In the princedom by the sea

Every prose is a narrative, and good prose will make you search for the narrator.

The images above are of Humbert Humbert, not only a literary character from, but also the narrator of, Vladimir Nabokov's 'Lolita'. The first image was created using law enforcement composite sketch software and descriptions of literary characters. Go here, if you are interested in following this project. The second image is of James Mason, who portrayed Humbert Humbert in Stanley Kubrick's 1962 film. 

Humbert Humbert was always more real to me than Nabokov. To this day, I have no idea what Nabokov looked like. But I'd instantly recognize the 'boyishly manly' Humbert Humbert and his 'gloomy good looks'. "I was and still am, despite mes malheurs," Humbert Humbert explains, "an exceptionally handsome male; slow-moving, tall, with soft dark hair and a gloomy but all the more seductive cast of demeanor." 

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.
Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style."

Thus begins Humbert Humbert's narrative. He readily attests that he is one of the "unhappy, mild, dog-eyed gentlemen, sufficiently well integrated to control their urge in the presence of adults, but ready to give years and years of life for one chance to touch a nymphet." Dolores, his landlady's daughter of twelve, is one of such chosen creatures, one of such maidens between the age of nine and fourteen... not human, but nymphic, one of such feline and slender beings who causes bubbles of hot poison in his loins and super-voluptuous flame permanently aglow in his subtle spine.

Who is a better match: the law enforcement sketch or James Mason? The sketch is more literal. It is limited to the descriptions of the physique. James Mason is far closer in depicting the kind of man who would describe himself the way he did.   

Humbert Humbert repulses and fascinates us. His dark humour and intelligence unnerve us, because we feel we should dislike everything about Humbert Humbert. We don't understand his love, but we recognize it as love nonetheless. 

"I knew that I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; 

but I also knew she would not forever be Lolita." 

Not only is this eternal love all wrong, it is also impossible. Lolita has to grow up, and we know that Humbert Humbert only lusts for nymphets. 

"...and when by the means of pitiful ardent, naively lascivious caresses, she of the noble nipple and massive thighs prepared me for the performance of my nightly duty," he wrote about his having sex with Dolores' mother, "it was still a nymphet’s scent that in despair I tried to pick up, as I bayed through the undergrowth of dark decaying forests…”

The end was always near and it never had any alternatives.

 "Oh, my Lolita, I have only words to play with!"

Secret Cinema

An old secret by now, 'Secret Cinema' (launched by Future Shorts) is a series of secret monthly film screenings. Where and when is only disclosed to the subscribers, and even then only on the very morning of the screening.
Subscribers receive elaborate instructions that include more or less clear clues for appropriate attire (read: costume). You will likely be led from the meeting point to a further undisclosed venue.
As for the film shown: you need to wait until you are brought to the screening location. In the concrete event posted about above, the subscribers were met by the Utopia Skyways staff who would fly them to a new colony.
The 'cinema' location will probably already give the secret film away, as you will be met there by a hundred or so actors in tell-tale costumes reenacting scenes from the still undisclosed film along your way.
"Screens pulsed, neon sizzled, strange men approached me carrying snakes (real) and eyeballs (probably fake)," reported the spectators. "There were bars, live music, strippers, huge video screens, food stalls, robots and replicants."
To get a feel of the impressive visuals and the elaborated interactive programme surrounding the screening, read this review.
Oh, may the next one be the '73 'Wicker Man'!

Hereafter

These are scenes from The Sweet Hereafter, an awarded film directed by Atom Egoyan (1997, Canada). The film is based on the novel (of the same title) by Russell Banks (1991).
The story is simple and heartbreaking. A school bus from a small American town runs into an accident, as a result of which almost all the town's children die. The accident is not in the focus as much as the aftermath, the impact it had on the town.
And indeed, Hameln, too, must have become... strange and new.

Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew,
And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
And everything was strange and new

Wild West music

The iconic opening music score for Hombre, a western directed by Martin Ritt and starring Paul Newman (1967). Composed by David Rose.

Blow-up

A silent scene featuring a touring pantomime troupe in Blow-up, a superb British-Italian film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni (1966).

