web analytics

Ben Gazzara Dies at 81; Peter Bogdanovich Remembers

Image: IndieWire

Ben Gazzara died on February 3, 2012 at the age of 81 from pancreatic cancer. IndieWire called Peter Bogdanovich who was Gazzara’s close friend and directed him in several films. You can read the full interview; and in the opinion of Bogdanovich, “they don’t make actors like Ben anymore“.

In his 60-year career as an actor, Gazzara also had a part in 1992 adaptation of Quiet Flows the Don by Sergei Bondarchuk, he played General Sekretov. You know that I have supported the film, even as it appeared on the Russian screens as a TV mini-series. But I’ll soon have the chance to watch the English version, and I’m really looking forward to that. Either way, I’m afraid the Russian audience was even more oblivious of Gazzara than it was of either Rupert Everett or F. Murray Abraham. Which is a shame.

Sijmadicandhapajiee (Avion Travel)

I know that the name of Paolo Conte attracts some interest from the visitors, and I hope the video below (produced by Guiseppe Ragazzini, whose work you have already seen in Notebooks) will inspire you to learn more. And no, I don’t expect you to be able to pronounce the name of the song (I do look forward, however, to seeing if this post generates any AT-related queries).

Update:

It has taken me some time to deliver my own promise, mainly because my Italian isn’t as good as the song demands. I had to resort to my friend’s assistance, and I sincerely thank Marco for being a great friend and, well, an Italian, too. The text below is the result of my effort at translating and his brainstorming and brushing of it. Mille grazie, Marco!

One of particular difficulties must be the dialect. As Giorgio Maimone, the reviewer of the album Danson Metropoli deftly put it, “Sijmadicandhapajiee” non è un mantra indiano (isn’t an Indian mantra), but “siamo dei cani da pagliaio” in the dialect of the Asti region in Italy. I found the explanation on another site of what this expression means: Questo è un detto tipico dei contadini delle nostre terre per indicare le persone che coltivano pochi interessi o che comunque non escono mai dalla propria ristretta cerchia di conoscenze ed attività, persone “per cui le arti stan nei musei”.” That is: “Sijmadicandhapajee” is a person who has few interests or who restricts themselves by a very narrow circle of knowledge and activities; somebody “for whom the arts are in the museums“.

So, over to the translation:

Somebody is a mechanic,
Someone sends him to me
To fix the steering wheel,
And doesn’t ask me
Neither money nor thank-yous,
It doesn’t matter because
In the other room
He sees the bed occupied
By his deep sleep.

Sijmadicandhapajee…

At the end, it doesn’t matter
If there some woman
Has taken from the stars
The music that won’t give
To anyone
A permission to dance with her,
These are the folks for whom
The arts are in the museums.

Sijmadicandhapajee…

I have to say, you are very welcome to leave a comment with corrections, if such still need to be done. Otherwise, I and Marco shall content ourselves with the thought that we did a decent job.

Alberto Moravia – Eroticism in Literature

I was just going through some screenshots with articles about Quiet Flows the Don premiere last year. It’s been a very long while, unfortunately, since I wrote anything about the latest adaptation by the late Sergei Bondarchuk. In part, it had to do with the fact that I only recently managed to start watching the film, which I am yet to finish. So far in general I feel that I like this film more than the previous adaptation. However, it is the previous adaptation’s subject and the recent interpretation of it that made me remember about this short essay by Alberto Moravia. As I mentioned previously, this year is the 100th anniversary of his birthday, so it is appropriate to mark it with this text.

Alberto Moravia, Eroticism in Literature (1961)

Eroticism in modern literature has no resemblance to eroticism in pagan literature nor to eroticism in the literatures that followed it, though if there are any resemblances at all these are to the former rather than the latter. But there is the difference that in pagan literature eroticism has all the innocence, brutality and cohesion of a nature not yet divided and turned against itself by the Christian sense of sin, whereas eroticism in modern literature is bound to take the Christian experience into account. In other words, eroticism in modern literature derives not from a situatio of nature, but from a process of liberation from pre-existent prohibitions and taboos. With the pagans, freedom was an unconscious, simple fact, whereas with the moderns it has been reclaimed, rediscovered, rewon. In compensation eroticism in modern literature has, or should have, the character proper to subjects that neither shock nor draw undue attention to themselves – that are, in short, normal if we understand normal to mean the transformation of the sexual act into something scientifically known and poetically valid, and therefore insignificant from the ethical point of view.

