Crash

Documentaries

** Highly Recommended **

Three eight-year-old boys were murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas in 1993 and three teen-aged boys were convicted of the murders. I had seen previous documentaries (Paradise Lost & Paradise Lost 2) on this case, but those are not at all necessary background for this film. Information is slowly revealed about who the actual murderer might have been. Fascinating! Our justice system leaves a lot to be desired! The convicted boys lost 18 years of their lives on a wrongful conviction.

Library CD. The lads and lasses who were seven in 1963 are now 56. I still love hearing the clips of what they said when they were seven! See Ebert’s interview with the director in Misc section, below.

The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls, dir by Leanne Pooley © 2009 B
Library DVD. Eva highly recommended this a few years ago. Bob loved it, but I was less enthusiastic. Though I admired their comedic gifts and chutzpah, a little of their character impersonations went a long way. I know it was necessary for the film to show that, or we wouldn’t know what they were famous and beloved for, in New Zealand. Truthfully, this would not have ranked among my Highly Recommended were it not for the 24-minute extra feature. The twins were interviewed and talked about their childhood. I loved that. I agree with Tim Finn when he says (in one of the extra interviews) “they’re just firing off each other; you’re just left in their wake.” Good stuff.

Library DVD. The directors also made The Brandon Teena Story. In October, Eva suggested that I read an article in The New Yorker. The article was about Edie Windsor. When her spouse, Thea Spyer, died of MS, Edie had to pay inheritance tax, even though the two women had been legally married. The United States Supreme Court held (on 26 June 2013) that restricting U.S. federal interpretation of "marriage" and "spouse" to apply only to heterosexual unions was unconstitutional. The Court said that the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment made Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional. The article referenced this film, which is how I happened to seek it out. Postscript: Edith Windsor was one of the final ten contenders for Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. (Pope Francis got the top honor, but Edith Windsor, unlikely activist, came in #3.)

Library DVD. Makes the case against the consumption of meat and dairy. Much of the documentary focuses on the work of Drs. Caldwell Esselstyn and Colin Campbell.

** Also Worth Seeing **

Library DVD. Part of the American Experience PBS series (aired Spring, 2012). Always interesting to look back over history you have lived through.

Library DVD. OK, I know Downton Abbey is fiction, and this is documentary, but one cannot help but be struck by how the nouveau riche (seen in this movie) do not know how to handle wealth (unlike the Downton Abbey crowd). Two small examples: Jacqueline having her chauffeur stop at McDonald’s, and her shopping spree. Conspicuous consumption at its most sickening. Worth seeing if you can stomach it.

About women (and some men) in the military being raped by men in the military. Most do not report it. Reactions that women got, when they did come forward varied from, “He was taking advantage of a situation. There’s a difference between that and rape,” to “Where’s your proof?” to “Do you really want to ruin his career?” These women had wanted nothing more than to serve their country. The reality shattered their idealism. I’m glad this was documented, and sometimes it was heartbreaking, but as a film, this was not that great. There was no progression, no surprise. As of Dec, 2013, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has a bill before Congress that would “transfer the commander’s power to decide who will be court-martialed for serious offenses to lawyers outside the chain of command (except for core military offenses, like desertion and disobedience).” We will be watching that closely.

The Human Scale, dir by Andreas M. Dalsgaard B

Part of Rochester’s Greentopia festival, with panel discussion afterwards. Filmmaker statement: “I want to portray the human being within the built environment. The Danish architect Jan Gehl, and the people inspired by him, work with people rather than buildings. The space between the buildings, as they call it.” Basically, this was a depressing cataloging of extremely-fast-growing cities (Chongqing in China, and Dhaka in Bangladesh, for example) and all the human misery (high rises, garbage, traffic) that is inherent in this trend. City planners who were acolytes of Denmark’s Jan Gehl were interviewed. But talk about an uphill battle!

Irena Sendler, In the Name of Their Mothers, dir by Mary Skinner

Library DVD. Over seven years, director Mary Skinner recorded over 70 hours of interview material and consulted archives, historical experts, and eyewitnesses in the United States and Poland. Includes interviews with three of Sendler's co-workers and several of the (now grown) Jewish children they saved. The film features the last interviews Sendler gave before her death in 2008 at the age of 98. This aired on PBS in May, 2011.

