Monday, June 28, 2004

Half a lost weekend

Saturday I spent inside all day and didn't speak to anyone except the cat. Marvellous for catching up with lack of sleep -- I had a lovely snooze in the middle of the afternoon and ended up going to bed around 10.30. The downside of that was that I woke up at 4am.

Sunday, on the other hand, was full. Tat picked me up early for the Mass in North Caulfield (true) which went off quite well, even if it did drag on a little. Then we went to Mum's for lunch; my sister and bro-in-law were there as well so it was a full table. After lunch Tat very kindly drove me into work where I helped LJ with Sunday and Monday's papers. There's still quite a bit of refining to be done on FDC, but we'll get there.

Ingrate

I'm feeling like an ungrateful son: my mother presented me with a pair of gloves yesterday which I politely (I hope) refused. I never wear gloves, finding them a hindrance, and explained this to her, but I felt as if I'd hurt her feelings. I trained her years ago not to buy me clothes and I know I probably should have accepted the gloves graciously, but I don't want to be a complete hypocrite (why stop now, I hear you calling). Oh well, I suppose we'll both get over it soon.

Kubrick

When I got home last night The Shining was on SBS as part of the Kubrick season. It's an extraordinary film -- a rather silly plot (as much of it as Kubrick used, I don't know the book) is saved by his uncanny choice of music. At times it seems as if the film has been edited to match the music (Bártok, Ligeti and Penderecki), all of which provides a very unsettling background to the film. Equally unsettling is the way the camera glides in, out and around the action.

I've always thought that Kubrick is uniquein the intelligent way he uses existing scores: The Blue Danube in 2001; the insightful use of the Schubert in the card-playing scene in Barry Lyndon where modulations in the music mirror the changing emotional climate; Beethoven, live and synthesized, in A Clockwork Orange. His ability to match the music to a scene is often breathtaking.

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