Cold souls

A series of edited clips from Cold Souls, an independent film from the United States and a debut directing feature by Sophie Barthes (2008).
According to Sundance, "the film presents Paul Giamatti as himself, agonizing over his interpretation of Uncle Vanya. Paralyzed with anxiety, he stumbles upon a solution via a New Yorker article about a high-tech company promising to alleviate suffering by deep-freezing souls. Giamatti enlists their services, intending to reinstate his soul once he survives the performance. But complications ensue when a mysterious, soul-trafficking “mule,” transporting product to and from Russia, “borrows” Giamatti's stored soul for an ambitious, but unfortunately talentless, soap-opera actress. Rendered soulless, he is left with no choice but to follow the trail back to bleak St. Petersburg."
The clips are set against Pá Llegar A Tu Lado, a song by Lhasa that is also featured in the film.

Fury

Kathleen Byron in the role of the scariest of nuns in Black Narcissus, a British film directed by Michael Powell (1947). Sister Ruth belongs to the furies. Fury possesses her. Fury will consume her.
If you are interested in the scene of furies from this film, press here. The bedazzling setting is the remote Palace of Mopu high in the Himalayas.

The little foxes

This is the icy character of Regina Giddens (aka Bette Davis) from The Little Foxes, a film directed by William Wyler (1941). The screenplay was written by the same Lillian Hellman who wrote the original play in 1939.

The phony western

The title song from Johnny Guitar, an extravagant and theatrical gunslinger western in which cowboys vanish and die with the grace of ballerinas.
This is, as François Truffaut described, the beauty and the beast of westerns.
Directed by Nicholas Ray (1954).
Starring Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden.
Song performed by Peggy Lee.

Marlon without a cause

Marlon Brando doing a screentest for A Rebel Without A Cause, a film directed by Nicholas Ray who cast James Dean in the lead role instead (1955).

Howling tales

An excerpt from The Company of Wolves, a wicked film rendition of Little Red Riding Hood directed by Neil Jordan (1984).
Jordan chose to base his rendition of Little Red Riding Hood on a tale - The Company of Wolves - written by Angela Carter. It was Carter that co-wrote the screenplay of the film as well.
As a child, I wondered about that hunter. Honestly, killing the wolf in a horrible (not to mention backstabbing and sneaky) way, and without a fair trial.
In this story, however, the hunter and the wolf are one and the same.
See! sweet and sound she sleeps in granny's bed, between the paws of the tender wolf.

Wolf

James Spader in Wolf, a film directed by Mike Nichols (1994). The wolfy character of James Spader is - as one critic put it - "a roguish delight".

Make way for tomorrow

Make Way For Tomorrow is a film that was praised by Orson Welles, who reportedly said that this film "would make a stone cry."
The film was made in 1937 and directed by Leo McCarey.
The story is originally simple. An elderly couple loses a house. The adult children refuse to take both in. Consequently, the couple has to permanently separate.
Carefully avoiding to touch the subject, the husband and wife spend their last day together.
A farewell that takes place could indeed make a stone cry. Just like the farewell from dreams that never came true (Jagode u grlu), the farewell from the love of your life (Five evenings), the immediate farewell from a lovely stranger that you will never forget (yet never see again) (Two cars, one night).
Or the farewell from the only emotion that was safe and kept you sane (Disco Pigs).
If Make Way For Tomorrow could make a stone cry, Disco Pigs could make a stone die.

Pig and Runt

That precious - fatal - moment of realisation. This scene is taken from a precious - fatal - movie Disco Pigs (2001). This film was directed by Kirsten Sheridan. The screenplay was written by Enda Walsh, who also wrote the (original) play. Cillian Murphy made magic on stage and on screen.

Five evenings

This is a beautiful scene from Mihalkov's film Five evenings (1978). In the movie, the man (that you hear singing) - after being gone for 18 years - rings the bell of the woman (who unhappily wears curlers exactly at that time) and reenters her life as if only 18 days had passed.

Bane Bumbar

Old friends agree to meet after 15 years on a Belgrade raft. A wild party ensues. After a lot of drinking and unsuccessful recoupling, the raft is untied and drifts aimlessly – with the last men standing - down the river.
This is the ending scene of the Yugoslav (Serbian) film Jagode u grlu (1985). The film itself is an ending epilogue to a superb Yugoslav (Serbian) cult series Grlom u jagode (1975).
In the film, the youthful freedom of the characters reemerges as aimlessness.
The series and the film were both directed by Srđan Karanović.
This song about lost youth, O mladosti - here performed by the Orkestar Jovice Nikolića Lepog - ended many a party in my day.
The rafts with live music on Sava and Danube are an old Belgrade institution. One should certainly do this prior to one's death – though the raft owners generally much prefer that the dying part is done at a certain distance.