Library DVD about the Federal Writers’ Project. Was aired on the Smithsonian Channel and funded by The National Endowment for the Humanities. It is narrated by Patricia Clarkson, and features one of the last interviews with Studs Terkel. Douglas Brinkley is also interviewed. The Writers’ Project had to draw 90% of its workers from the unemployed, and it made them sign a pauper's oath. See Movie Misc section.

Robert Reich was U.S. Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton. Here he talks straight to the camera and is also seen teaching his Wealth and Poverty class. The first 30 years of my life coincide exactly with what Reich calls "The Great Prosperity" (1947–77), when wages rose while companies expanded, jobs were plentiful and college was affordable or free.

Dryden Theatre. Concentrates on the period when Ali was convicted of draft evasion. He felt he had more in common with the people he was being asked to kill rather than those doing the asking. (As he famously put it, "No Viet Cong ever called me 'n****r.'") He was sentenced to five years in prison, fined $10,000 and banned from boxing for three years. (He stayed out of prison as his case was appealed.) Includes interviews with Ali’s brother, one of his ex-wives (Khalilah Camacho-Ali) and Louis Farrakhan. Bill Siegel previously co-directed The Weather Underground (2002; we saw it in 2006).

** I Might Have Skipped These **

Follows the participants in the 2008 Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking. This film was not about the fear of public speaking (except for a few interviews at the beginning). It is about the lives of two participants, in particular. One of them was Rich, who had six children, a job that didn’t pay the bills, and a very supportive wife. Her support enabled him to follow his dream, which was, frankly, unrealistic. He was focused on winning because his dream (not very well thought through, in my opinion) was that winning would result in so many invitations to speak that his money worries would be over.

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TV Series

Upstairs, Downstairs, Season 5

Library DVD. Season 5 spans twelve years, 1919 through 1930. This Edwardian drama finished airing in 1977, which is, amazingly, 35 years ago. I never saw it then, but in the last couple of years I have watched the entire series. In the final episode, the Bellamys were leaving 165 Eaton Place, son James having been ruined in the stock market. Georgina and Lord Stockbridge get married and go off to a new life, bringing Daisy and Edward with them. Angus Hudson and Kate Bridges will run a seaside boarding house, and Richard and Virginia go off to a quiet life in the country, bringing Rose with them. I’m so glad I finally saw this series!

Downton Abbey, Season 3 B

Created and principally written by Julian Fellowes. Since we don’t have PBS, we bought this season from Amazon in January, just weeks after it aired. The first episode of Season 4 aired this holiday season, so we will catch up with that in 2014.

The Killing, Season 2 B

Library DVD. In December 2012, we finished the first season and in 2013 we moved on to Season 2. We will probably go on to Season 3 in 2014.

Mad Men, Season 5

Library DVD. Watched the whole season between Nov, 2012 and Feb, 2013. I continue to enjoy this series, and in December have begun watching Season 6.

Foyle’s War, Seasons 3, 4 and 5 B

Library DVD. Set in 1941 and 1942, then skips quickly through ‘43-‘45. Was broadcast in the U.S. on Mystery! beginning in Sept 2005. The stories told are grounded in truth (use of carborundum powder to disable cars, land girls working for 28 shillings a week in 1941, shipyards embezzling funds, etc). We love Michael Kitchen as Christopher Foyle, and Honeysuckle Weeks as Sam Stewart. When Bob’s sister Ann came for a week in August, we sent two episodes back with her to Sutton, and she and Rodney enjoyed them very much. We also bought the whole first season and gave it to Mary Susan Black when we visited in July. (Season 5 was going to be the end of the series, but later the cast came together for some post-war episodes, and so we have more seasons to look forward to.)

Homeland, Season 1 B

Library DVD. This is a Showtime series from 2011. We finished Season 1 in March. The continuing adventures of Carrie, Saul, and Brody!