The result of this is, or should be, that for the first time since the pagan literatures sex is becoming material for poetry without the need to recourse to the props of symbols or the disguises of metaphor. Today, for the first time for many centuries, the sexual act can be represented directly, explicitly, realistically and poetically in a literary work, whenever the work itself makes it necessary. At this point someone will ask: but is it necessary to talk about the sexual act and, if so, when? My answer is that it is not always necessary to talk about the sexual act, just as it is not always necessary to talk about social questions or adventures in Africa, but that, as the prohibitions and taboos that stood in its way no longer exist today, to pass it over in silence when it is necessary is no longer, as it once was, a moral question but an inadequacy of expression. To take an example: the contemporary writer who does not speak of the sexual act when the subject-matter of his book requires it, is behaving like the citizen who refrains from talking about politics in a democratic regime because the dictatorship that preceded it forbade him to do so. Of course, let me repeat, it is not always necessary to talk about the sexual act; but it is necessary to talk about it when – to make a play on words – it is necessary.

Our objector now asks why on earth it seems so often necessary to talk about the sexual act in modern literature. To this we answer very simply that in the modern world sex is synonymous with love, and who could deny that love is a very common subject in the literatures of all times and places?

But how in the world, someone else will say, has love been transformed into sex in modern literature; in other words how has it lost the indirect, metaphorical and idealised character that it had in the past, to end up as identified with the sexual act? There are many reasons for this identification, the principal one being, as we have already pointed out, the collapse of the prohibitions and taboos that only too frequently and artificially lay at the root of the false idealisations of eroticism.

These taboos and prohibitions were only in appearance of Christian origin; in reality Christianity confined itself to counselling chastity. Probably the taboos and prohibitions were the outcome of a slow social involution, an involution not unlike the one that can be observed in, for instance, class relationships in some Western societies.

However, the collapse of these taboos and prohibitions has been caused mainly by what is called depth psychology, or psychoanalysis and the related psychological sciences. The discoveries of psychoanalysis have had a crucial result in two ways: they have broken down the taboos, and have raised the sexual act from the ignominy into which the taboos had cast it, and have reinstated it among the few ways of expression and communion available to man.

The sexual act in modern literature is, or should be, neither diabolical temptation, as with the medieval ascetics, nor an almost gastronomical pleasure as with the eighteenth-century bourgeoisie, but as it shows itself when we manage to separate it both from moralistic horror and vulgar hedonism: an act of insertion into a cosmic and superhuman order. Seen in this way the sexual act is effectively something higher, more mysterious, and more complete than love, especially if love is interpreted as the simple physico-sentimental relationship between man and woman.


How does this relate to the 1957 and 1992 (2006) adaptations of Quiet Flows the Don? At the heart of the novel is a love story of Grigory and Aksinia. One of the arguments against the most recent film was that it showed the protagonists having what we may call an openly sexual relationship. I must point out that there are still no bed scenes similar to some we’ve seen in other films. At the most, we can see their bare torsos (right, although the image is quite modest), but this is obviously very different from what the viewers have been looking at since 1957 (left). Some of the Bondarchuk’s critics were saying that Aksinia would never go to bed with Grigory totally naked. It may certainly be true if we remember that it was a custom even in Europe for many centuries to exercise one’s marital duty in a nightgown (which used to be worn by both men and women). From this point of view, any historical film with a romantic scene in which both protagonists appear totally naked, is potentially historically incorrect.

What is interesting, however, is that the kind of romantic love we usually witness on screen and which makes up one of the subjects of Sholokhov’s novel is rather often than not a forbidden love. As the narrator tells us, the love of Aksinia and Grigory was forbidden not simply because it was adulterous – it flew in the face of a traditional view of how to conduct an affair. Had they concealed it or treated it as if it didn’t matter, the villagers would quickly forget about it. They, however, didn’t conceal it, and in particular Aksinia, for whom this was the first time she fell in love and had her affection returned, put herself entirely into enjoying her womanhood. Hers is a tragic character, and I can absolutely not picture Aksinia keeping her cool while burning with love – that is, wearing a nightgown at all times, figuratively speaking.

I wouldn’t want to comment in too much depth on the Russian take on eroticism in cinema as follows from the Quiet Flows the Don‘s critique, since those opinions may not be entirely representative. As with everything else elsewhere, much is built upon assumptions, in this case – an assumption that Russian culture and eroticism are alien to each other, which, of course, is nonsense. But in the case of reception of this recent adaptation of Sholokhov’s novel we find assumptions not only about the life in the Cossack village, but about the novel itself. The fact is that Sholokhov’s text is long and rich enough to include many story lines, some of which never made it to the screen. And certain portions of the text are undoubtedly erotic, although they may be too demure for our time. Nevertheless, they do exist, and since the question seems to be about whether or not it was appropriate for the protagonists to bare on screen, the answer is that it was not only appropriate, but even necessary – to underline the unconventional and tragic fate of their life-long affair.

Rupert a Cossack? Why Not?!!

So, Quiet Flows the Don has finally burst onto Russian screens, but only to attract a lot of criticism. Admittedly, everything I’ve heard so far has not been particularly convincing. As the article by Andrew Osborn in The Independent (12 Nov. 2006) stated, the main reason why Rupert Everett’s Grigory is not being accepted by the Cossacks (or, perhaps, by the most radical of them) is the fact that he is gay (Everett, that is). A similar protestation was expressed on 12 Nov. on The Echo of Moscow radio station.

