who is there with her husband to visit one of his relatives, who hates Evelyn Couch. Her husband ends up visiting alone, while she spends the time alone herself, just wandering around & ends up in the visitors lounge.

A voice comes out of the silence. Ninny & Evelyn meet. A reluctant Evelyn sits with Ninny, who begins to talk her ear off. Evelyn is not sure what she has gotten herself into but she is about to find out. Something surprising, in which she becomes enthusiastic about overtime. It is when Ninny starts telling the story of two special women, one being a direct member of her own family, and the other person, a friend of the family. The family member is Idgie Threadgoode and the other woman is Ruth Jamison.

Their life merging in many different ways turns into one of the most interesting story’s filled with trauma and sadness but also excitement and joy. The film Fried Green Tomatoes is the unusual name of this treat. The story pulls the audience into it & you never want it to end. There is one person you want to see meet his demise as soon as you lay your eyes on him. Mr. Frank Bennett. He is nothing but trouble for everyone he comes in contact with & he must be taken out. I hated him immediately & my hatred grew as I found out more. He was simply put, a violent creep, an abuser, and a brute.

My main focus was what happened between Idgie & Ruth. Idgie’s family wanted Ruth to help guide her in any way possible. “To have a good influence on her.” Did she? That is debatable who had an effect on whom. When she lost her brother, Buddy, who she loved more than anything in the world, she was so devastated she escaped from her life. Slept on the shore of the lake. Big George, who ended up taking care of her for most of her life, watched over her. Ruth, also, lost Buddy that day.

Ruth was Buddy’s fiancée & missed him just as much as Idgie did. Her job was to follow Idgie around & instead of her guiding Idgie, Idgie took control & they had many adventures. Never one she would have thought of herself. One such adventure was to hop a train car & throw food to the poorer people of their area. Basically, stealing from the haves and giving to the have nots. At first Ruth felt it was stealing. Then she saw the hungry children. Her mind changed & so did her enthusiasm.

As Idgie & Ruth get closer. Idgie throws her a great surprise birthday party in the poorer side of town where she hangs out regularly. They drank, played poker & drunk baseball. Ruth got a home run but hit like a girl. Afterwards, the two sat on the shore & practically kissed. But Ruth broke the magic by saying she would be the good daughter and marry the man she was supposed to marry, who turned into Frank Bennett.

Life turned sour after that. Idgie didn’t go to the wedding. But one day she decided to visit Ruth, who kept the screen door between them & hid a huge bruise on her face. Idgie left without knowing. Frank came to the door as Idgie drove away. He had contempt in his eyes.

When Ruth’s mother died, it was time for Ruth to escape. She sent a note to Idgie in a disguise. A cryptic Bible passage. It was a hint she needed rescuing. When Idgie got to Ruth’s place, along with her brother Julian & Big George, she found her upstairs alone, gazing out the window. She told Idgie she was pregnant. Idgie told Ruth she was leaving with her. They got her belongings & as they were ready to exit the front door, Frank came in. By this time, Julian & Big George heard them from the car. In the struggles, he started to carry Ruth over his shoulder up the stairs & told Idgie to leave.

Julian & Big George convinced Frank to put Ruth down. Big George politely threatened him as he was holding his knife. Frank turned around & released Ruth to go down the stairs. Before she took one step down, he kicked her from behind, sending her flying down the stairs to land directly on her stomach. Idgie & Julian helped her up & Big George helped her to the car. Idgie looked straight up at Frank & threatened him, “If you ever touch her again, I’ll kill you.”

Life did change for Idgie & Ruth. They opened the Whistlestop Café. Ruth had her baby & named him Buddy Jr.. They built a life together. They were generous to the poor. One in particular, Smokey Lonesome, frequented Whistlestop Café & they saw to it he was always taken care of with food & a bottle to steady his nerves. Even a warm blanket for an outside room where he could sleep. They were also good to the black folk who came for food. It was a time when whites and blacks didn’t mix. Whistlestop didn’t believe in segregation so they served anyone who wanted a meal.

Grady, the law now, and friend of Idgie’s, told them they had to behave & follow the rules or there would be trouble from the KKK. Idgie knew Grady was a Klan member. But the local group was fairly liberal compared to the way they behaved elsewhere. Idgie & Ruth came to an agreement, they would continue to serve black people but they would have them eat at the picnic tables outside, in the back near the barbeque. That’s where Big George made the best barbeque in the whole of the South.

Further trouble struck one night. Frank heard he had a son. So he came with his Klan members from a state over with bad intentions.. He knocked Sipsey out when he tried to take Buddy. Ruth got wind he was there and stopped him. Sipsey came to & told him she wasn’t afraid of him. He told her she should be. He finally did leave but not until they harassed Big George & tied him up & whipped him. Idgie threatened the Klan if they didn’t stop. Grady stopped her but stepped in himself. He made them leave. Idgie untied Big George & took him away to tend to his wounds.

Frank did return on another night, alone, & stole the baby out of the house. As he was attempting to get into his truck, he was stopped several times by Smokey Lonesome. He punched Smokey & knocked him over several times. When out of the blue someone came up from behind & clobbered him with a cast iron skillet. That was it. He fell to the ground & someone picked up the baby basket. That was the last anyone heard about Frank Bennett.

