After too much poking around the video internet with my Roku last night while a sweetie and a blanket and a cat and a bowl of popcorn waited for me to make up my mind, I, or rather we, punched the buttons to pay $5.41 and see Blue Jasmine. Cate Blanchett was absolutely amazing in this, and the story was believable and rich. It was really a great film.
But no one needs me to summarize. Suffice it to say I liked how the acting and dialog allowed me to see for myself what was really going on. Cate's character Jasmine had married into great wealth and carried the bullshit kind of attitude that can result in, and when it all came tumbling down was never really able to land on her feet. Her husband (Alec Baldwin) was a liar and operator of the first order, supremely demonstrated when she finally learned how he'd been cheating on her with all these women and he said of the most recent one, without missing a beat, that the others hadn't meant anything, but this one was different, they were in love. Just what you say when you know how to maintain some appearance of integrity through a crisis, except that "this one" was a teenaged au pair. Everyone else did great, too, including very non-comical roles filled by comedians Andrew Dice Clay and Louis C.K.
One thing that was really weird for me, though, was that while most of it took place in San Francisco, none of the main characters seemed believably of that city. Every single one dressed, acted, and spoke like a transplant from New York. Maybe Woody Allen thinks New York normal is universal normal, but it ain't. It's very New York, very East Coast; or perhaps with these characters, I was seeing Park Avenue and New Jersey normal. But San Francisco has its own normal, and it doesn't appear anyone in production of this movie was aware of it. Me, though, as soon as I glimpsed Jasmine's fellow-adoptee Ginger's boyfriend, or his friend, or the guy Ginger sleeps with (Louis), and especially her ex husband (Clay), I pegged each one for an East Coaster within half a second.
That didn't detract from the film. It was a fine bit of work by everyone. Blanchett, in particular, portrayed a stunning range of emotions, every single one believably driven by the storyline and by her character. I was amazed and enthralled, so much so that even yesterday's publicity around the fact Woody Allen is a pedophile gets only one sentence out of me, despite the fact I could write long and passionately on that subject ...
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13 comments:
I was thinking of seeing it at some point, but I won't now. That's just how I roll when one of these celebs disgusts me beyond belief. I fail to separate the art from the person. Shrug.
Anyway, the accent thing would bug me, too. It's like these writers are so fucking clueless. I generally harp on the fact that they give us characters with low-paying jobs who live in fabulous houses. Drives me bonkers! But, yes, thinking that New York speech and habits are normal everywhere is another manifestation of their head-up-assiness.
As far as an SF accent, absolutely. Sharon began to speak differently within months of moving up there. Diane is still the same, maybe cuz she's in the business world.
Oh yeah! Two more things! One, Jasmine shows up at her step-sister Ginger's apartment and is rather disdainful of how ordinary and "homey" it is. Ginger is a checker at a grocery store. But I've been to a San Fran apartment or two and this one was actually pretty large and nice. It was comparable to that of a fireman friend of mine. Two, Jasmine takes to talking to herself in public (a crazy lady in the making), and I thought people reacted to her all wrong. In SF, anyway, talking street people are ignored. In this film, they looked at her as if she was crazy. Maybe they were all tourists from New York.
Oh, and glad to hear Sharon is losing her Orange County accent! Congrats!
Lol
~pl
Yeah, on the Woody Allen pedophile thing, look a little deeper. Independent authorities apparently have not found any evidence that what the Farrow kids are saying is true. It's been tested in a court. Not saying he ain't, but Ms. Farrow, who now goes by another name, might have other axes to grind as well. Something about it all just doesn't seem right.
It is an allegation pretty much impossible to prove, and that is probably what "independent authorities" are on about. I'm familiar enough with the dynamic to know the truth of it, provable or not.
It sounds like you (or "authorities") are suggesting a 27 year old woman would lie at her mother's instigation about something that many other people would know plenty about. That doesn't make quite as much sense as the story as given, especially as there are so many less difficult ways to get back at someone.
I'm interested to know what "doesn't seem right."
I believe Dylan, but if there was no actual, physical evidence, I would probably have to give WA a "not guilty" if I were on a jury. But I'm not. I'm just an ordinary person who was squicked out at him already for hooking up with a 19 year old when he was 56. ANY 19 year old, whether vaguely related or not. That's just gross. And now this? Blech. (I guess I was asleep in 1992 when WA was first accused of molesting Dylan because I hadn't heard of this before the last couple weeks.)
I know that my "boycotting" WA's films isn't going to do shit, but I don't care. It makes me feel better not to see them. Just like I never went to Carl's Jr when the anti-abortionist was in charge and giving a percentage of money to prolife orgs. Didn't do shit, but I felt better not going.
There are ppl who say YABBUT what about some other people who did bad things and you don't know, so you'll inadvertently support them blar blar. And some guy 200 yrs ago did a bad and I've probably enjoyed his art, etc. So the fuck what?
