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shadowkat1. WHOA.... Justice Antonin Scalia died at 79 -- to put this in context, Ruth Bader Ginsberg is 82. By the way, they were very close Friends. Poltics doesn't define friendships.
But this is huge. And before Obama leaves office, long before he leaves office. This could change the nature of the Supreme Court. Scalia was one of Ronald Regan's appointees.
2. Just finished watching The Danish Girl - the film based on the book, which in turn was based on the real diaries of Lili Elbe, entitled Man Turned into a Woman. Is it close to the book/real story of Ms. Elbe? According to this article it is. And apparently they went out of their way, to do the story the justice it deserved...as it was written. As seen HERE.
The movie is a beautifully filmed tragic love story, reminds me a lot of the film Carol actually in how it was filmed. The acting was superb, and yes, Eddie Redmayne is pretty in the role of Edward/Lilli and the actress playing his wife, Gerda, quite good. But much like Carol --- I found it difficult to watch in places, difficult to care about the characters, and, ultimately? I did not like the all film. In both cases -- I felt as if the filmmaker showed me the surface, but never dug deep. I also felt, and this is an odd thing to state, but that I was looking through the heterosexual male gaze throughout both films..it was almost as if we were seeing how heterosexual men view women. Or rather romanticize women. How they think women act, react, and deal with each other and men. And more importantly how someone who is treated as a man but identifies as a woman would act. So, as a result, the film felt flat to me --- like looking at a painting by Degas. A pretty painting, but something missing. It's interesting, I didn't figure out that this was my difficulty with Carol until after I saw The Danish Girl - because the two films feel very similar to me in tone, both also look like paintings on the screen.
There's a scene in The Danish Girl that is a perfect example of this -- Edward/Lilli goes to a peep show to watch a woman performing for men, he copies her movements. Movements she does for the male gaze. I remember thinking during this bit - that there is no way a woman would do this, woman don't do that with their bodies unless they are trying to turn on a man for money at his request.
Men tell them to do it. And in fact that's what the woman in the peep show is doing. So why would someone who is transgender go to a peep show and copy movements meant for a heterosexual male gaze?
It felt off.
Carol equally has bits with cameras, where we feel as if the male gaze is evident in the film.
These are two films about female relationships and female characters. The male characters really aren't that prevalent in either. Yet the directors shoot both as if we are looking at the characters through a male perspective. It felt off to me and jarring, in both cases.
Interestingly enough, I didn't realize that was my problem with the film Carol until I saw the Danish Girl. They both have the same problem, the male trying to understand what it is to be a lesbian or for that matter, a man who wants to become a woman. Which by the way is NOT the case with transgender or was even the case with Lilli. As said in the writing...the writing states that clearly, it's the direction that states otherwise. In both cases, hence the feeling of being jarred by the story -- as if the something is off.
Now, it is hard to tell a transgender story, because you can't generalize about transgender. It's not simple. Or clear cut. I've known a wide-range, and everyone is different. But, most transgender are basically individuals who somehow or other feel out of sync with their body. There was a rather good French film on the topic made years ago...entitled Ma Vie En Rose - or My Life in Pink, which is about a child whose family and community views as a boy, but who communicates as being a girl. It too does adopt some female stereotypical fetishes, but not to quite the same extent. Also, it does a good job of commenting on society's intolerance on transgender. In that film, there's a child who is treated as a girl but identifies as a boy. Another film about Transgender that I haven't seen but been told is rather good is Boys Don't Cry - which is the true story of Brandon Teena, a transgender man (an individual who identified as man but everyone saw as female..and became a man) - who is beaten to death.
It's hard for cisgender (those of us who aren't transgender and were lucky enough to be born into a body that reflects our gender identification/personality) to wrap our minds around someone who isn't.
It took me a while. But if you can think of it this way -- we are beings of light energy or spirit, with organic bodies. The body and spirit intertwine as one..if the two don't match, it's discordant, sort of like wearing shoes that don't fit. A more medical/scientific explanation is the wrong hormones...or a hormonal imbalance...but I think the other explanation works better. Science doesn't explain everything -- it's limited, too much reliance on concrete scientific explanations leads to horrible results. You have to be open to the fact that there are just some things that exist outside our ability to understand or explain.
At any rate -- I think the filmmakers tried to do the story justice, but it doesn't work. You can tell that they just can't wrap their minds around Lilli Elbe's character and we never really get her story, instead we get a weird male romanticized and justified view of Lilli and Gerda, that doesn't quite play. Or at least it did not work for this view. Your mileage may vary. (My friend who lent me the film liked it a lot better than I did, she also liked Carol better than I did.)