What was ahead, from that point on seemed to go smoothly but things kept on happening. A member of the law kept looking for Frank Bennett. He ate a lot of the barbeque that Big George prepared. When he asked how they got it to taste so good, Sipsey [Cicely Tyson] told him, “The secret’s in the sauce.”. He was like a dog with a bone, when it came to Frank’s disappearance.

One damned day, a rusty truck was washed up during a great rain. It turned out to be Frank’s. The law from the next state came after Idgie.

Now believe it or not, I haven’t really told you too much. There is so much more happening that I haven’t revealed. Of course, there is a court case. It is all rather funny.

Now you must realize, I am only telling you the story Ninny is telling to Evelyn Couch. There is so much more to tell. First, that Fried Green Tomatoes is a brilliant & emotionally deep film. Let’s not say it is only for the female sex. I don’t feel it is limited in that way.

For the rest of the story & for Ninny Threadgoode’s [Jessica Tandy] part of the story, you will definitely have to rent, buy or stream the film. It is a great story. Touching & funny, warm & women don’t take no sh*t in it. “Towanda!” The cry of the angry woman who is tired of being mistreated & overlooked by the rudeness of the young & the ill-mannered of the world.

The film is about the injustice & treatment of what society felt were the lesser people in the world. Not because they were lesser but because they were designated to second class citizenship by the white male majority [not really the majority but the rich white male who felt he owned everything & everyone that wasn’t like him]. Not a lot has changed, if you look around.

As I wrote in my post on marriage & relationships of an intimate nature, these connections always have a sad ending, sometimes short & sometimes we live til we are old but we are always going to have to say goodbye. In Mary-Louise Parker’s acting roles, she had the bad luck of her characters not having the longest of life spans. She is a brilliant actor & I have seen all the films she has been in. Fried Green Tomatoes was my introduction to her fine quality of acting.

To bring this treatise on FGT to an end, I leave you with film clips, trailer, photographs & music & even a music video I made of the film from shots in sequential order with the story with a beautiful song playing while you are viewing the results of my experimental creativity. Only just learning how to do the music video process.

I highly recommend this film. For me it is a FIVE STAR FILM. & I make it my #11 Best Films of All Time. When it was first released into theatres I went to two different towns to see it. They are 30+ miles apart & I went at night. The roads were very dark but I NEEDED to see this film again. It was extremely popular when it was released. That is all I can say. Fried Green Tomatoes are delicious & so is this film. Ciao!

fgt buddy carrying idgie after he gets her to come down

fgt buddy went up tree to get young idgie to come down to get dressed for wedding

fgt idgine when little in church for wedding b4 buddy is killed

fgt ruth walking across resevoir hearing buddy telling his story about the ducks & lake freezing

fried green tomatoes buddy ruth & idgie shortly before buddy is killed by trainFried Green Tomatoes Buddy Ruth & Idgie shortly before Buddy is killed by train. This totally devastates Idgie & she withdraws from the world. The only person who can reach her is Ruth.

fried_green_tomatoes waving to buddy on train tracks b4 they know train is coming

MCDFRGR EC009

Fried Green Tomatoes (1/10) Movie CLIP – Buddy’s Accident [1991]

fgt idgie meeting frank bennett b4 he marries ruth

fgt beecharmer two photos with lines re bc

fgt ruth tells idgie shes a bee-charmer

Fried Green Tomatoes (2/10) Movie CLIP – The Spark Back in Marriage

fgt kathy-bates as evelyn wrapped only in cellaphane for husband

FGT idgie w arm over ruths shoulder its 4 surprise bday party for ruth

fried green tomatos

fgt ruth tells idgie shes a bee-charmer

fried-green-tomatoes two marysScene from “Fried Green Tomatoes” Idgie Threadgoode & Ruth Jamison on picnic, shortly before Idgie shows her she’s a “bee charmer.” Those are Ruth’s words to Idgie when she goes to the nearest tree loaded with honey & loads of honeybees. Idgie returns with a jar full of honey & beeswax with not a sting on her, bare arms & all.

FGT idgie w arm over ruths shoulder its 4 surprise bday party for ruth

fried green tomatoes party after party

fgt after party sitting on shore with feet in water idgie & ruth

Fried Green Tomatoes (3/10) Movie CLIP – The Best Birthday [1991]

Fried Green Tomatoes before the rescue Ruth & Idgie

Fried Green Tomatoes Idgie goes to visit Ruth after she is married. Ruth is acting strange & is hiding a huge bruise on the side of her face her husband put their. Idgie leaves against her better judgment.

fgt ruth trying to keep idgie from seeing bruise on her face at husbands place

fgt array of idgie ruth frank bennett nasty as can be bruise on ruths face

Scene from “Fried Green Tomatoes” Idgie Threadgoode & Ruth Jamison matched up from time of youth & on top, after they have grown & Ruth is supposed to have been a good influence on her. I feel she was & is. She rescues Ruth from her abusive brute of a husband & they are finally able to live together & eventually raise the baby Ruth was pregnant with at the time of the rescue.

