ISYBW: Breathe: Close Your Eyes: Be.

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Film-Talk: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

I've seen this movie a few years ago, and the story still works for me. Bette Davis, as Jane Hudson, gives multiple layers of horror, in this thriller. Jane is hyper-creepy, mean, ruthless, and, above all, abusive towards her crippled sister Blanche played by Joan Crawford. Crawford's Blanche makes us hate her for being too helpless; on the other hand, we feel her helplessness and want her to be cunning and courageous against her sister's wicked madness. But our desire to see this vengeful side of Blanche is a fantasy how we want the film to be. If the script had granted that desire, it would have been a predictable, weak movie, even unrealistic. Thus, the script has to make Blanche's character sweet lollipop for Jane's insanity and madness in the Hudson horror house. Indeed, Blanche is destined to be forgiving, and prone to rational tendencies, even though her sister cannot stand her. But this is logical for Blanche; she thinks of and feels for her sister, in the context of family. Blanche loves her sister, unconditionally.

The Hudson sisters live inseparable lives since childhood, through show business. After their mother's death, they live together. In the beginning, Jane is the child-star. But as adults, Blanche's acting career overshadows Jane's. Naturally, this is devastating to Jane. One night, they drive home together, from a party; Jane is the driver. At their home's driveway, Blanche opens the gate into the driveway. But while Blanche is doing this, Jane accelerates the car, to pin her sister to the gate. The incident cripples Blanche, makes her dependent on a wheelchair for the rest of her life, and Jane's constant presence to serve her daily meals. But that's just how the script makes us think how Blanche becomes a cripple. The script is brilliant, this way, because it set us up to advance our assumptions to conclusions that it is Jane who cripples Blanche; indeed, this is not the case. It's in the film's final sequence, in the seaside scene that we are informed the truth how Blanche is crippled. We hear this information from Blanche herself. On that beach now dying, Blanche reminds Jane that, on the night the car was smashed to their gate, Blanche herself drove the car into the gate, to hit Jane; Jane cannot remember this, because Jane was too drunk that night. But there is more: Blanche was able to get out of the car that night, that's why Jane is the one accused of driving the car into the gate, then left the scene. The crash snaps nerves in Blanche's spine, and thus cripples her.

On one significant level, the film comments about aging movie stars, specifically has-beens whose lives once occupied a niche in mainstream consciousness of popular culture, through entertainment gossip columns, and television news. Bette Davis' Jane gives us an image of a has-been gone twisted, one who harbors over-saturated longings and fantasies to feel the adulations from the glory-days of her stage and movie career. In contrast, Joan Crawford's Blanche looks level-headed to be mistaken as a has-been, even though she watches television re-runs of pictures she has starred in; in that light, she seems psychologically intact or have forgiven herself for attempting to murder her own sister. On the other hand, Jane's madness escalates; Jane serves Blanche a dead rat and bird on two occasions, ties her up for trying to call her doctor for help, and then murders their African-American house-maid, Elvira, after she sees Blanche's mouth taped and tied on her bed. Pure wickedness, you might say. Bette Davis' eyes are two hurricanes of horror in this film; they beat any studio-generated screams and colorful special effects - digital or otherwise - that try to make horror movies scary these days. Those eyes stare, not simply to scare, but to suck possible victims into its claws, taking them for wild spins, into roads accelerating insanities, to grind them as its newest proteges.© 2010 Michael Caylo-Baradi

Directed by Robert Aldrich; Starring Bette Davis & Joan Crawford;
134 Minutes; in Black & White; 1962.

Film-Talk: The Inheritance.

The film looks into the issue of inheritance in families, specifically inheritance as obligation in the context of affluent families. Already a successful restaurateur in Stockholm after leaving his family’s steelworks business, Christoffer is forced to return to that business when his father kills himself, to escape from the company’s financial troubles. The son’s devolving hesitations to inherit his father’s position as head of that company is the force that drives the film’s plot. On the other hand, the force that weakens the son’s hesitations to accept that position is his mother’s unshakeable insistence that Christoffer assume company leadership. She, therefore, helps her son believe in his capabilities to lead the family company, because, based on her gut feelings, he is the right successor that can ensure the company’s survival. Thus, the mother inflicts or forces change into her son’s mind, the way mothers control their little boys to obedience. This view about the mother’s power in the film is justified, mainly because the story has not appropriated enough instances for Christoffer to exert will against his mother’s wishes for him to inherit his father’s leadership position. Christoffer’s mother fine-tunes the idea of family obligation in her son’s mind so well, to a point where his only exit out of hesitating to accept his inheritance is to relinquish his own plans for himself, plans that evolve around a life with his wife in Stockholm.

Directed by Per Fly; in Danish & Swedish w/ English subtitles;
Title in Danish: Arven; 107 minutes; 2003.

Chaka: Los Angeles Was His Canvas

About a year ago, the Los Angeles Times ran a story titled: "Chaka, from graffiti to gallery." Chaka got what he wanted: everybody's attention: especially from commuters, the police, and news organizations. Defacing city property was his ticket to fame; and based on the paper's photo archive from the 1990's, his name was everywhere in the city, on elevator doors, freeway signs, everywhere. He was, therefore, prolific as a tagger; this means he wrote and tagged property very fast, like he had a schedule, on a deadline. He was working for quantity, on as many surfaces he could put his name on. Thus, not getting caught was part of the art, quick escape from being spotted by authorities was a must. But of course, he was caught a number of times, according to the article.

You can just imagine the kind of discipline he had, working the city, giving it the best his hands could muster; no doubt he nurtured reflections his work  was a form of  valuable and unique urban art, because his pieces - really just his name - were created on-the-fly or, in some circles, as drive-by-art. He was chasing 15-Minutes of fame, but he certainly wanted more. In many ways, the city was his gallery, in the 1990s, and  that means he  already had his one-man show back then. Whatever work he  had shown in that gallery the article had reported could not have been the Chaka of the 1990s, but the Chaka who had left that decade, had been through the grind of the legal system, rehabilitation programs, and endless nostalgia about what was  or could have been.  Hopefully, he has re-channeled his artistic energies to engage in work that does not deface properties, including his own - his own reputation, that is - in the context of the legal system, so he won't go back to prison again.

Scrubbing Off Myth


Down, down, to disintegrating myths. Contours blur. The vaguing of hallucinations. Now is crisp as crispy chips, crunch, crunchuously crunch. Color saturations inter-penetrate, into hints of gray.

"Too much?" "Not much" "I see." "Yeah." "Oh Yeah." "Here?" "There, too." "I see." "It's ok." "Maybe." "More soon." "Oh, yeah?" "Yeah." "It's like, you know..." "I know." "You know what I mean?" "Totally. The meanest." "It's like, yeah,..." "Well, yeah." "Oh, yeah." "But I don't know." "Me, too." "Like, if it's like that,..." "I'm there, man, yeah." "Yeah." "Totally." "Totally." "April fools!" "The entire month, totally." "I can't wait for May." "The month of maybes. I can't wait for June." "Yes, you can." "That reminds me of 2008, elections, that video." "Yes, We Can." "Yes." "We." "Can." "Be fired anytime now." "And that could light our fire." "I see." "Yeah." "Totally." "April fools." "Yeah." "Right."