However I don't condemn ppl who continue to see WA films or give him awards. I don't judge them, and I get that he has a strong appeal to a large audience. Maybe it helps that I never liked his movies that much anyway, with a couple exceptions. But if I don't want to see another one just cuz of being grossed out by his personal behavior, that's my choice, too.
Rawr rant! LOL :)
What dynamic indicates the truth of it?
(Her open letter)
Her description of the event and how she felt about it as a child, the reaction of others to it, etc, all too similar to what I've learned from close friends. Could she have invented the impact of it on her reaction to toy trains? Her childhood belief such doings were "normal"? ("I thought it was like like having to eat my vegetables", I was told once.) The discovery that there are indeed "doctors willing to gaslight an abused child"? Possibly. But only by knowing something about real abuse could she invent these things. Knowing about such things, why would she invent them, and then, many years later, put her entire social life at risk by holding publicly to that invention?
Interestingly, one thing that sets this one apart is how her mother reacted, i.e. a "firestorm" rather than sweeping it under the rug or calling her a liar.
It just rings true. Ironically, the same ambiguity guarantees most of these cases fail to convict.
Science has recently determined that a propensity to pedophilia is incurable. To me this means it is like any other sexuality. It is fundamental to a person's nature, an evolutionary aberration that, like homosexuality, does not necessarily lead to breeding but also doesn't prevent breeding. However, when the person whop is like that ceases to care about the enormous impact it has on the child, they are now an incurable criminal. What do we usually want to do with the incurably criminal?
I'm going to weigh in on the side that gives Allen the benefit of the doubt.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/27/the-woody-allen-allegations-not-so-fast.html
I have one close friend who was cut off by his sister after he questioned her vivid assertion that their father had molested her -- in circumstances which he knew to be impossible, after she had been in long term therapy with a shrink all of whose patients mysteriously seemed to have been sexually abused. (I call it the "Oprah Winfrey" syndrome.) In another case I'm personally acquainted with, a man was accused of molestation by a girl's therapy team, even though she *insisted* he had never shown any unhealthy interest in her, simply because she was precociously sexual and troubled, and he was close to her family. In this case the accused man was quickly cleared, but if it had been a 4 year old instead of a teenager, who knows what she might have been coached to "remember"?
Among my clients I count the staff of a domestic law practice. According to them, coached allegations of abuse happen with depressing regularity -- not every week, but every year or so -- and it's usually a mother who isn't wrapped very tight, planting the idea in her daughter's head and encouraging her to "seek justice."
Loyalty to the accusing parent, or the therapist, can lead people to edit their memories and passionately believe in something that didn't happen.
Of course people are molested by parents and caregivers (and women do mean, scuzzy things to children too, please note).That cannot mean that we accept all allegations of such abuse whenever and wherever leveled; nor does "hooking up" with a disturbingly young adult woman mean that a man is likely to abuse an infant.
It all bothers the hell out of me because it seems that all an unscrupulous person has to do is cry Molester and people who have no way of knowing the truth will believe it and call for the accused man's head on a pike. There is a precedent for monetary damages in such cases, so skepticism should increase tenfold if the accused is well-heeled.
I read that article and the writer definitely shines a fresh light on the whole thing.
It seems us witnesses and looky-lous are biased by experience. In my life, women who had been sexually precocious teenagers who left home early seemed driven by the common theme of needing to recapture control of their bodies and sexuality and of needing to get far away from someone. Not just once, but more than twice. Whereas I've not known anyone who was falsely accused.
The coaching makes sense if you consider how deeply buried the memories can be, doing their nasty work while suppressed and needing to be exorcised, but as you say there are more venal motivations.
And so while Dylan's story "rings true" it's also evident that her mother is manipulative and angry and to the outside world there can never be a clear verdict.
It's frustrating when laws that protect the innocent also protect the guilty. Which could also be stated, it's frustrating when laws that convict the guilty also convict the innocent. We should be thankful our society trades the latter for the former.
I'm glad you were willing to read the linked article. I suspect many people would choose not to.
I actually am quite interested by the matter of traumatic experiences and their effects, including on memory. "Deeply buried" memories typically involve abuse (sex or any other kind) that has gone on for years and years; the longer it goes on, the more a person is likely to dissociate and split off the experience entirely. Incidents involving toddlers, who are promptly questioned, don't produce this kind of pattern.But the buried memory thing got a lot of people excited in the 80's.
Toddlers can, however, be coached or their testimony strained to fit a theory of abuse; Google "McMartin Preschool." A reading of Arthur Miller's *Crucible* is also enlightening as a social parallel.
In general, I think there is obsessive (and slightly prurient) attention to sexual abuse, as something so squicky to most people that it seems like carte blanche to bring out the pitchforks, and far too little to emotional and verbal abuse. Who hasn't yelled at a little kid? -- except someone like me who, as you know, dislikes small children so much that I labor to avoid coming in contact with them whatsoever. Who doesn't remember a teacher who enjoyed humiliating pupils? Or a mother who seemed bent annihilating her child's soul as some sort of scapegoat for her own unhappiness? The frantic fascination with sex risks missing the point.
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