fried-green-tomatoes bastard husband throws ruth down stairs while she is pregnant when rescuedFried Green Tomatoes Ruth’s bastard husband won’t let Ruth go without being a pr*ck, so he puts his foot on her back and pushes her down the stairs while she is pregnant.

fried green tomatoes idgie rescue day of ruthFried Green Tomatoes Idgie stands up to Ruth’s husband & tells him if he ever touches her again she would kill him.

fgt idgie to frank bennett if you ever touch her again i'll kill you gif

fried-green-tomatoes the escape with ruthFried Green Tomatoes Idgie brought along her brother & her loyal friend, who also does the best barbeque for the Whistlestop Cafe. They both pose a threat to Ruth’s husband but Idgie’s friend threatens him, which could be dangerous for him because he is black & Ruth’s husband we later find out is a member of the KKK.

Fried Green Tomatoes (4/10) Movie CLIP – Ruth Leaves Frank [1991]

idgie threadgoode & ruth jamison fried green tomatoesScene from “Fried Green Tomatoes” Idgie Threadgoode & Ruth Jamison matched up from time of youth & on top, after they have grown & Ruth is supposed to have been a good influence on her. I feel she was & is. She rescues Ruth from her abusive brute of a husband & they are finally able to live together & eventually raise the baby Ruth was pregnant with at the time of the rescue.

fried green tomatoes after rescue baby born set up whitlestop cafeFried Green Tomatoes Ruth, her baby boy & Idgie set up a life together. They open up the Whistlestop Cafe, which has the best barbeque like no other & all are welcome. No prejudice from them but their patrons aren’t as generous. But then they’re living in the times where everything is rough, but no one objects to their love.

fgt idgie ruth after food fight at cafe disagreement over taste of fgts

Fried Green Tomatoes (5/10) Movie CLIP – Food Fight [1991] HD

fried-green-tomatoes photo array of idgie & ruthFried Green Tomatoes This is an array of the relationship in photos of just how close a relationship Idgie & Ruth have developed over the years they know each other. It is a love relationship like no other. Their generosity with each other is spread out into the community ten fold.


Fried Green Tomatoes (6/10) Movie CLIP – Frank Intrudes on Ruth at Whistlestop

fgt cant look at own vagina evelyn crying as she is telling it to ninny gif“How many of those hormones are you taking.” Ninny asks this of Evelyn when she doesn’t seem to calm down.

Fried Green Tomatoes (7/10) Movie CLIP – Parking Lot Rage [1991]

FGT evelyn going thru change & telling ninny she doesn't know whats wrong w her

Fried Green Tomatoes (9/10) Movie CLIP – Evelyn the Destroyer [1991]

fgt evelyn in gif ramming vwTowanda!!! “Let’s face it girls, I’m older and I have more insurance.” A great retort to some snotty bitches who just f*cked the one too many times and Evelyn Couch had it with all the BS.

FGTs ruth telling idgie she has to leave so her shithead husband wont come back idgie assures her never

fgt night frank bennett met is maker

FGT barbeque big george

fgt big george idgies friend helped her thru buddy's death does best bar-b-q

fried-green-tomatoes-barbeque big george

fried_green_tomatoes_1991_smokey lonesome_returns pic of sipsey & ws grady idgies friend

Fried Green Tomatoes rusty truck dead bastard husband

fgt grady arresting idgie fpr frank bennetts murder she wont give up who really did it

fried green tomatoes idgie on trial for murder of frank bennett

fgt idgie on stand at her trial for murder of frank bennett

Fried Green Tomatoes (8/10) Movie CLIP – Taking the Stand [1991]

fgt after buddy jrs train accident big george rushing him to car to take to hospital

fgt at buddy jrs arms funeral lost in train accident almost killed like idgies bro buddy

fried green tomatoes ruth & idgie hugging

Fried_Green_Tomatoes_at_the_Whistle_Stop_Cafe idgie & ruth hats on

Fried-Green-Tomatoes-1991-kathy-bates evelyn eating only rabbit food

Ninny & Kathy Bates with Birthday FGTs w candles

fried-green-tomatoes kathy & ninny at end wants to bring her home to live

fgt evelyn takes ninny to whistlestop to see the town

Fried green Tomatoes ninny in whistlestop w evelyn after they see honey jar in front of ruths grave

fgt whistlestop cafe window

Fried Green Tomatoes (10/10) Movie CLIP – A Lady Always Knows When to Leave (1991) HD

Idgie and Ruth Love Story Fried Green Tomatoes (FGT)

Fried Green Tomatoes – Very Sad Scene

The Love Story of Idgie & Ruth-Created by Jennifer Kiley

CAST:

Kathy Bates…….Evelyn Couch

Mary Stuart Masterson……..Idgie Threadgoode

Mary-Louise Parker…….Ruth Jamison

           Jessica Tandy…….Ninny Threadgoode

Cicely Tyson…….Sipsey

Chris O’Donnell…….Buddy Threadgoode

Stan Shaw…….Big George

Gailard Sartain…….Ed Couch

Timothy Scott…….Smokey Lonesome

Gary Basaraba…….Grady Kilgore

Lois Smith…….Mama Threadgoode

Jo Harvey Allen…….Women’s Awareness Teacher

Macon McCalman…….Prosecutor Percy

Richard Riehle…….Reverend Scroggins

Raynor Scheine…….Sheriff Curtis Smoote

Nancy Moore Atchison…….Little Idgie Threadgoode

Grayson Fricke…….Buddy Threadgoode Jr.