Zazie

An original and cartoonish sequence from Zazie dans le métro (translation: Zazie in the metro), a French film directed by Louis Malle (1960). The film is based on Raymond Queneau's novel.
Zazie in the metro.
That novel.

Stepping through Moscow

The ending scene from the beloved Russian film Я шагаю по Москве (translation: I am walking through Moscow), directed by Georgi Daneliya (1964).

Kapetan Lesi

Kapetan Leši (transl. Captain Leshi), a Serbian film - the first partizan western - directed by Živorad Žika Mitrović (1960) about successful exploits of Ramiz Leši, a heroic Albanian-Shiptar partisan, in driving balisti forces (a local fascist organisation) out of Kosovo Metohija.
You will not find much that is Albanian in this film - apart from the little white caps and the melody of the song. I remember seeing excellent Yugoslav actors of Albanian origin on stage and on the screen - notably, the excellent Bekim Fehmiu. I would, however, be hard pressed to find Yugoslav films (other than this one and its sequel) that is both set in Kosovo and focused on the lives of Yugoslavian Albanians. Even if they are acted by Serbian rather than Albanian actors; even if they speak Serbian rather than Albanian.
In that as well, an imitation of westerns where Indians were acted by Americans of European origin and spoke English even among eachother.
Departing from the national epic portrayal of partisans, this action adventure film was an absolute hit with the Yugoslavian audiences.

Krstic and son bus company

This is the opening scene of - the one and only - Ko to tamo peva (transl. Who is singing over there). Everyone from the former Yugoslavia will instantly recognize this film, for it was at the very heart of Yugoslav cinema. Filmed by Slobodan Šijan in 1980 (based on a script by a playwright Dušan Kovačević), this film is equally beloved by filmmakers, elitist film critics and the public. In the mid-nineties, Serbian filmmakers voted it the best Yugoslav film of all time.

The beginning of April 1941. Several characters are waiting for the unpredictable Krstić and son bus driving to Belgrade. These people (with the exception of Krstić and his son) remain nameless throughout the film: a singer, a WW1 veteran, a hunter, a patient and a Germanophile are later joined by a bride and a groom. Two Gypsy singers – the magic people of the Balkans - act as a chorus that sets the pace and the rhythm of this crazy road movie.

Just like in other films posted this week, the characters – at least before they reach Belgrade - have nowhere to escape to. In Život je lep, a train driver stops the train and refuses to take passengers to its true destination. The passengers are forced to make do with a local kafana, where hostile locals hang out. The kafana might just as well be flying through the sky: you either stay or you jump through the window. The desires of Jovana Lukina implode in her village damp with evil. Goluža is forced to stay in a tavern on his way to the seaside. Unable to pay for his stay, Goluža appeals to the good heart of the innkeeper claiming that he chose this village as a venue to kill himself. The word spreads. Just like the dance of Jovana Lukina, just like the singing of Sonja Savić in Život je lep, the suicide-to-be is the event of choice, destined to become village folklore, a fairy tale, a sacrifice.

In Ko to tamo peva, the passengers are for a short time completely isolated from the fatal changes that take place in the real world during the very time that they travel. While a unique comedy from the onset, and on the surface, the real pace of Ko to tamo peva – its captivating rhythm – is driven by the chorus and runs underneath the visible comic layer. The effect is unnerving: the audience wants to laugh its heart out, but the laughter will bring no release as the tension (built up by the Gypsies’ maledictions) rises unstoppably.

Note that the ending scene in Ko to tamo peva is not shot as originally scripted; the scripted scene - a piece of absurd cinema - was prohibited by the Belgrade authorities in the face of Tito’s death. The Krstić and son bus should have, upon its arrival to Belgrade, met with wild animals that escaped from the bombed Belgrade zoo.

This gem of a scene - the true ending to Ko to tamo peva - was borrowed by Kusturica in the beginning scene of Underground, as a (rather poor) homage to Šijan and Kovačević.