Vitro Nasu

Untitled photo collage by Fung Lin Hall

Mark Strand dies – Pulitzer winning poet laureate ..( Born in Prince Edward’s Islands, Canada, initially he studied art.)

The Remains
I empty myself of the names of others. I empty my pockets.
I empty my shoes and leave them beside the road.
At night I turn back the clocks;
I open the family album and look at myself as a boy.

What good does it do? The hours have done their job.
I say my own name. I say goodbye.
The words follow each other downwind.
I love my wife but send her away.

My parents rise out of their thrones
into the milky rooms of clouds. How can I sing?
Time tells me what I am. I change and I am the same.
I empty myself of my life and my life remains.

Mark Stand

Read his poem “The End” (poetry foundation)

Wallace Shawn interviewed Mark Strand (Paris Review)

EATING POETRY

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man,
I snarl at her and bark,
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.
Mark Strand

(Jim Bauerlein’s favorite poem thanks..)

The Caterpiller and Black holes (photo collage by Fung Lin Hall)

Lines for Winter
Mark Strand
1934 – 2014

for Ros Krauss

Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself—
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon’s gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.
Mark Strand

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Icon of New Topography Movement Lewis Baltz dies at 69.

Lewis Baltz – wiki

NYtimes obit

More than those of his colleagues, Mr. Baltz’s stark, geometric photographs used the language of Minimalism, the dominant mode of sculpture at the time, to convey a kind of creeping soullessness in the man-made landscape of Southern California, where he grew up.

The camera, he said, was often a device less for communication than for a kind of existential defense. In 2009 he told an interviewer for the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, “I used photography to distance myself from a world that I loathed and was powerless to improve.”

Lewis Baltz
via

Violette

Martin Provost directed Violette. See Violette trailer here (youtube)

Simone de Beauvoir and Sandrine Kimberlin (Jean Genet appeared in Violette but Sartre and Nelson Algren were mentioned briefly in the film)

Violette review from Guardian

Sandrine Kiberlain is superb as Simone de Beauvoir – demanding, principled and controlled. Emmanuelle Devos is even better as penniless, neurotic Violette Leduc, who arrives like a stalker on De Beauvoir’s doorstep with the dog-eared manuscript of her unpublished novel, L’Asphyxie (or Imprisoned in My Skin).

Violette Leduc

In 1942 she met Maurice Sachs and Simone de Beauvoir, who encouraged her to write. Her first novel, L’Asphyxie (In the Prison of Her Skin), was published by Albert Camus for Éditions Gallimard and earned her praise from Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Cocteau and Jean Genet.

The great Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges once described poetry as “algebra and fire.” The same is true of politics. Watching Violette, you’re reminded that the women’s movement was born not only of theories about equality and justice — the algebra — but of the fire of personal testimony, the willingness of women to say what they had thought and felt for centuries but never fully dared say before. Such willingness is what Violette Leduc possessed, what Beauvoir recognized, and what eventually made her books best-selling touchstones for women in France. Sure, it also made her miserable to be around, but then again, likability isn’t everything. (via)

Mademoiselle Chambon
Volcanic Emotions – Film Notes.

Martin Provost previous film (Seraphine)

(Portrait by Eric Fischl)

R.I.P Mike Nichols
6 November 1931, (Berlin, Germany) – November 19, 2014
Back in Berlin, Mike’s father was part of a young intellectual circle that included Russian immigrants such as Vladimir Nabokov’s sister and Boris Pasternak’s parents. (via IMDB)

Jack, Arthur and Carol from Carnal Knowledge. (Arthur G was also in Catch-22, Paul Simon’s part was cut.)

According to Jack Nicholson’s April 1972 Playboy Magazine interview, Nichols asked Nicholson and other cast members not to smoke marijuana while filming Carnal Knowledge (1971) on location in Vancouver, British Columbia, where cannabis was easily available. Nichols thought that it dulled an actor’s performance. (via IMDB bio)

On Elaine..

Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball wanted to give us our own show, and we flew all the way out to L.A. with our lawyers and manager. We got to this room with a big desk, and I said: “You know what? I don’t want to do it.” And Elaine laughed so hard, she fell on the floor. The two of us on a TV series would have been a catastrophe. We were too weird. We weren’t made for that.

I liked doing the stand-up. I only stopped because Elaine wanted to stop. I’ve never understood it. I thought: “Why? It’s not a very long show. It doesn’t cost us anything emotionally.” But it was hard for her. She was much more inventive than I was. I was plot, she was character. (via)

Mike Nichols filmography

What about Dolphins? (Robin Williams from the Birdcage – youtube)

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10 good Dick Cavett show episodes that prove good conversation makes good TV.

A Last Look at Updike and Cheever by Dick Cavett.

Alain Delon and Cavett played Jeu de mots . (youtube)

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Two videos of Ingmar Bergman on Dick Cavett Show, his first and only appearance on American TV show.

Amazing Anthony Burgess (youtube)

Jill Jonhston and Dick Cavett

Robert Altman talks about movie stuff (Youtube)

In 2008 Cavett entered an Iraq war dispute with a New York Times blog entry criticizing General David Petraeus, stating “I can’t look at Petraeus—his uniform ornamented like a Christmas tree with honors, medals, and ribbons—without thinking of the great Mort Sahl at the peak of his brilliance.” Cavett went on to recall Sahl’s expressed contempt of General Westmoreland’s display of medals, and criticized Petraeus for not speaking in plain language.

