By That You Mean

Let’s start with a bit of history via Wikipedia:

On the day the hostages were seized, six American diplomats evaded capture and remained in hiding at the Swedish and Canadian embassies. In 1979, the Canadian Parliament held a secret session for the first time since World War II in order to pass special legislation allowing Canadian passports to be issued to some American citizens so that they could escape. In cooperation with the Central Intelligence Agency who used the cover story of a film project, the six American diplomats boarded a flight to Zürich, Switzerland, on January 28, 1980. Their escape and rescue from Iran by Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor has come to be known as the “Canadian Caper“.The subject of the six escapees and what went into the planning and execution was also covered in the 2012 film Argo, directed by Ben Affleck.

I liked two aspects of this movie—a lot! Continue reading →

In Stephen Daldry’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, we follow a young boy’s searchings. We see his father’s (Tom Hanks’) tutelage and inspiration, which sends his son, Oskar Schell (played by Thomas Horn), on many a journey through the boroughs of New York City.  Before he dies on 9/11 in one of the towers, Thomas Schell  introduces his son to the “reconnaissance” mission of discovering the missing sixth borough.  But his death, and the six answering machine messages that he leaves prior to the tower’s collapse, detours his son to search for the lock that matches a key found in a blue vase hidden at the top of his father’s closet. Was that convoluted enough?  Through the five boroughs, Oskar visits everyone whose last name is “Black”—the single word written on the envelope containing the mysterious key.  OK, it did get more convoluted. Continue reading →

The Master, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Adams.  The two male leads dazzled me with their full-bodied performance. Whether it was Hoffman’s face, which combined humor and sinisterness (ala Jack Nicholson) or Phoenix’s posture and gait, of which he constantly struggled to gain control of, both deserve to win best actor awards, as they did at the Venice Film Festival.

This is a movie that you must watch more than once to speak intelligently about it.  I have seen it only once.

That leaves me with questions for my second viewing: Continue reading →

Directed by David Cronenberg, A Dangerous Method attempts two agendas—to show us how the genesis of Sigmund Freud’s genius (psychotherapy) inspires and alienates Carl Jung and how Jung’s affair with a patient unravels his life. Starring Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley and Viggo Mortensen, the movie adequately portrays each agenda but fails to correlate them seamlessly. That seems to be my job here. Continue reading →

Up until the last scene, Son of Man should be called Mother of All, for Mary becomes the self-actualized driving force for all in her community.  If there is any hope for her neighbors, it is because Mary develops her self-confidence enough to inspire their hope and influence change.  Jesus, on the other hand, walks through his scenes without much emotion and deliberation.  Contrasting Jesus’ flat characterization to Mary’s fully developed portrayal; I hope to show how the film comes very close to portraying female self-actualization.

Let’s quickly review what I have determined (from Abraham Maslow’s work) to be the three criteria for self-actualizing: 1) know and accept who you are; 2) resist unhealthy, forced acculturation; and 3) contribute to a better relationship/world. Continue reading →

First, I’d like to be on record as saying that Pedro Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In is a film worth seeing.  So see it and then continue reading.  Otherwise, be prepared for major spoiler alerts

Last night, we watched the film.  This morning, on our walk, my dear husband tried to explain to me Almodóvar’s ongoing cinematic interests.  Here’s what I recall from that conversation.

Him: Almodóvar is interested in gender-bending. Continue reading →

I saw Philip Seymour Hoffman play Willy Loman for the 2012 penultimate performance at the Barrymore Theater.  That’s why I went. Just to see him play him—without much interest in the play.  But I left in love again with Miller’s play despite years of teaching it to unresponsive students.  I’d forgotten that watching  the play overwhelms its audience viewers.

Make no mistake though.  There’s more to the play than staging and performances. The script affords its readers great lines—and lessons—especially about the failure to self-actualize. Here are some gems that illumine Maslow’s 3 criteria for self-actualization.

1. Know yourself and accept who you are…

Continue reading →

If you read Katherine’s and Petruchio’s ping-pong banter about the sun and the moon, you’ll likely read her as puzzlingly submissive, given her spunky characterization at home.  But then when you see The Folger Theater’s production and witness how the director and actress interpret that scene, you begin to wonder.  It’s that age-old question: how do people with limited power subvert their oppressors?  More specifically, how do women self-actualize amidst patriarchal constraints?

For Kate, the answer is an uncomfortable one—through submission—or at least the illusion of submitting as the sun, moon, and eclipse repartee builds into the outlandishly “submissive” final speech about doing your duty to your husband. (See below.) Continue reading →

Drabble, Margaret. The Ice Age. Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1977.

In The Ice Age, Margaret Drabble switches to a male self-actalization story. When we first meet Anthony Keating, he seems relatively lucky compared to his acquaintances. After all, Keating has survived possible fraud charges and London bombings. Additionally, he is happily accompanied by his lover Alison in his newly acquired country home, despite his loss of fortune. Others around him are not so lucky. Len Winocbank is incarcerated for shading dealings, Kitty’s husband has been killed and Kitty has been maimed in a random London bombing, and Alison’s daughter Jane has been imprisoned in some hostile (toward Britain) country for causing a fatal accident. Anthony suffers for his friends and for himself. In Job-like fashion, he sees God as a tester of faith, who needn’t have bothered. Continue reading →