My opinion, as you might guess, is nothing similar in this case. First of all, Everett’s new biography apparently commemorates the actor’s intimate relationships with Susan Sarandon and Paula Yates. Osborn writes that one of the criticisms leveled against Everett is that, since he is gay, he cannot “feature in a love story”, because “he doesn’t know what a woman is”. Well, it looks like he does, after all. Secondly, to judge an actor’s potential by whom he/she spends their nights with is totally unacceptable. We’re talking talent and art here, and hence sexual ‘orientation’ must not be used as a sole factor (especially negative) to form an opinion about someone’s creative potential.

This is the only thing I would pass a comment on so far, since anything else seems to depend largely on a viewer’s point of view, and I haven’t got any at the moment because I’m sitting in Manchester. I’ll only put up this link to an interview with Rupert Everett, which otherwise may get lost somewhere on this blog. It is in Russian, although Everett repeats certain things he’s said in the past. Many thanks to the anonymous user who’d sent the link.
I must say that I approach this film very openly, at the same time I’ve never had any too unrealistic hopes invested in it (like with any other film), despite the fact that I’ve been looking forward to it for years. I obviously allow for the possibility that certain things will not be the way I would expect them to be, but, knowing the book well, I would try and understand why this film is the way it is.

The reason why I am being so open-minded is not simply that I am generally open-minded. The first version of Quiet Flows the Don was made in 1931, by Ivan Pravov and Olga Preobrazhenskaya. 1957 saw the second, famous version by Sergei Gerasimov. It is said that Sergei Bondarchuk had been thinking of taking his vision to screen for about twenty years, but only got the chance to do so at the turn of the 1990s. Although it is only now that his work has finally reached the audience, he had finished shooting his film in 1993.

By only looking at the dates – 1931, 1957, 1993 – one can see that what we’re talking here is a truly notable case of bringing the same novel to screen by two generations of film directors (Pravov was born in 1901, Gerasimov in 1906, and Bondarchuk in 1920). Of these versions, neither could be totally unbiased or uninfluenced by the time. My argument is simple: rather than in direct comparison to the previous films, one should view the current version of Quiet Flows the Don in the context of Sholokhov’s novel, Russia’s ever-changing political and cultural climate, and Bondarchuk’s own legacy. There are bound to be changes in our reading of Quiet Flows the Don now, in comparison to even the early 1990s. And it is very unlikely that the changes in Russia’s political climate from the 1960s until the 1990s would not have impacted Bondarchuk’s own reading of Sholokhov’s novel.

Now, anyone living in Russia and receiving the ‘Kultura’ (Culture) channel can watch the 1931 film this Friday, November 17, at 11am. This screening commemorates the centenary of the birth of the film’s leading actor, Andrei Abrikosov, whose career in cinema had started with him playing Grigory Melekhov. The article accompanying the announcement says that Abrikosov called his son Grigory (also an actor) after the novel’s protagonist.
I am glad this first film is being screened, for those viewers who’ve been watching Bondarchuk’s film and have previously seen Gerasimov’s version will now (potentially) gain full perspective of how Sholokhov’s masterpiece had been read during the 20th c. I am also hoping that perhaps Gerasimov’s version will stop – for some time, at least – being regarded as the only possible dramatization out there. One must recognize the fact that what we’ve got now is a complete manifestation of the continuity of interest in Sholokhov’s novel, and no constraints can or must be put to this. (Shall we compare this to the British, and indeed universal, obsession with Shakespeare’s Hamlet?) One should therefore approach each dramatization historically, i.e. to be aware of the time when it was made because it is absolutely unlikely that time had left any version unscathed.

Also, on the film front – the Indian epic, Makhabkharata, is to begin to be filmed in 2008. Meanwhile, the director of the very successful TV series under the same name is going to write the script. He promises to embellish the Bollywood film with the special effects comparable to those in The Lord of the Rings. The TV series has been so popular that the Indian railways reportedly had to change timetables because people refused to travel during the screening of episodes. Well, while the Bollywood is planning to shoot the Indian epic, the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf is now in post-production in Hollywood. And a much awaited premiere of Russian fantasy story Wolfhound is currently being scheduled for the early 2007. Cannot all this, together with three versions of Quiet Flows the Don, be a better proof that history matters?

Quiet Flows the Don

Many thanks to an IMDb.com user who’s posted the link to this article, printed in The Moscow Times in February this year. Unfinished Business is about the process of completion of the last film by the Oscar-winning Russian director Sergei Bondarchuk, Quiet Flows the Don. I’ve already written something about it, but now you can read the article for yourself.

I cannot tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to this picture! Which is why I’m digging information about it from everywhere, and I do hope it gets finished soon. As a matter of fact, 9th Company (Devyataya Rota), a film by the late director’s son, Fyodor Bondarchuk, is Russia’s official entry to the Oscars’ long list for 2007.

error: Sorry, no copying !!