one is the loneliest number ~

i had a strange, rare attack of loneliness this afternoon. i'm a person born for solitude, so loneliness is peculiar to me. but i do occasionally feel it ~ particularly if i have been rejected. and this morning i got rejected.

i went to the bank to open a checking account and they refused to take my postal permanent change of address card as proof of residency. i almost lost my temper (another rare thing!)

guess i am just having an emotional day.

started it off watching Into the West, the spielberg-produced tv miniseries. it was well made, but suffered from kitchen-sink-itis. i always find it cloying where a character has to be a part of every major historical event along the way and this was pretty thick. fremont, the gold rush, burning kansas, the war, sand creek, the little big horn, etc. etc. ~ i mean, come on.

and it really failed in some of those moments. i thought the depiction of the carlisle school was almost too-kind and the response of the wheeler couple working there was completely idiotic (we disagree with your philosophy and think you are torturing these children so ~ goodbye!) ~ what? it's the problem of having characters with 20th century sensibilities running amuck in 19th century america and then not being able to make them lobby for modern change. yuck. this is why my main character is a bigot: because there's just no way he would have been raised any other way as a southern baptist in alabama in that era.

and what was with clara wheeler anyway: gifted seamstress (they make a big deal of this) flees kansas and becomes an indian school teacher (what happened to her sewing and why is she always so badly dressed)? not to mention they show her pregnant in 1891 when she would by then be well over 40. dum dum dum. that and a lot of dropped loose ends sorta were exasperating.

on the plus side, it got me thinking a lot about the whole colonization thing and the difficulty of necessary inculturation in any sort of story like this.

anyway, i think they tried and mostly succeeded. there were some nice moments and the casting was very good. i wish i could say i loved it, but i just merely enjoyed it and felt the proper sort of outrage in the parts where i should have been outraged. it had great sets and good costumes (for the most part). like i said, nice casting and good attention to historical details (custer was done especially well, i thought). i give it an A- for a tv movie and a solid B overall.



how the West really was: everybody was just
so darn good-looking back then!

~ * ~

and now i'm all ramped up to go see The New World tomorrow (yay ~ at last!) ~ so i shall be lonely no more forever.

~ * ~

i started North of Hope by john hassler (only read the first chapter) and i also got a strange little 1889 novel called Andersonville Violets which i'm very curious to read. our library has some very interesting old books. have a mentioned i love the college library? i do i do i do!

: D

and now back to writing.

oh the woe ~

tonight's eye-gouging cinematic delight was ingmar bergman's Winter Light ~ a cheerful little vignette about a priest who's lost his faith, the spinster who's in love with him (it's okay, he's not that kind of priest), and max von sydow who shoots himself in the head because of armament issues in China.

content aside, this is a wonderfully shot film with some beautiful compositions. and really, content considered, there's a beautiful moment during which Algot the sacristan tells the story of Christ's betrayal and sort of hammers the true cause of suffering in the story. it's a bleak bleak film (as to be expected), but somehow at the end you can't help but hope that they'll all figure it out and do what's best (well, except for von sydow since he's pretty much toast).


this is my favorite image in the film ~
Father Tomas turns to the church, as if having a premonition
and death hangs over his shoulder
( more cool images beneath the cut! )

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