Haynes Brooke…….Older Julian Threadgoode

Nick Searcy…….Frank Bennett

Fried Green Tomatoes Trailer

FRIED GREEN TOMATOES (1991) – Thomas Newman – Soundtrack


Filed under: death, drama, film, film clip, film friday, friends, lesbian, love, relationships, romance, same-sex relationship, soundtrack, spiritual love Tagged: buddy, chris o'donnell, cicely tyson, comedy, death, drama, fannie flagg, film, film friday, fried green tomatoes, friends, idgie threadgoode, jessica tandy, kathy bates, lesbian, love, mary stuart masterson, mary-louise parker, novel, relationships, romance, ruth jamison, same sex relationship, soundtrack, spiritual love, story-teller, whistlestop cafe

Chapter #31 — New World Sympathy

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private writings to a psychoanalyst (c) Jk 2013

Chapter #31 — New World Sympathy

Private Writings to a Psychoanalyst
Written by Jennifer Kiley
Illustrated by j. kiley
Introduction & Chapter #1
Published on March 19th 2013
Published Early Tuesday AM
Posted On Tuesday 22nd October 2013

WARNING: ADULT LANGUAGE AND CONTENT.
NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN.

ALL CHARACTERS ARE FICTITIOUS.
ANYONE RESEMBLING ANYONE LIVING OR DEAD
IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.

Crypticistic Synopsis:

I am writing to Dr. Annie Haskell. My form of storytelling is through
letters containing dreams, thoughts, poems, music, describing my script

“Brief Sacrifice,” already made into a film but not yet released, psycho-
therapy, inspirations, reflective comments, the inner workings of the mind,
soul, body, emotions, and bipolar. I prefer mentally creative, interesting, or
having a brain misfiring. Included in the mix are childhood abuse, car crashes,
near drownings, drugs [the illegal kind at present], hallucinations, hypersexuality,
time warps, finding answers to unsolved mysteries, infatuation, imagination, fantasy,
and a need to discover my bliss.

See you inside.
Namaste! Madison Taylor

Private Writings — Chapter #31: New World Sympathy

Tuesday, 15th April 2008

Dear Annie,

I needed to concentrate on something specific this week but never got to tell you. In this letter, I will write it down, so next week we can get into detail about what I am feeling. Taking off to Paris, France with Scottie in a few weeks, so she can begin shooting our new film. It is giving me a great deal of apprehension. You may want to talk to Scottie about what I am going to tell you. She doesn’t get what I am trying to say. If someone else talks to her, she may listen. It may feel like it is coming from someone she feels is being rational. In this situation, that is not how she feels I am coming across. I wrote down as clearly as possible, what we need to talk about.

First, it is okay to talk to Scottie about anything. She will tell you if it is alright with her or not. You can trust her to keep it confidential. It begins with her friendship with the actor, Hunter Marx, and the fact we don’t talk about her. Scottie told me she doesn’t want to get involved with what I feel regarding Hunter. I don’t think Scottie grasps the seriousness of what is going on. Since she doesn’t want to talk to me about Hunter, there is no way for me to explain to her how I am feeling. She thinks I am just being contrary when I say anything. Scottie has no idea how serious Hunter affected me in the past. How much damage Hunter did to my being able to trust. For me, it is better to talk to you, Annie or my friend Jonathan. I feel safer keeping what I feel from Scottie.

Recently, Scottie had a conversation with Hunter. I woke up hearing Scottie’s voice. Realizing she was talking to someone, I couldn’t help but overhear part of what Scottie was saying. She was telling Hunter about me regarding my habit of ending relationships when I feel hurt. She said, I end things abruptly and cold. This made me feel hurt and betrayed she would tell Hunter this. Especially, after the way it blew up between Hunter and me. What Scottie doesn’t realize is that was me when we first met, I was younger, more naive, extremely trusting and much more gullible. I have since worked on my need to run away. I try to work things out now. But with Hunter, there wasn’t anything to work out. I tried reaching her but was rejected too many times to remember the count.

Hunter’s need for secrecy and extreme privacy, I never felt it was okay to really talk to Scottie about the relationship I had with Hunter. She made it perfectly clear no one was to know what was happening between us. She told me, she was afraid the press would find out and think she was a lesbian. You know what kind of relationships this kind of privacy reminds me of, an abusive one. Abusers don’t want you to tell anyone about them. Hunter didn’t want anyone to know the kind of manipulation that was happening.

Scottie has no idea what I did for Hunter to draw Scottie into her life. Scottie was trying to cast an important film and I felt manipulated into getting Scottie to take a closer look at Hunter. Scottie didn’t act terribly comfortable around Hunter, so, I stepped in to smooth the way. I, now feel she used me to get what she wanted from Scottie and I fell right into her trap and gave Scottie over to her on a “silver platter. Like a fucking idiot. Oh, so, clever Hunter was manipulating us both. And now Scottie can’t see the truth no matter how I try to explain it to her. She just won’t listen. Thinks I am just being contrary because of how I feel.