To Serve Them All My Days, Season 1 B

Library DVD. Produced by BBC-TV in 2003, based on the book by R. F. Delderfield. After being wounded in WWI, Welshman David Powlett-Jones arrives at a British boarding school run by Headmaster Herries.

Call the Midwife, Seasons 1 & 2

Library DVD. Series created and written by Heidi Thomas, based on trilogy of memoirs by Jennifer Worth, who wrote about her work as a midwife practicing in the poverty-stricken East End of London in the 1950s. I thoroughly enjoyed the first two seasons. I think the nuns are pretty realistically portrayed.

Grey’s Anatomy, Seasons 1 and 2

Library DVD. I don’t know what made me try this ABC series. Season 1 aired in 2005. I really like Chandra Wilson in her role as Miranda Bailey. I have gotten pretty hooked on this. Shondra Rhimes, series creator, says that she found the idea of a show about smart women competing against one another an interesting one.

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Narrative Films

** Some of this actually happened **

Lincoln, dir by Steven Spielberg B

Marvelous. Saw this early in the year. Then in Oct I began reading Team of Rivals. After finishing that I intend to watch this film again. This and 42 are my only 2013 film in the non-documentary, non-TV-series category that I highly recommend. The rest in this category I deem to be Also Worth Seeing, but not Must See.

42, written and directed by Brian Helgeland B

Brian Helgeland also wrote the screenplay (from a Dennis Lahane novel) for Mystic River and L.A. Confidential (from a James Ellroy novel). I’d say now, with the writing and directing credit on 42, he’s surely cemented his credentials. Jackie Robinson’s first day in the major Leagues was April 15, 1947, when he was 28, and he played through the ’56 season. Those were the years of my childhood, so I loved seeing this period depicted. A great movie to bring one’s kids to. We loved it.

About the CIA and the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Based on Stephen Rebello's non-fiction book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho. Hitchcock reads a novel called Psycho by Robert Bloch (based on the crimes of the serial killer, Ed Gein), and is convinced that this should be his next movie. The studio heads are not convinced, and he decides to finance the film personally. With Anthony Hopkins; Helen Mirren plays his wife, Alma Reville. I liked this film more than Bob did.

Library DVD. The director plays the adult Corinne, and her youngest sister (21 years her junior), who had never acted before, plays the teenaged Corinne. Based on a memoir (This Dark World) by Carolyn S. Briggs. People are born into, or fall into, or find after much seeking, religious or spiritual frameworks for their lives. This movie portrayed one of those frameworks, and one of those lives.

Library CD. Thanks to Alita for this recommendation. Stars Ewan McGregor (who played James Joyce in the wonderful film Nora), Christopher Plummer, and Mélanie Laurent. Oliver is in his thirties when, shortly after his mother’s death, his father came out of the closet (and tells Oliver, "I don't want to just be theoretically gay. I want to do something about it."). (Film is set in 2003.) At age 82, Plummer won an Oscar for this, becoming the oldest person in Academy history to win an Oscar. (Plummer then told the audience “at birth, I was already rehearsing my Academy acceptance speech, but it was so long ago mercifully for you I've forgotten it.") Based on Mike mills’ own family (see ‘Descriptions I Liked’).

Dramatization of the shooting of Oscar Grant III on New Year’s Eve 2008 at the Fruitvale Station of the Oakland subway, and the events that led up to it.

Dallas Buyers Club, dir by Jean-Marc Vallée B

We saw this with Eva and Herman and Sheila in Boston over Thanksgiving. I’m really glad I saw it, and have enjoyed reading about Ron Woodroof (wonderfully played by Matthew McConaughey in the film). See ‘Movie-related Quotes.’

Our second David O. Russell film this year (see Silver Linings Playbook). He’s found a winner with Jennifer Lawrence (not to mention Christian Bale and Amy Adams). This didn’t sound at all like something I would like (and I was right), but I started hearing such rave reviews that I had to satisfy my curiosity. At the beginning of the film we are told, “Some of.this actually happened.” It is based on the FBI Abscam operation (“a blemish on the reputation of the FBI and the American justice system”).

