One Mardi Gras... Extra Fat on Tiredness
It's not even 11pm, and I am pooped. I have a very long day ahead of me tomorrow - going straight from 8am - 2:30 with five minutes off (and then less fun things like confronting a plagiarizer, and grading another 10 speeches to look forward to). Although I only have a lecture on Tuesday mornings, today, I put in a full day at school - grading, finished editing my 16mm short, and watched two films
The Crime of Ms. Lange (a French film by Jean Renoir - on VHS) and then
Passing Fancy an Ozu film, also from the 1930s, but it was silent and projected on the "big screen." It's interesting how classes overlap and bleed into one another, as I am on an Andre Bazin kick now from my Classical Film Theory class, and all of these films represent this sophisticated "film language" he details in both volumes of "What is Cinema." When Bazin was writing in Paris in the 1950s, he was flooded by many cinematic influences. During the Occupation, Paris was essentially without cinema. After the war however, he suddenly had access to a whole canon of Hollywood films (greats by Welles and Wyler), contemporary Italian Neorealist films, and Renoir's masterpieces from the 1930s were revived and screened in cine clubs throughout the city. What a moment to be a film critic! Just the same, in the past week, I've seen a film by Wyler, De Sica, Renoir, and Ozu... what feasting there is to be done! With some embarrassment (to be doing it so late in the game), I feel like I might be learning my trade, or at least passing some initiation rituals. It almost reminds me of the new-used car argument - these films are hardly new or even esoteric, but they remain new to me and I am caught up in the giddy discovery of greatness. Tomorrow night's screening is another undisputed masterpiece, Renoir's
Rules of the Game (1939). It will call for another long day at school, but seemingly worth it in the end.
Since Mondays are an uphill battle, I usually find it necessary to kick back and have a cocktail or two with Eric before coming home. Last night was an especially raucous Monday and I ended up beating Paul's Club out of every last drop of value in the $4 bombay sapphire and tonic. We stumbled home, which is slightly embarrassing for a schoolnight, but it may in fact have been medically necessary, from a mental health standpoint. Additionally, perhaps this early spring thaw has set the gossip in the department afire, there was much to be discussed, advised about, and speculated on...
6 days until my spring haircut... let the countdown begin! Cursed roots begone! If I had to wait much longer, I may have stooped to cutting it myself.
posted by lmjasinski at 10:21 PM