Let me try to explain it more clearly. Hunter controlled me. She owned me. It was her decision when we would have contact and when it would be cut off. I destroyed pages of a great script because she felt it sounded too much like I was writing about her. I became so upset. To me it was about what it felt like to be bipolar. I wanted the character to talk about what it felt like when she became delusional and had irrational thoughts. I blew up and lost it. She upset me so much that I destroyed the whole script. It was something I sweated pain to create. She had turned into my Svengali. When she first got to know me she pretended to like my honesty. Once she hooked me to her drug of choice, herself, we became what I felt were friends. One of her requirements, she wanted me to keep all that went on between us to myself. Suddenly, I had to be so secretive. No one could know we were close friends.

I don’t think I can go back to being any place where she is. Hunter became delusional. She started telling me I had betrayed her and that I was disloyal. She pushed me away with her accusations. They were all lies based on nothing. She was trying to make me doubt my writing. The ultimately, real insanity started when I starting making friends with another actor she used to call a friend. She told me I was betraying her by being friends with this actor and it had to stop. I felt that was going too far. She did that with a lot of people in the film industry with whom I was making new connections. It was necessary and part of developing our film production company, Scottie’s and mine, “Infinite Imaginations, Inc..

I never did drop any of the people she wanted me to. Why should I, she was being ridiculous and way beyond the boundaries of being too demanding. She may have been a rising star but I didn’t need her to connect with others in the film industry. My work was beginning to have a buzz developing around it and so was “Infinite Imaginations, Inc.” Scottie doesn’t get the fact Hunter used me to get to her. And after I took my control back and pushed her away, she did everything she could after that to hurt me, including the absurdity of trying to come between Scottie and me. Hunter learned quickly it wouldn’t work. Scottie and I were too strong together.

When I flash back and remember when I first started becoming friends with Hunter, Scottie told me I should be careful, a friend had warned her. I don’t know if Scottie has forgotten or Scottie is trying to be diplomatic but she has no idea the torture I felt throughout that friendship. I trust Scottie, but she will be having contact with Hunter again. She cast her in the lead for our new film. No title has been finalized. Is it possible for me to just be professional with her? I feel it is going to be very uncomfortable. She is the one who cut me off cold but I am the one who wanted it to remain that way. A closed book, let go without regrets.

When my friendship with Hunter started, I thought it would be one of those that would last. That was me feeling promise and being delusional. I was living a fantasy. The truth is, I always felt like I had no rights in the relationship. Always a sense I needed permission to even contact her. It is awful to examine an abusive relationship when you realize you didn’t even recognize it when it was happening. Hunter had to be in total control. I let her at the expense of my own sense of self. I was reliving how my own mother treated me. This might sound crazy, but the only time I felt delusional was when I was with her. Which makes me feel now, she was doing something bordering on voodoo that set off my irrational thoughts.

I don’t know if I should delete this or let you see what has been going on inside my mind all this time. It is only now coming to the surface. I am going to use these revelations in my writing. There has to be a way to release all this toxic muck that filled me with poison. How the hell could I have been so blind?

You are my therapist. This is the kind of thing I should trust you with. Who else can I talk to about this shit? How destructive have I allowed myself to be?

Now, my life seems to be moving on a rapid cycle of change, looking for a landing spot, and claim a space for psychological and emotional rest. Hope you can help me find peace before death comes to take me away. All I want is a modicum sense of security and well-being.

Fondly,
Madison

Ps. This week, we were supposed to talk about the invitation from Scottie to join her on her film making quest to Paris, France, to film her next film with the script I wrote for her. It is a romance, with a touch of the ghost. A light comedy, with a touch of the spirit world invading the party. That’s the title, it just came to me, “Touch of the Spirit.” Anyway, it is really important we work on getting me prepared to fly. It freaks me out. Leaving our home. Going over the Atlantic Ocean. We could crash. We could drown. I suppose, though, the crash would kill us first. That was stupid to say out loud. Knock on wood.

PPs. Also, I am sorry, I have been so nervous, I didn’t include anything about our film “Brief Sacrifice.” I will tell you in our session more of the adventure. It gets really exciting when James and Jackson Sharp connect psychically. The power between Jackson and James wakes up an unimaginable energy field. Wait til you see special effect. It is so charged up. A great vibration comes from within the “Silver Box.” It appears together, the two, a cat and a human, have cracked the code. Seams begin to show, revealing signs of a thin crack which encircles the “Silver Box.” By our next letter, I feel strongly the “Silver Box” will be revealing its contents. From there we will have to determine what the significance is of what’s inside. Ciao!

