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Hannah, Zelig, B'way Danny Rose, Radio Days, Annie Hall.... Play It Again Sam (he *only* wrote it, I know) Love Take the Money and Run. The very first Woody picture I ever saw - I came in in the middle of What's Up Tiger Lily? On TV and couldn't believe my delighted eyes! Manhattan looks great but I don't like the old-man fantasy angle... script wise I think it's one of his worst. My middle daughter loves Manh Murder Mystery, so I do too.
He is hugely accomplished and elegant and understated technically & he doesnt' get any credit for that. Thinking esp of Hannah and her sisters -- look how the camera moves through that apartment. it's goingto be rough when he stops making films. I love him.
Hey I dont have time to look all over from Monroe to Angeline for the youtube section here, but here is something nice, Bruce and a gorgeous Prove It All Nite in Passaic NJ in 1978.
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In Topic: The all new extra sticky book thread
02 April 2011 - 12:54 PM
10 most difficult books:
http://listverse.com...literary-works/
I've read two of them: Moby Dick and The Scarlet Letter. Moby Dick is exactly as described in that article. It is dense, detailed about whaling with less movement of plot, etc. It is worth it just to read Ahab's speech as the final hunt for the white whale begins (much of which is in Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan, by the way). That single passage is the epitome of anger and revenge in our literary tradition, so far as I'm concerned. For those unfamiliar, I post it here:
Ahab: I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! Let me hear thy hammer. Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked keel; and only god-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and Pole-pointed prow, - death-glorious ship! must ye then perish, and without me? Am I cut off from the last fond pride of meanest shipwrecked captains? Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber of my death! Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!
At this point, the man, the captain, and his ship has been utterly destroyed. You can feel his acceptance of inevitable destruction, yet the finality of a confrontation with the whale is nothing in the face of his endless wrath and desire for vengeance. It's beautiful insanity.
I wrote my senior thesis as an English major about this book. It's difficult and I love it. To new readers, I would recommend a chapter or two/day. Keep moving, treat most of it as a historical document of the whaling industry of the 1800s, but don't let hte details bog you down.
Oh, God! One of my favorite books of ALL TIME, top three. The first time I read it I was a little apprehensive -- opened it up and looked at the chapter titles, started to smile... the deliberately-insanely long list of different names for the whale and the note from the sub-assistant. I fell in love
This just reminds me I have to read more Melville, this is the only one I've read. But how could the others be incomprehensible or boring, if this is his voice?
I love the structure of it -- esp the chapters that don't move the story along but only deepen the color and flavor. Little pieces of incidental music. One of my favorites is the one where they're lying in their bunks down below and they can hear the sharks outside the wooden walls, inches from their heads.