At any rate, I wouldn't have nominated the film for any awards. Maybe the acting. The acting is rather good. Still thought Steve Jobs was a better film.
3. This is odd, my sink appears to be farting or rather the floor is farting. Not sure what to make of it.
4. I may take a sabbatical from Face Book until the election is over...which is ironic, considering I went on Facebook in 2008 in order to get information on the election. People are just ranting. It's getting annoying. LJ is so much easier to deal with, instead of crazy ranty Americans, we have sane, bewildered, and somewhat amused if a wee bit terrified Europeans - watching the American Election much the way I'd watch a horror flick, with one hand over my eyes, trying not to wince, but unable to look away from the ensuing train wreck.
But this is huge. And before Obama leaves office, long before he leaves office. This could change the nature of the Supreme Court. Scalia was one of Ronald Regan's appointees.
2. Just finished watching The Danish Girl - the film based on the book, which in turn was based on the real diaries of Lili Elbe, entitled Man Turned into a Woman. Is it close to the book/real story of Ms. Elbe? According to this article it is. And apparently they went out of their way, to do the story the justice it deserved...as it was written. As seen HERE.
The movie is a beautifully filmed tragic love story, reminds me a lot of the film Carol actually in how it was filmed. The acting was superb, and yes, Eddie Redmayne is pretty in the role of Edward/Lilli and the actress playing his wife, Gerda, quite good. But much like Carol --- I found it difficult to watch in places, difficult to care about the characters, and, ultimately? I did not like the all film. In both cases -- I felt as if the filmmaker showed me the surface, but never dug deep. I also felt, and this is an odd thing to state, but that I was looking through the heterosexual male gaze throughout both films..it was almost as if we were seeing how heterosexual men view women. Or rather romanticize women. How they think women act, react, and deal with each other and men. And more importantly how someone who is treated as a man but identifies as a woman would act. So, as a result, the film felt flat to me --- like looking at a painting by Degas. A pretty painting, but something missing. It's interesting, I didn't figure out that this was my difficulty with Carol until after I saw The Danish Girl - because the two films feel very similar to me in tone, both also look like paintings on the screen.
There's a scene in The Danish Girl that is a perfect example of this -- Edward/Lilli goes to a peep show to watch a woman performing for men, he copies her movements. Movements she does for the male gaze. I remember thinking during this bit - that there is no way a woman would do this, woman don't do that with their bodies unless they are trying to turn on a man for money at his request.
Men tell them to do it. And in fact that's what the woman in the peep show is doing. So why would someone who is transgender go to a peep show and copy movements meant for a heterosexual male gaze?
It felt off.
Carol equally has bits with cameras, where we feel as if the male gaze is evident in the film.
These are two films about female relationships and female characters. The male characters really aren't that prevalent in either. Yet the directors shoot both as if we are looking at the characters through a male perspective. It felt off to me and jarring, in both cases.
Interestingly enough, I didn't realize that was my problem with the film Carol until I saw the Danish Girl. They both have the same problem, the male trying to understand what it is to be a lesbian or for that matter, a man who wants to become a woman. Which by the way is NOT the case with transgender or was even the case with Lilli. As said in the writing...the writing states that clearly, it's the direction that states otherwise. In both cases, hence the feeling of being jarred by the story -- as if the something is off.
Now, it is hard to tell a transgender story, because you can't generalize about transgender. It's not simple. Or clear cut. I've known a wide-range, and everyone is different. But, most transgender are basically individuals who somehow or other feel out of sync with their body. There was a rather good French film on the topic made years ago...entitled Ma Vie En Rose - or My Life in Pink, which is about a child whose family and community views as a boy, but who communicates as being a girl. It too does adopt some female stereotypical fetishes, but not to quite the same extent. Also, it does a good job of commenting on society's intolerance on transgender. In that film, there's a child who is treated as a girl but identifies as a boy. Another film about Transgender that I haven't seen but been told is rather good is Boys Don't Cry - which is the true story of Brandon Teena, a transgender man (an individual who identified as man but everyone saw as female..and became a man) - who is beaten to death.
It's hard for cisgender (those of us who aren't transgender and were lucky enough to be born into a body that reflects our gender identification/personality) to wrap our minds around someone who isn't.
It took me a while. But if you can think of it this way -- we are beings of light energy or spirit, with organic bodies. The body and spirit intertwine as one..if the two don't match, it's discordant, sort of like wearing shoes that don't fit. A more medical/scientific explanation is the wrong hormones...or a hormonal imbalance...but I think the other explanation works better. Science doesn't explain everything -- it's limited, too much reliance on concrete scientific explanations leads to horrible results. You have to be open to the fact that there are just some things that exist outside our ability to understand or explain.