Captain Phillips, dir by Paul Greengrass B

I think the real life Captain Phillips had a lot of hubris and ignored data about attacks to other ships off the coast of Somalia in 2009. Apparently he wasn’t exactly the hero the film portrays him as. (I have heard about a new documentary in which Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, the head hijacker played in the movie by Barkhad Abdi, also claims that his story hasn’t been told.) Having said that, it was a movie worth watching.

Library DVD. This swept the 1949 Oscars. I didn’t read the Robert Penn Warren classic, but it is on my list. Mercedes McCambridge has the lead female role. The main story is a thinly disguised version of the rise and assassination of real-life 1930s Louisiana Governor, Huey Long.

** Original Screenplays **

(not, as far as I know, based on actual events)

Push was written in 1997 and was Sapphire’s debut novel. This won two Academy Awards and made a star of Gabourey Sidibe. The story of the character Precious is based upon a number of young women the author encountered when she worked as a literacy teacher in Harlem and the Bronx. I haven’t read the book, but based on the movie, I think she (and director Lee Daniels and screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher) did a good job of capturing how a person can be caught in a downward spiral.

Library DVD. The teacher reminded me of Tom Heller. The children who played Alice and Simon (pupils particularly affected by their previous teacher’s suicide) were charming. The film was selected as the Canadian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 2012 Academy Awards, and became one of the five nominees. The screenplay was developed from a one-character play.

Library DVD. If you can overlook that fact that some parts were confusing (such as what agreement, exactly, his wife had drawn up and wanted him to sign) this is worth seeing. I watched it again with the director’s commentary, and was impressed by the energy and confidence of Nicholas Jarecki. (He was born in 1979. This is his first feature film. At 16, he was hired as a technical consultant on the movie Hackers.) All the actors were interesting to watch: Richard Gere as the hedge-fund manager, Tim Roth (Pulp Fiction, Rob Roy) as the cop investigating, and Nate Parker as the young black man who gets embroiled in the events.

Reckless, dir by Sarah Harding and David Richards B

Library DVD. A Masterpiece Theatre production from 1998, in three 90-minute episodes. Dr. Owen Springer, who is in his 30s, begins a new job in Manchester, under head surgeon Dr. Richard Crane. He falls for an older woman (in her 40s), Anna Fairley, only to find out later that she is the wife of Dr. Crane. (Similar to the Grey’s Anatomy basic story line.) Dr. Crane is played by Michael Kitchen, which is why we sought this out.

I saw this romantic comedy at The Little on their free night for members. With only a split second to decide what to do, Julia Louis-Dreyfus lets a critical moment pass when she could have admitted that she very much liked a guy who was being described as a loser. This film does a nice job of playing out a common situation, where one keeps silent because something feels too embarrassing to admit. Oh what a tangled web we weave! James Gandolfini, in one of his final film roles, plays Albert.

* I Might Have Skipped These *

Bob, who had a higher tolerance than I did for this movie, looked up the woman who plays the love interest (Jennifer Lawrence) and found she had been the girl who starred in Winter’s Bone. He predicted we’ll be seeing a lot more of her. That was confirmed, as she won Best Actress for the role (age 22—second-youngest Best Actress winner). I hear she is scheduled to play Jeannette Walls in the film adaptation of Walls' memoir The Glass Castle. I surely look forward to that!

Library DVD. Set in 1250 B.C., during the late Bronze age. I got this because a friend of Eva’s recommended it highly, and also because I had read that Peter O’Toole’s scene as king begging for his son’s body was “the most moving screen moment of the year.” Bob ended up watching it alone (after I bailed), so the next day I asked him what he thought of the king’s scene begging for his son. He had not thought of that as a stand-out scene. We fast-forwarded through the film together, so that we could watch that scene. (It didn’t move me, but then I didn’t have the context.).

I was kind of curious, after reading various comments on imdb, so I went to this when The Little was having a free movie night for members. I’ve never read the book. I hope it is better than the movie.

I enjoyed becoming familiar with Greta Gerwig (born 1983). But, neither of us was crazy about this movie. The screenplay was co-written by the director and Gerwig.