© madison taylor 2008

Annie Haskell --- Madison Tayler's Psychoanalyst's Office

Dr. Annie Haskell’s Office as a Psychoanalyst

Robert Mapplethorpe --- 28 Closeup Yellow Lily

Robert Mapplethorpe — 28 Closeup Yellow Lily

rain in garden gif

Missing You Though We’re Not Gone
by Madison Taylor
Tuesday 22nd April 2008

Missing you though we’re not gone
Fear you will leave before me
Without you I will be left alone
In this way I could not ever be

Your presence is a wanted dream
To think and speak of many things
To brighten days shine as the sun
Our family whole what love it brings

One day in hours the time will come
We’ll spend the minutes creating fun
In company together we shall be
In spirit connecting forever free

© madison taylor 2008

Psychedelic Alpha Coders

Psychedelic Alpha Coders

“A Dream
The beginning always starts out
With a dream.
It is all a dream
In our own nightmares”
— Madison Taylor

Patrick is our Bengal cat in tree. He loves Scotties. They are buddies.   1612x1212 Patrick-our Bengal cat up in his tree-Scottie’s buddy

Havana Brown Kitten  Madison and Scottie's kitten One of the Two   800x600

Havana Brown Kitten Madison & Scottie’s. This cutie is Toker. He has a twin brother Mikey

actresses-with-long-hair-hairstyle frenchHunter Marx [taken 7 years ago in 2001 the year Hunter & Madison met]

play is not just play meryl streep


Filed under: abstract art, abuse, actors, agoraphobia, art, artist, artistic temperament, author, bipolar, book, chapter, characters, child abuse, delusional thinking, drama, fiction, first person, lesbian, letter, novel, painting, photos, poem, poet, private writings, psychoanalysis, psychoanalyst, psychological thriller, script, sexual abuse, soundcloud, storytelling, writer, writing Tagged: abstract art, actor, artist, bipolar, brief sacrifice, child abuse, delusional thinking, dr. annie haskell, fantasy, film, friendship, hunter marx, letter, madison taylor, novel, poem, private writings, psychoanalysis, psychoanalyst, psychological thriller, scottie andrews, script, secrets, sexual abuse, soundcloud, writer

FILM FRIDAY: Rushmore

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rushmore poster
Rushmore
Film Review by Roger Ebert
Commentary by Jennifer Kiley
Post Created by Jk the secret keeper
Vimeo Video Discovered by j. kiley
Post Created on Wednesday 23rd October 2013
Posted On Friday 25th October 2013
FILM FRIDAY
dedicated to roger ebert film friday

5 stars

The video just below, is an interpretation of Rushmore, adapted by Matt Zoller in the book THE WES ANDERSON COLLECTION. It is Rushmore in an artistically innovatively presentation. Watching this video gave me the desire to want to rewatch Rushmore.

I am a fan of Jason Schwartzman. He was in the film I Heart Huckabees, [LOVED IT!!!] & he did a show for HBO, Bored To Death [LOVED IT!!!], which I watched faithfully. His role of Jonathan was that of a writer who was also a detective. His best friend, played by Zach Galifianakis [HANGOVER +++][LMAO] was a creator of comic books & Jonathan’s other friend, played by Ted Danson, was wealthy. They were always stoned & out on cases, getting into all sorts of trouble. It was short lived but if you can find it streaming somewhere. I highly recommend you sit down & watch it non-stop, while having the munchies & lots to satisfy the need. Jason Schwartzman is an acquired taste, and I like his flavor.

Watch the Vimeo video for Rushmore, then read Roger Ebert’s film review. Find Rushmore and watch it. That is what I am going to do again right now, after I put this post to bed.

It is available on HBO GO through Roku to watch on your TV, if your cable company allows it. If you have Comcast, it doesn’t, so don’t bother looking. Check if you have another Cable Company. If your CC does not authorize this & you still have a subscription to HBO through your cable company you can watch it on your Laptop or devices like a Tablet or Smartphone. As long as you are hooked into your cable company & you have HBO. Now, I have a HDMI cable I hook from my laptop to my HDTV-PC Ready & that enables me to watch it on the TV. So that is that I am going to do.

Enjoy this video & review first. I feel it will expand your enjoyment of Rushmore tenfold.   by Jennifer Kiley

Adapted from the book THE WES ANDERSON COLLECTION by Matt Zoller

Rushmore
by Roger Ebert
February 5, 1999

Max Fischer, the hero of Rushmore, is an activity jock, one of those kids too bright and restless to color inside the lines. Although he’s a lousy student, that doesn’t stop him from organizing a movement to keep Latin on the curriculum of his exclusive prep school. His grades are so bad, he’s on “sudden death probation,” but in his spare time, he edits the school magazine and runs the fencing club, the beekeeping club, the karate team, the French club and the Max Fischer Players. With his bushy eyebrows and black horn-rims, he looks a little like a young Benjamin Braddock from The Graduate.