Cavett currently stars in Hellman v. McCarthy (Literary Legends Declare War!) in New York City’s Abingdon Theatre. Cavett re-enacts his show of January 25, 1980 when literary critic Mary McCarthy appeared as a guest and declared that every word playwright Lillian Hellman wrote was a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’. Hellman later sued McCarthy for libel. The suit spanned more than four years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cavett

Psychology today.. talking about his Depresson.

On the Couch… with Dick Cavett
An American icon shares wit and wisdom about living with depression.

Happy birthday Dick Cavett

Don Cherry photo by Roberto Masotti

Don Cherry & Herbie Hancock – Bemsha Swing (Live) (youtube)

S. Rollins

Terry Riley / Don Cherry 1975 – part 1/3 – AUDIO (youtube)

Don Cherry & Organic Music Theatre (youtube)

Takakura Ken Legendary Japanese Actor Dead at 83 (South China Morning Post)
Obits:
BBC

Obit from Twitch –

Huffpo

Takakura Ken’s favorite film is The Deer Hunter” (youtube – japanese only)

Film still from Yakuza (directed by Sydney Pollack)

Mainichi shinbun (photo slideshow).

Edward Winkleman on Chuck Connelly.

Interestingly, in 1989 Martin Scorsese was looking for an artist who could be a model for his film, New York Stories: Life Lessons. Several art dealers recommended Connelly. Subsequently, the “wild man artist” played by Nick Nolte was based on Chuck, and all of the artwork shown in the film was Connelly’s.

A number of insiders in the art world are interviewed in the film, including the venerable gallery owner Annina Nosei, who launched both Chuck’s career and those of Basquiat and Schnabel.

Nestor Almendros (cinematographer) and Martin Scorsese.

A Man with a Camera – Nestor Almendros (Previous post)..

Martin’s Top 10 (The River by Jean Renoir is #3)

Happy birthday Martin Scorsese!

AT last she comes, O never more
In this dear patience of my pain
To leave me lonely as before,
Or leave my soul alone again.
– Robert Louis Stevens

More poems by R.L.S here.

Painting of Robert Louis Stevens and his wife by John Singer Sargent – 1885. via

Robert Louis Stevens

He wrote this story, the Wrong Box, with all stars cast..(Michael Caine.. Peter Cook, Peter Sellers – see the trailer on youtube)

To celebrate his birthday, Take a quiz here.

Aidan Quinn played Crusoe

Les Barricades mysterieuses (Scott Tennant on Youtube)

François Couperin

(10 November 1668 – 11 September 1733) was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist.

Couperin :Troisième leçon des ténèbres, Tous les matins du monde

Tous Les Matin du Monde was directed by Alain Corneau

click to see large

Digital image and photo by Fung Lin Hall

Sam Shepard and Wim Wenders (Paris Texas)
Happy birthday Sam Shepard.
America on its way out of culture – interview –

He recalls one of the play’s most notable stagings, in New York at the turn of the century, the two leads played by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C Reilly, who alternated parts every so often to keep things lively.

Shepard saw Seymour Hoffman a week before he died of a heroin overdose in February and says he had no inkling anything was awry. “He was overweight, but he was overweight a lot,” he says quietly. “And he was pretty tired. He said he was going to go back and take a nap… See, I don’t think he meant to kill himself, I think he had some bad heroin. Though I didn’t realise he was that much of a junkie.”

He pauses. “I knew Robin [Williams] pretty well and Robin knew he wanted out – he had Parkinson’s. The two guys were very similar in that they were both overwhelmed by their own thing. I know a lot of people who’ve died… who’ve taken their own lives,” he continues after a moment of quiet. “But you know Patti [Smith], who’s an old, old friend of mine, she wrote a review of the new Murakami book that appeared in the New York Times, and at the end of it she said, ‘I don’t want to kill myself, I want to see what happens.’ And what a statement. I believe her.”

Happy birthday Art Garfunkel.. he has the most impressive reading list. He reads all the important literature. I like him in Bad Timing, Carnal Knowlege, Catch 22. In this video.. he explains how singing makes him happy. we’re happy and consoled by his beautiful voice and interpretation.

Nicolas Roeg directed Art Garfunkel in Bad Timing

Pier Paulo Pasolini speaks. (youtube)

“The simplest, poorest people, and the highly cultured intellectuals and artists are the most sincere, interesting people.” Pasolini said

Orson Welles and Pasolini

A short film La Ricotta (full film on youtube)

Grazie Giulio Tosi for the pointer.

Film Comment Interview

With Welles, how did you get a result you felt was fruitful?
For two reasons—first of all in La Ricotta Welles did not play another character. He played himself. What he really did was a caricature of himself. And also because Welles, in addition to being an actor, is also an intellectual—so in reality, I used him as an intellectual director rather than as an actor. Because he’s an extremely intelligent man, he understood right away and there was no problem. He brought it off well.. It was a very brief and simple part, with no great complications. I told him my intention and I let him do as he pleased. He understood what I wanted immediately and did it in a manner that was completely satisfying to me.

Abel Ferrara on Posolini – (Willem Dafoe as Pasolini)

Was there any moment that you considered incorporating Pasolini’s own style into this film?

Ferrara: Well, he’s in my DNA. I’ve been watching this guy since I was a very young filmmaker. He’s a very important filmmaker. I’ve seen all of his stuff. Maybe in this film, we’re trying to exercise what he is to me. His style of filmmaking is what we believe in. He’s a teacher, he’s a master and we’re the students. It’s as simple as that. hIl Decameron] blew my mind. It was the types of films I wanted to make and the kind of film i wanted to imagine making. His expression, his freedom, the way he filmed people.

Created an archive for Pier Paolo Pasolini