At any rate -- I think the filmmakers tried to do the story justice, but it doesn't work. You can tell that they just can't wrap their minds around Lilli Elbe's character and we never really get her story, instead we get a weird male romanticized and justified view of Lilli and Gerda, that doesn't quite play. Or at least it did not work for this view. Your mileage may vary. (My friend who lent me the film liked it a lot better than I did, she also liked Carol better than I did.)
At any rate, I wouldn't have nominated the film for any awards. Maybe the acting. The acting is rather good. Still thought Steve Jobs was a better film.
3. This is odd, my sink appears to be farting or rather the floor is farting. Not sure what to make of it.
4. I may take a sabbatical from Face Book until the election is over...which is ironic, considering I went on Facebook in 2008 in order to get information on the election. People are just ranting. It's getting annoying. LJ is so much easier to deal with, instead of crazy ranty Americans, we have sane, bewildered, and somewhat amused if a wee bit terrified Europeans - watching the American Election much the way I'd watch a horror flick, with one hand over my eyes, trying not to wince, but unable to look away from the ensuing train wreck.
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no subject
Date: 2016-02-14 03:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-14 03:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-14 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-14 11:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-15 01:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-14 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-14 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-14 04:50 pm (UTC)What do you think about Scalia's tenure on the court?
no subject
Date: 2016-02-14 11:32 pm (UTC)But he's a nice man. He just let his Catholicism and Conservative Values influence his judicial decisions, while stating they didn't.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-14 11:57 pm (UTC)If your principles bend and twist to your personal morality, then they're not really principles.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-15 03:43 am (UTC)He did the opposite of what he said a justice must always do...which is uphold the letter of the law even if it doesn't necessarily align with his personal morality, and not impose his morality onto the law (ie. become a legislator). Kennedy and Souter rip him apart - as did Bader Ginsberg, on that precisely.
Oh...on Face Book people are suggesting Anita Hill get a nod. LOL! I'd love that -- just to see Clarence Thomas squirm.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-15 06:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-14 05:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-14 03:19 pm (UTC)Now, regarding the television series "Transparent" -- yes, they have a point. Jeffrey Tambor shouldn't be playing that role - a trans-woman should be -- because as they point out in the second linked article - hormones make a huge difference and Tambor can't play that. Now ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK is portrayed by a trans woman, which makes a huge difference and makes sense - because we meet the character after they've gone through the transistion not before.
But for the Danish Girl - we meet the character before...also, it's not like past films didn't do it too. Boys Don't Cry was played by cisgender, as was Ma Vie en Pink -- although, granted both were made in the 20th Century.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-14 07:18 pm (UTC)And the film is not exactly that faithful - Gerda was by all accounts bi, and she and Lili had a lesbian relationship for a while. Also Lili might have been intersex, rather than male, and looking at actual photographs she was not exactly a tower of masculinity before her transition. (I have a post here!)
One day there might be films made about people by the people who actually understand them...
(All of which was my way of saying 'good post'.)
no subject
Date: 2016-02-14 11:27 pm (UTC)Not sure you've seen the film? I'm on the fence about Eddie Redmayne's performance. He does play Lill and Eddie as feminine throughout, almost too much so. If anything, I think a transgender woman may have underplayed that? It also may have been a directorial choice. At any rate - he is very good in the role and I don't think casting was the problem here. (After all gay men play straight men all the time, and women have portrayed transgender men. Acting is about playing someone different than yourself...and finding a way to empathise with the character.) I really think the problem was the directorial choices and script choices, which are jarring to anyone who knows anything about the transgender community. I was taken out of the film by their choices on multiple occasions. Also...here's where I'm on the fence about Redmayne and why I would not have nominated his performance for any awards...I think he exaggerated the feminine (many male actors do when they play that type of role and it was unnecessary), and he played Lilli as a bit too self-absorbed and into herself -- she came across as a bit...narcissistic or callous, and that I found offensive and I wanted to punch him halfway through the film. What I'm uncertain of...is how much of what he did was his choice and how much was the director's? It's hard to tell in film. Because there are moments -- in which he is amazing and quite good, and others in which...ARRGH.
There are films actually made about people who actually understand the issue -- they just aren't well-marketed, which is the tragedy. A friend of mine referenced several -- I wish I could remember some of them. So it's not that they aren't made, they just aren't made by Hollywood. Orange is the New Black does a good job with it.
I'm on the fence about Transparent -- it grated.