Library DVD. We got this after reading that it was the photographer William Eggleston’s most influential film. (It was Lee Remick’s first film. Patricia Neal is also quite charming in it, and William Eggleston was 19 when it hit the screens, so that explains a lot.) It was fun to watch Andy Griffith, pre-Mayberry.

Library DVD. Had heard about this for years. Not a favorite of mine.

Library DVD. Very depressing and unenlightening. Young man (34) has been in residential rehab for six months (to kick a drug habit). He goes out on leave to spend a day in Oslo for a job interview and makes one last desperate attempt to connect with his sister and with an old friend. I already knew that trying to kick a drug habit and start over is really hard, and this added nothing to my understanding.

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Movie-related Quotes

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Foyle’s War

It's a pity there was no space in the script for the submersible canoe, the exploding camel dung or the Spigot Gun—all devised by the scientists at Station 1X.

– creator and writer Anthony Horowitz, commenting on the SOE (Special Operations Executive), a top-secret organization whose aim was to undermine Hitler's Europe by means of sabotage and subversion, and which was portrayed in the episode The French Drop.

Dallas Buyers Club

I’d heard rumors about a film, but I was never contacted. And then a few weeks ago I was watching Gravity with my son and suddenly there was the trailer for Dallas Buyers Club. My jaw dropped. I thought, “Well, I guess those rumors were for real.”

– Bill Minutaglio. Bill was a reporter for the Dallas Morning News in the summer of 1992 when he stumbled upon an article about AIDS patients in cities across the country who were pooling their resources and paying local entrepreneurs to supply them with drugs not yet approved by the FDA. Minutaglio tracked down the local club, met Ron Woodroof, and got him to relate all his exploits. Minutaglio’s article, “Buying Time,” appeared in the Morning News’ Sunday magazine. It was the first profile of Ron Woodroof anyone had ever done. Shortly after Minutaglio’s story appeared, screenwriter Craig Borten drove to Dallas and spent three days talking to Woodroof. It was 20 years before the film was made. Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack have the screenplay credits.

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Reviews or Descriptions I Liked

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Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire

Precious received six nominations [in 2009], including one for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress (for Mo'Nique).

Scott Mendelson of the Huffington Post felt that when you put the "glaring issues aside," the film "still works as a potent character study and a glimpse inside a world we'd rather pretend does not exist in America." But while the film "succeeds as a powerful acting treat and a potent character study, there are some major narrative issues that prevent the film from being an accidental masterpiece.”

Beginners

At the beginning I didn’t know what it was going to be. I just knew I wanted to make something about my parents’ decisions; how love and sex and relationships are historical; how the personal is political. When my dad died, I became so interested in their marriage—why it happened, how the fuck it happened. (a quote from Mike Mills, director)

Zero Dark Thirty

[Bigelow was] milk[ing] the U.S. torture program for drama while sidestepping the political and ethical debate that it provoked.

– Jane Mayer of The New Yorker

The Topp Twins

You may never have heard of Jools and Lynda Topp, country-singing lesbian twins from New Zealand, but it’s not because of their retiring personalities. Boisterous, big-voiced and built to last, these musical sisters have carved successful careers by doing what most people only dream of: that is, exactly as they please. That much and more is made ebulliently clear in Leanne Pooley’s unabashedly admiring documentary about a double act that defies logic as much as convention. Merging old-fashioned comedy routines with up-to-the-minute politics—all of it enabled by fun-loving personalities and a gift for rousing original songs—the ladies emit a genuine warmth that reels audiences in.

– Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York Times

New Zealand's finest export since lamb cutlets.

– The Herald, Glasgow

Monsieur Lazhar

[This film] sustains an exquisite balance between grown-up and child’s-eye views of education, teacher-student relations and peer-group interactions.

– Stephen Holden, The New York Times

Higher Ground

Every religious group and every religious leader must ask one simple question of our faith and practice: does it harm or does it heal? With subtlety and excellence, the film Higher Ground asks us to think on these things.