Rushmore max & his lady

Max, played by Jason Schwartzman, has a secret. He’s in the exclusive Rushmore Academy on a scholarship; his dad is a barber. Always dressed in a tie and snappy blazer (unless in costume for one of his activities), he speaks with an unnerving maturity and is barely able to conceal his feelings of superiority for the headmaster (Brian Cox) and other adults, who enforce their stuffy rules because they are not, and never were, able to work without a net the way Max can.

rushmore-1998 the woman teacher he loved

Then Max encounters a problem even he cannot outflank. Reading a book in the school library, he finds a quote by Jacques Cousteau written in the margin. The book was recently checked out, he discovers, by Miss Cross (Olivia Williams), a first-grade teacher at Rushmore. She is, he finds, incredibly beautiful, and he falls instantly in love, devising a scheme to attract her attention by running a campaign for a school aquarium. Among the potential donors is a steel tycoon named Blume (Bill Murray). Murray has kids in Rushmore, but hates them. Soon he, too, is in love with Miss Cross.

rushmore olivia williams

Up until this point, even a little further, Rushmore has a kind of effortless grace. Max Fischer emerges as not just a brainy comic character, but as a kid who could do anything, if he weren’t always trying to do everything. It’s ingenious the way he uses his political and organizing abilities to get his way with people, how he enlists a younger student (Mason Gamble) as his gofer, how he reasons patiently with the headmaster and thinks he can talk Miss Cross into being his girlfriend. (“Max, has it ever occurred to you that you’re far too young for me?”)

rushmore movie everybody should see

Blume is played by Murray with the right note to counter Max’s strategies. He is, essentially, a kid himself–immature, vindictive, lovestruck, self-centered, physically awkward, but with years more experience in getting his way. (Still, he winds up hiding from life at the bottom of a swimming pool, just like Benjamin in “The Graduate.”) The movie turns into a strategic duel between Max and Blume…

rushmore max with olivia

Rushmore was directed by Wes Anderson and written by Anderson and his college friend Owen Wilson. It’s their second film, after the slight but engaging Bottle Rocket (1996). The legend of that film is well known, and suggests that Anderson and Wilson may have a little of Max Fischer in their own personalities–the film may have elements of self-portraiture.

rushmore max with brian cox headmaster

They were friends at the University of Texas who made a short film, pitched it to screenwriter L.M. “Kit” Carson, got his encouragement, took it to the Sundance Film Festival and cornered director James L. Brooks (As Good As It Gets), who liked it enough to help them get financing for a feature from Columbia Pictures. I am writing this review at Sundance, where I have met a lot of kids trying to pitch their sort of films and get production deals, and having a good film is not enough: You also need the relentless chutzpah of a Max Fischer.

Rushmore max schwartzman &  bill murray

Bill Murray has a way of turning up in perfect smaller roles; he stars in his own films, but since Tootsie, he has made supporting roles into a sort of parallel career. His Blume admires and hates Max for the same reason: because he is reminded of himself. There are times where Blume looks at Max with a combination of hatred and admiration; he’s frustrated in his desire to win Miss Cross for himself, but from an objective viewpoint can’t resist admiring his strategy.

Rushmore max played by jason schwartzman

Anderson and Wilson are good offbeat filmmakers. They fill the corners of their story with nice touches, like the details of Max’s wildly overambitious stage production of Serpico. But their film seems torn between conflicting possibilities: It’s structured like a comedy, but there are undertones of darker themes, and I almost wish they’d allowed the plot to lead them into those shadows. The Max Fischer they give us is going to grow up into Benjamin Braddock. But there is an unrealized Max who would have become Charles Foster Kane.

Rushmore (1999)
CAST
Jason Schwartzman as Max Fischer
Bill Murray as Mr. Blume
Olivia Williams as Miss Cross
Brian Cox as Dr. Guggenheim
Seymour Cassel as Bert Fischer
Mason Gamble as Dirk Calloway

Written by
Wes Anderson
Owen Wilson

Comedy, Drama, Indie
Rated R For Language and Brief Nudity
93 minutes

Rushmore — [1998] HQ

rushmore on cast iron fence crop


Filed under: actor, actors, artistic videos, characters, comedy, film, film friday, film review, humor, movie trailer, photos, romance Tagged: artistic video rushmore, bill murray, brian cox, comedy, film, film review, jason schwartzman, movie trailer, olivia williams, owen wilson writer, photos, roger ebert, rushmore, wes anderson

Best Film Ever Made #10: The Ruling Class

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the ruling class poster

Best Film Ever Made #10: The Ruling Class
Film Review by Jennifer Kiley
Post Created by Jk the secret keeper
Illustrated by j. kiley
Post Created On Tuesday 29th October 2013
Posted on Friday 1st November 2013
FILM FRIDAY

5 stars

dedicated to roger ebert film friday

ruling class  peter as christ & jack inherit from him after he does homo-erotic hanging & dies accidentally

The Ruling Class [1972]
Film Review by Jennifer Kiley

The Ruling Class [1972]. Peter O’Toole gives a tour de force performance, one of his finest, as the mentally unbalanced heir to a British noble family, in this black comedy. There is a surprise that makes all in the film go sideways. It takes place about 2/3rds of the way through the film. Startlingly controversial at the time it was originally shown, this cult classic – among the best of the cult classics – is still worth watching, if for Peter O’Toole’s performance alone.

