Temporary classics

During the recent lockdown I was rummaging in boxes in the basement and attic for old books, trying to clean things up and I found a paperback play by Bruce Jay Friedman called Scuba Duba. I had remembered buying it from a used book dealer on Viger street in Montreal I used to haunt on quiet weekends when I was a student, having just moved away from home. I had paid 95 cents for it then. Probably would be worth the same today.

I put it by my bedside, to read later and then decide whether to keep it. I finally did read it in early June. Can't say it aged well. It would not be possible to stage it today. It has a late sixties sensibility, and although humour should be allowed to offend, the words offend in a way that has become unfunny, because the times have changed and relations between people that we thought would improve have not. I am talking about inequality, sexism, xenophobia and racism. Jokes can poke fun at these things when there is hope that they will expose their absurdity, but today, the risk is that some people will cheer. So we seem to have regressed in some ways, although we are more sensitive to the unacceptable. I hope this contradiction is a transitional phase on the helix of our cultural history.

After reading it I looked up the play and the author in a way that I could not or would not have done back then. Coincidentally and eerily, Bruce Jay Friedman had died the same week I had re-read the play. The play had run very successfully off broadway when first produced.

I had read other works by Friedman over the years and had liked his Terry Southern-like irreverence and teasing. He had worked in the magazine industry and in scriptwriting, in NYC and in LA. He was known in the literary and artistic circles of the day, and was one of the people who had the honour of getting into donny brooks with the blowhard Norman Mailer.

The seventies were the time I was getting out of high school and into the world, discovering the arts, going to concerts, looking forward to everything. Friedman had that optimism built-into his writings, it was gentle satire, pointed but not piercing, but that was because the times had a thick skin. Today the same stuff would just not be on at all.

This is what post-modern critique is all about I think. Very few pieces stand outside the culture, the few that do we call "classics", once we realize that we can re-read them and feel the same, time and time again, however much we change.

Anyhow, wanted to send out a RIP to Bruce Jay, and thank his writings for bringing back those no longer faint memories.

Two Movies about Sex and Love

From my flickr

Both are Canadian made, both are based on autobiographical novels, both are small, relatively unknown, and both treat sex and obsession realistically, without the usual prudish conventions. The theme of lost childhood also runs through both, with scenes in playgrounds and scenes from childhood. The differ in the the gender perspective, which makes the  juxtaposition interesting to me.

The more recent is Lie with Me (2005), and the other is The Favorite Game (2003).

Lie with Me, based on the novel by Tamara Berger, deals with the obsession of a young woman with a stranger, and his reciprocation, and it follows their affair as it evolves. It explores sexual obsession and love, love as questioned and ultimately defined by words and acts, love as visceral need. The point of view is subjective but switches between the lovers. The inevitable weakness is that the viewer cannot understand why their mutual attraction is stronger than attraction to the other players, say the other girlfriend, or the other men she meets. One must accept the coup-de-foudre as it is presented, in documentary fashion. There are few words, the movie is all subtext, and the subtext can be interpreted broadly. It is about the space between lovers, and succeeds in reflecting the mystery of falling in love, the insecurity and excitement, and the release.

The Favorite Game, based on Leonard Cohen's first novel deals with Leo's (as he is called in the movie but not in the book) search for love, and tries to explore the basis for his behaviour through flashbacks. Leo is afraid of commitment but is obsessed with beauty and with sex. The movie follows his affairs from his point of view, making the viewer identify with him maybe too strongly, and the weakness here is that despite his callow and selfish behaviour, he remains a sympathetic and charming fellow. It is a male perspective. The women are well cast, developed as characters, as much as the novel allows, but the movement of the movie leads to an implicit acceptance of Leo's inability to give enough of himself. It is a sort of visual justification of his remoteness and egotism.

Juxtaposing the two points of views above is interesting, in that in Lie with Me, there is a search for more, for extreme attachment, for physical and emotional welding, whereas in the The Favorite Game, there is is search for detachment despite the need for physical intimacy. It is not about sexual possession, only about sexual conquest.

As movies, they suffer from the fact that the viewer is necessarily outside, a manipulated, carried-about observer, and cannot be made to feel what the characters feel. We must watch what goes on in documentary fashion and try to catch a reflection of the subtle emotions at play. The acting, writing and direction are good, but the medium and form are restrictive. Love and sex in movies are extremely difficult to convey accurately. The most sucessful and best example I can think of is Paris Texas, by Wim Wenders. There are no sex scenes, there is only talk and glances, and the point of view is omniscient. Wenders succeeds through word images, landscape, haunting guitar, and almost cliche settings. Strange and beautiful. Eric Rohmer's movies succeed in the same way.

Oh, one last thing, Lie with Me is set in Toronto, in the Annex, and The Favorite Game mostly in Montreal. No significance.

The male bimbo

In CEGEP (Quebec grades 12-13), I was lucky to attend a great poetry class as part of the English curriculum. The teacher was an ornery young guy called Mike. During one of the first classes, he asked what poets we read, and someone said Leonard Cohen. I could have said that but I hadn't, some instinct stopped me. So the poor soul who did incurred the Mike's wrath. Cohen was, in his opinion a poseur, a fake depressive who just trolled for women. This was in the late 70's, before he Len became the poet laureate for elderly ladies and their hip husbands. Mr. Tower of Song.

I liked Cohen's work. I should even write that in the present tense. I did not dislike the guy back then, I had read The Favorite Game, and thought it was a great love story, love of Montreal, for love, for bodies, for self, for adolescence and coming of age, not for an individual woman per se, although Shell comes close. (Does he spell her name like that? I forget).

Cohen is the type of guy that many more women than men like, on average. I tried to come to terms as to why, you know, why "women go for that type of guy"? But that is a silly question. There is no logical argument. There is only comparison. Why do guys go for Pam Anderson?

Simple solution to the mystery - Len is a male bimbo. Women go for bimbos, men go for bimbos, everyone goes for bimbos, they are the fast food of love.

The end.