Osho

We binge watched Wild Wild Country with great interest.

I have been intrigued by Bagwhan since the 1980s. I went quite a few workshops in Freemantle, Western Australia… but never drank the cool-aid. No orange or mala. I knew there was controversy in Oregon. Just how awful it was is news to me. What went wrong? Guns for one thing. I hated that turn of events. Sheila?

I watched a short Osho video on YouTube and saw it clearly… Bagwhan is not really the problem as a person either… it is his philosophy!

What a lovely response to the journalists question “what is the purpose of all this?” Anything that has a purpose is mundane. His answer is really an deep reflection on ends and means. The philosopher shines thorough.

But there is an ugly side. He becomes a little scathing of the questioner. He is not “one of my people”. He is an outsider. And there it is, disdain for outsiders. With all the ‘enlightenment’ they could not relate to 50 locals. They took over that town in an arrogant way akin to the way those people had taken it from the native Americans. If they are not “my people” then they are not people at all.

That is the lesson for me in the whole thing… I know I can have that sort of disdain.

The American President – (Movie)

The Hero’s Journey Podcast‘s next effort will be The American President. I’ll watch it and make notes here, hopefully *before* they do the podcast. Watch this space.

This is the guide I use while watching:

Wednesday, 28 February, 2018

I’ve seen the movie and I’ve made some notes. I’m a bit sloppy as I did not like the movie that much.

Ordinary World

Day to day in th Presidents world – his life. His colleagues. The lobbyists. His daughter, dutiful dad.

Then there is a bit of a build up to election stuff – but that is ordiary for the President.

There is a call for the president to do the right environmental thing… he sort of refuses.

Then the soppsed “pitbull” comes on the scene Sydney Ellen Wade. The is on for an adventure and a fight for the environment.

But these are not the calls.

The call to Adventure

The call is that they fall in love. Well Pres. Shepherd falls in love and there is no refusal in sight… For a while. He pursues with gusto.. And she accepts his calls – litterally and as a hero. Both have ftiends alleies and enamies.

Love is the special world and they fall over the threshhold despite the threshold guardians each have. Is the dancing the moment they are truly in? Or the kiss?. Earlier really as the first whif of romance is in the air. So much for the pitbull.

Refusals

Then there is his refusal – he opts for the crime bill and not the environment. This cop out is also one where he refuses love. And his refusal here is matched by hers. “You have lost more than me, you have lost my vote.”

Seizing the Sword

But then in a speech to the world he accepts the call – the environment, even if he might not win her back. But she flies back faster than a speeding bullet. the adventure has gone on for a while so this might be more the seising of the sword.

He finally gets her roses and the elixer is true love prevails

And a big nod to liberal values.

Relationships, Romance and who is the protagonist?

I think they are both heroes, or maybe love is the protagonist. The trouble is that he is the main hero… He has all the power, it is a patriachal story. How might this have played out if it was not partiarchal? The relationship being the protagonist and each of them having a hero’s journey fully matched? It would be nice to speculate. Could it even be a romantic commedy then? I hope a much better one.

Are there any such dramas?

Reflecting on this it is clear that there are three elements in any relationship – each of the lovers, and the relationship. Each has a full life, i.e. the dramatic circle of the hero’s journey. Relationships are not 50/50. They are produced many 100% moments. How well can that be portrayed?

This question of how to put a relationship on the stage is a burning question for me!

No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos

IMDB

Thoroughly enjoyed this documentary about two Hungarians who came to the US in 1953. Both great cinematographers.

NewImage

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Laszlo Kovacs

On the strength of this dock watched Easy Rider again – more interesting after hearing Laszlo Kovacs talk about the movie.

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Vilmos Zsigmond

Now looking forward to McCabe and Mrs Miller

Limitless – Movie

Limitless. ***

Some well made shots, explores something about the mind. Quite gripping, and then looses the whole plot as nothing is resolved and the ending is weak.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1219289/

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Lots

Lots of tabs open of Firefox, this one, the origins of the current layout for this blog:  Kubrick at Binary Bonsai is here cause I’m looking for a way of making the font abit smaller. But I think I need to be off the hosted WordPress site to do that. This one  http://film.guardian.co.uk because it was linked to from the Kubrick theme page. While on the subject of Kubrick, we saw “Eyes Wide Shut” the other day, a friend recommended it for its “Jungian” aspect. Makes sense, the two protagonists are exploring a similar synchronous path, one in RL and the other in dreams.

Stanley Kubrick

The Kubrick Site & IMDB  More Kubrick, and we did more too, got out Paths Of Glory, but did not really like it much. Got that from here: Movieshack – Library

Only on Tab one of about 25!  The next:  Abit of vanity:  Looking for the oldest entry with my name in it and found one from February 1994 and more vanity, embarrasing:  1998 Psybernet Web page

Later… never did get to blog the other tabs… nevermind.

Kubrick

Kubrick at Binary Bonsai . This one http://film.guardian.co.uk was linked to from the Kubrick theme page. While on the subject of Kubrick, we saw "Eyes Wide Shut" the other day, a friend recommended it for its "Jungian" aspect. Makes sense, the two protagonists are exploring a similar synchronous path, one in RL or Waking Life and the other in dreams.

Stanley Kubrick

The Kubrick Site & IMDB More Kubrick, and we did more too, got out Paths Of Glory, but did not really like it much. Got that from here: Movieshack – Library.

More Moore

MTV.com

There are layers & layers of interconnection, which is one of the themes of the book / film and there is no shortage of this complexity in all the background drama & the characters, who are as engrossing as the art.

I have a theory, which has not let me down so far, that there is an inverse relationship between imagination and money. Because the more money and technology that is available to [create] a work, the less imagination there will be in it. My favorite films are those that were made on a shoestring. And they weren't adaptations of some other work, they were original pieces of cinema. All right, [Cocteau's] "La Belle Et La Bête" is an adaptation of "Beauty and the Beast" — but it was made into something very different. And I mean, John Waters, his early films, they're terrific! Because he was making them with some friends of his from Baltimore, with whatever cheap film stock he could borrow or steal. George Romero, in "Dawn of the Dead," "Day of the Dead," all the rest of them, he ingeniously used the fact that he had almost no budget to his advantage — claustrophobic sets, everyone's trapped in the cellar and the zombies are trying to dig their way in. Very inexpensive, incredibly powerful. That is where cinema really works for me.

Moore goes on to say exactly some of what I have in mind for my treatise on the difference between the movie & the film:

It's a thwarted and frustrated and perhaps largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values [standing up] against a state run by neo-conservatives — which is not what "V for Vendetta" was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about [England].

Not just the usual suspects

AFI’s 100 YEARS…100 MOVIE QUOTES, loved looking at this list, some great quotes, some just part of the language, but I did not know where they came from. Like this one:

Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.

Dracula 1931. I only know the phrase from the Cassandra Wilson song. And “Round up the usual suspects” – Cassablanca. Makes me want to see some old movies just to hear the quotes!