RULING-CLASS peter as christ

It is a pleasure filled with delight for Peter O’Toole fans. I live with one of those fans. I do enjoy Mr. O’Toole myself, that is why I felt this film, overlooked too often, should be among the best of the top 10 films. Peter O’Toole is one of the finest actors of all time. Most who follow Peter O’Toole would say “Lawrence of Arabia” is top of the list of his films, but I put “The Ruling Class” there for its unusual twists & turns, the bizarre & crazy originality of the screenplay & for the grand performance of O’Toole himself & also, that of the entire cast.

Peter O’Toole’s phenomenal performance, received a Best Actor Oscar nomination, one of the eight such nominations in his career, giving him the dubious distinction of being the most-nominated actor never to win that award.

The Ruling Class — Peter O’Toole as God of Love

the-ruling-class peter resting on the cross as christ while dressed white suit

In The Ruling Class, Peter O’Toole plays Jack Gurney, the 14th Earl of Gurney, a paranoid schizophrenic who takes over the title and estate after his father, the 13th Earl, dies. How he dies is just the beginning of the unusualness of the story. Jack, has been living for years in an insane asylum. This does not prevent him from inheriting the estate. The only problem is he believes himself to be JC [Jesus Christ], Eric, Burt, Coda, the First Immovable Mover – God, specifically the God of Love.

peter o'toole as christ

Criterion Trailer — The Ruling Class

His family is outraged by the slight & the fact that Jack appears as JC. They tolerate him while they plan how to regain control of the estate. One of their plans is to get him married off. He will produce an heir, then they would have him locked up again in the booby-hatch, act as the baby’s guardians/trustees. Of course, we all know these plans never come off the way the planners wish. In this case, when the screw ups happen. Jack’s treatments lead to an unexpected change in his mental delusions.

peter as christ dancing around inside butler in the rear who is always tipsy

The Ruling Class, while a film with a critical social edge, has moments of magical, yet almost realistic qualities. Peter O’Toole plays it so real, his portrayal drifts off into something dreamlike. Fantasy mixes with a reality that becomes spooky, filtering through the comedic side into a darkness, which for me, makes one want to root for the return of the gentler, God-filled schizophrenic.

otoole-ruling-class as christ closeup aura surrounds his head

1972 Ruling Class Halo

The upper-class people around him respond to Jack Gurney and his delusions. When he believes himself to be the God of Love, and wants to draw people in with loving kindness, he is beyond being acceptable. But when the nasty, psychopathic side of his personality is awakened, they have no problem embracing his monstrous transformation & the pure evil at its core..

Excerpts from The Ruling Class

ruling class peter as christ on the grounds w woman in white

The butler, Tucker, played by Arthur Lowe, is the high point of the film’s social commentary. A secret anarchist, whose closet door is thrown wide open with a bit of drink in him and the inheritance of a small fortune. It gives him the opportunity to express his true feelings & stick it to his so-called bosses and the supposed class above his own. It’s a marvelously amusing performance, & one needs to mention also the always delightfully funny & always wonderful Alastair Sim [the best Scrooge ever] as the priest in the family.

ruling class peter as christ getting married in front of alastair sims as bishop

The screenplay has delectable dialogue, a great deal of the delicious texture coming from the way Peter O’Toole delivers it. When someone inquires of the Jack Gurney as JC, why he believes he is God, he unabashedly responds, “Simple. When I pray to Him, I find I am talking to myself.” It is all great fun in the first half of the film. Everything seems so comical & sacrilegiously humorous. O’Toole is a smash in the first half. He carries the comedy of being JC & one cannot help but be carried along with him.

peter o'toole as christ

In the second half, however, he slips over to the dark side, a complete antithesis to the God of Love. If I continue, I will most assuredly give away too much & the surprises ahead will be spoiled. Let me just say that there is a deviant kind of pleasure in Peter O’Toole’s ability to portray the sociopathic darkness in the changed Jack Gurney.

peter-otoole-the-ruling-class-1972

For me the second half, after the transformation when Jack becomes so convincingly dark, the film itself becomes a bit too disturbing. Is there pleasure offered in this portion of the film? Maybe the pleasures of art, in a strange manifestation, but the emotional nature of the change, the feelings that surface in the viewer & the character of Jack at the end is definitely frightening..

Peter-OToole-as-Jack-Gurney-in-The-Ruling-Class

One may come away from The Ruling Class with a sense of being washed over with pleasure from the first half and painful upheaval from the second half. It is a bit disturbing,, but I suppose it depends on a matter of sensibility and perspective. There is pleasure in watching Peter O’Toole, but it is very difficult to distance one’s self from the darkness of the second half. So be aware of the dichotomy, Peter O’Toole, I will stress, is excellent in The Ruling Class and gives a magnificent performance as the two completely different parts of the one person.

the-ruling-class2 as jack the ripper

Peter O’Toole [scariest moment in the film] The Ruling Class

the_ruling_class_cover front & back of dvd package writing on back


Filed under: actors, characters, delusional thinking, dialogue, film, film clip, film friday, film review, humor, madness, mental disorder, movie trailer, murder, photos, psychiatrist, violence Tagged: actors, best actor oscar nominee, characters, delusional thinking, dialogue, film, film clip, film friday, film review, humor, jack the ripper, madness, mental disorder, movie trailer, murder, peter o'toole, photos, psychiatrist, the ruling class, violence
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