Light/Breezes

Light/Breezes
SUNRISE AT DEATH VALLEY-Photo by Tom Cochrun

Sunday, October 6, 2024

The Litany of Saint Francis Coppola

     Francis Ford Coppola’s MEGAOPOLIS raises Film/Cinema to the realm of faith and religion. It screens as a paean to hope. 

In this passion project, the 5 time Oscar winning Coppola has become a homilist, employing the director’s art and scope to leave the world a fable that embeds a vision into popular culture.


Yes it is a “box office flop” however little that means. In the work of an auteur money is crass way of measuring art, or religion. Commercial success is one of those pernicious harpy evils that flutter around in the MEGAOPOLIS.


There is not one moment of tedium in the 2 hours and 18 minutes of epic visuals, sensual and intellectual deluge and deft exploration of human nature.  

After a life of film-making and story-telling, Coppola combines those skills and tricks with such mastery as to leave a work of art that could be confused for a foundational piece of a system of belief. 


MEGAOPOLIS was not designed by Hollywood studios to be a blockbuster. It is Coppola’s personal creation and it comes as a kind marker to the human race. 


This is an extraordinary film, while it is also a 21st Century code of sorts. It’s my hunch recognition for the film is years away. MEGAOPOLIS will develop a following, and it will be regarded as a kind of sociological and political “holiness,” but it is so loaded and charged, that, at a time when humankind is distracted and less capable of deep thinking, it will be missed by many or not fully understood. It is a rolling codex of human values and an inventory of the functions and abuse by "empire ethos" and control in everything from sexual behavior to corrupt power states. Undermining evidence of something noble is the ubiquitous seductive presence of desire for money.


Rabbi-Father-Reverend Coppola preaches a kind of timeless story, part messiah adventure, part creative obsession (wanting to replicate and improve creation itself), and populates it with all the old runes, riddles, and revolutions of history. Brilliant faux Shakespearean Roman Empire, and a searing lens on modern America, but it’s not a popcorn film. It’s a phantasmagoric intellectual analysis of human social structure and ways. 

In addition to five Academy awards, the old master has six Golden globes and two Palme’s d’Ors. He can wrap a topic nicely that one can just take a helluva ride through a morality tale that fuses the fall of the Rome with the continuum of human abuse, including our present political war in America. There is a lot about how politics and money bed together. There are pieces about mores, morality, media and motherhood that could keep a college professor occupied teaching several semesters. 

The Coppola Gospel is literally imprinted as interstitial headers, done with reverence. The top layer of story arc is a grand sweep. The acting is superb, befitting a holy melodrama directed by a legendary story teller. If one could only take it in as a movie-but this is Coppola; a self -financed, passion poem, and maybe his valedictory.

I told Lana I want to see it a few more times, just to get everything.

In 50 years, film scholars will marvel at it. Philosophers, ethicists, sociologists and folklore scholars may study it as one of the arts best "good vs evil" tale. It is about a fall and way back to the garden. 

Though they are forces that bring the fable to life, the actors seem secondary to Coppola’s sermon. Plenty of masterful work led by Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel. One critic said It well when they wrote that Aubry Plaza goes for broke as the sexual power woman “Wow Platinum.”  Giancarlo Esposito and John Voight are excellent. Laurence Fishburne is a major reason the Coppola litany works. Dustin Hoffman does a nice cameo and there is a family connection with Talia Shire and nephew Jason Schwartzman.  

Have a look at it, but expect something more than just a movie. When one of the most influential film makers, spends as much as he did, to tell a story crafted over 40 years, we should pay attention.

  

        See you down the trail

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

The Prosecutor and the Lunatic.....

 


           In a reality not far away about 60 Million US television viewers saw Kamala Harris and Donald Trump show their stuff.

        If it wasn't earnestly serious, it would be the stuff of comedy, the best of sketch comedy in this part of the milky way. 



    Given that performance, the extraordinary number of lies, the chain of thought that ran like like a wart hog roller skating on marbles, and the beating he took of the righteous, in your face "they call you a disgrace" variety, why any thinking, discerning person would trust him again is beyond even the most sympathetic analyst this side of forever. 
    You can be the most partisan Republican, the farthest right positioned conservative, the angriest anti Democrat, a rich/or poor, old white man scared of the communist dust that gathers in your closet and still not justify voting for the deposed despot. As Republican grandees warned in 2016, he is unfit for public service and not to be trusted. This time around there are some 200 Republicans of the highest calibre, who worked for him who say the man is a danger to the world.
    He demonstrated that he is not of sound mind.
    I know there is no reaching the woman in the Trump and Jesus T-shirt saying that Joe Biden is dead, or the crowd that thinks Democrats eat babies, or that curious breed of evangelistic, they call themselves Christians, who believe that a convicted rapist, felon, swindler, is the kind of person to usher in an age when their "religion" will convert the US into the new heaven.

    I give the Donald a full thumbs up thanks for launching some of the best dog reaction videos in history and the absolute beauty of the women, Taylor Swift included, who have posted lovely and dramatic photos of themself with their beloved cat or cats. My favorites are the dogs barking or seeking a hiding spot as his Lord Narcissus blubbers on screen.

    Mom used to say if you can't say something nice about someone, say nothing.
I'll quote mom, I think she would say Donald is the best "blow hard" in the world. 
Mustering up the nicest thing I can say, I'll quote my Dad, he'd say Donald is a world class "bull shit artist."

    Millions of Americans are beginning to realize he is and has always been a fraud.


        I moderated many debates and as we entered the age when candidates answered your question with a response to their own unspoken and coached question, I'd press back, even noting when they refused to answer the question posed. ABC did a nice job of putting the question on the screen as both VP Harris and Miracle Don rarely responded to what was asked. Such evasion and obfuscation is sadly accepted as part of the performative game. 
        The moderators did a noble job of fact checking and challenging as the debate went on. With Trump, who only lies when his mouth is open, it is a near impossible task. He like many of his posse have trouble with truth, even reality.

        It's not over. Harris was competent, in command, successfully whooped Donald with prosecutorial and debate skills and showed that she can and will govern for all and promised not be a divider. Is that enough? Stay tuned.

        See you down the trail.

Saturday, August 31, 2024

Pinedorado Again...


The Cambria hometown tradition that began in 1949 marched off today under partly cloudy skies that opened to full sunshine and blue. Neighbors and friends and a few folks from the California Central Coast. Enjoy a curbside view...



 




















































       See you down the trail.