It seems that the main excitements going on in the world
at the moment are in Egypt, where a governmnt elected under a faulty
constitution, weighted towards religious involvement in politics, was overthrown
by the army after a week or two of immense public protests. In other words, the
government headed by Morsi was monumentally inefficient, at one level, and at
the other was riddled with favoritism,with right-wing, pro-religious bias, and
was detested by the very people who thought they had created a revolution that
brought it to power.
The idea when Morsi was thrown over wss that a serious
effort would be made by a group of the best minds to create a better
constitution, which, among other things, would probsbly forbid the mixture of
religion and politics in the affairs of the state; after which a new election
would be held. One prescient comment I read at the time suggested this even
sounded the deathknell for religion in politics throughout the world.
But Morsi’s supporters --- a short-hand way of saying the
people who rave for religion to dominate the state --- have been camping out,
vowing not to stop until Morsi is reinstated.
Since it is quite clear Morsi is never going to be reinstated, these
people can be accused of putting their religion above the welfare of their
fellow-citizens. But that’s only my
view, and I am hostile to religion, and believe it should have no place in the
affairs of any state.
Well, that’s the big thing, and it is beginning to look a
bit nasty. Meanwhile, the Americans have persuaded the Palestinians and
Israelis to have talks about the possibility that maybe they could have talks
that might lead to the solution of their apparently irreconcilable
differences. Part of this deal is that
Israel has agreed to release 104 (or is it 140?) political prisoners, among
them some of the longest serving; and my question about this is, will they
release Bargouti, the leader of the prisoners, and the putative leader of the
Palestinians, who seems to be the only man who could lead them out of the mess
into which the international community, allied to the Israelis, have led them.
Herewith ends my summary of the global situation, for the
moment. Personally, among the movies I have watched have been four starring
Humphrey Bogart, who, especially since his death many years ago, has emerged as
almost the number one iconic star in the
history of Hollywood. I always enjoyed his movies, but was never really
impressed by him until this week I saw four of them --- three I had seen before
--- one after the other. He certainly had a particular quality that was practically
irresistable: that flat, harsh voice, those scarcely moving lips, that shadow
of the occasional smile. And that sense that he was always in control of what
was happening around him, even when playing a character who was far from in
control. He was always himself, there
was no confusion between him and a real actor like Daniel Day Lewis, or even
like Lionel Barrymore, with whom he starred in Key Largo, but certainly he was the essence of the stardom we grew
up to believe in. I saw To Have and Have Not, (for the third time, I may say), his first film
with Lauren Bacall, the young unknown star who became his devoted wife until
his death, and they made a great team, wise-cracking away in jokes that, spoken
by anyone else wouldn’t have been considered even amusing, yet jokes that
brought a smile to my face, and a chuckle to my lips.. “If you need me,” said
Bacall, in one of her more famous ines, “Just whistle.” Going out the door, she
turned and added, “You know how to whistle don’t you? Just put your lips
together, and blow.” Lovely.
I just finished my week by mistakenly ordering up from
Netflix Woody Allen’s film To Rome With
Love. I had forgotten I had seen it, and not so very long ago. Once again I
thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the scenes in which Allen, playing a washed
up theatre director, persuaded a man he
met who was a funeral director that he had such a wonderful voice he should try
out for the stage. Since he was at his
best when singing in his shower, Allen’s big idea was to bring the man on, even
in the mddle of an opera, in his shower. Corny as hell, I must admit, but
funny. I loved the stuttering performance of Allen himself as an old man, wracked, as always, by nervous ticks
and uncertainties; and also that of Canada’s delectable Ellen Page as a young
actress who was full of shit, if you will pardon the expression, and who gave
expression to her basic phoniness in the most winsome, winning way; and of
Penelope Cruz, resplendent in a short, short dress that gave us a long look at
her gforious legs, playing the role of a call girl who mistakenly turned up to
seduce a young man just married but whose wife had, fortuitously, wandered off
to look for a hairdresser. While the wife fell into the clutches of an ageing
roué of an actor, and ended up making love to a gangster who invaded a bedroom
she happened to be half-dressed in (her rationale was, “I’ve never made love to
a criminal”), Cruz set to work to teach
her husband something about love-making.
Altogether a hell of a lot of fun, this movie, and fun is
something in short supply in this over-charged, manically violent, psychotic,
impossible world.
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