– Marilyn Sewell, UU Minister, writing for huffingtonpost.com

The Queen of Versailles
[W]e never got more insight beyond the observation that some people have too much money and some too little.

– David Bowden, spiked-online.com, Feb 2013

It’s unclear how Siegel thought he would be portrayed in the film—he
presumably had some kind of "free market superhero" in mind—but for
any future billionaire who plans to let a documentarian film the
karmic result of his rapacious greed, let this be a lesson: Don’t be
so surprised when the final product doesn’t make you look so good.

– Austin Bernhardt, Jan 25, 2013

Jackie Robinson: You want a player who doesn't have the guts to fight back?

Branch Rickey: No. I want a player who's got the guts *not* to fight back.

Jackie Robinson: You give me a uniform, you give me a number on my back, I'll give you the guts.

Arbitrage

Miller practices moral arbitrage in his life, weighing the penalties of lying to his family against the losses from a blown business deal; he’s a hyper-rational man who keeps on calculating everything he does until he winds up in a void. … It’s his [Richard Gere’s] best performance yet.

– David Denby, The New Yorker

Heaven’s Gate

This 3.5-hour movie was playing at The Dryden in August. But I decided not to see it (even though The Dryden’s version was “The Director’s Cut,” and newly restored) after reading this review that Roger Ebert gave in 1980, when the film was new: “This movie is $36 million thrown to the winds. It is the most scandalous cinematic waste I have ever seen, and remember, I've seen Paint Your Wagon.”

Homeland

Homeland, this season, has departed plausibility long ago. Wouldn’t terrorists realize that a black van following them is not a good thing? A full-service, well-stocked tailor shop on the main street in Gettysburg? Maybe don’t take a phone call from your wife when you are about to break someone’s neck? Wait, what, Carrie is going into the tunnel herself to get Nazir? It’s easy to pick up any loose thread in Homeland and quickly find yourself in a laughable scenario. Yet, there I was, each week, watching.

– excerpt from The New Yorker Dec 17, 2012, by Michael Agger

Forks Over Knives

Even as a vegan, I still find that when I read about passionate and influential advocates of this diet, my defenses go up, as if on fanaticism-alert. So I found it really great to see and hear these people speak and see that they really are normal people, just like you and me.

– Matt Frazier, No Meat Athlete: Runs on Plants

American Hustle

Lawrence here lets rip in a terrifically ballsy supporting role; part harpy, part siren, a vision of steely defiance with an undercurrent of cracked exasperation.

– Mark Kermode in The Observer Dec 21, 2013

The Trials of Muhammad Ali

At a time when most professional athletes tend to be either self-absorbed jerks or people unwilling to take any sort of stand for fear of jeopardizing any endorsement deals, to see one brave enough to fight just as hard out of the ring as he did inside of it makes The Trials of Muhammad Ali a unique and inspiring viewing experience.

– Peter Sobczynski

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Movie Miscellany

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Excerpts from Roger Ebert [RE] interview (2006) with Michael Apted [MA] about the Up series:

MA: Up to 42 we did on film (change rolls every 10 minutes; kept having to stop and start; hard to keep focused). Now I can shoot very long interviews (38 minutes without stopping; more intimate—not a lot of crew around). Change of technology has been very very interesting and useful to me.

Tony—from bafflement to confidence and happiness. He embraces life; he's so enthusiastic, he's so full of everything. It's tiring being around him sometimes.

RE: When he was 21, you were convinced he was going to be a [didn’t catch the word; but, in context, it was something like “ne’re do well”]."

MA: Yes, I was. It's this terrible, terrible impulse to play God. Which is one of the attractions of the thing. It's fun for you. But, if I make the next film with some agenda, then it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I tried to predict what was going to happen to Tony. I tried to predict what was going to happen to Nick's marriage. Once I was right, once I was wrong. But, it was a foolish thing to do, I think.

RE: You ask Neil if he might be going mad. That's a tough question to ask, and he answers it very seriously: he's afraid he might be. We're afraid he might be too. So, we’re grateful that you have that relationship with him that allows that question to be asked.

MA: People say, 'Is this a portrait of England?' I say, 'This is a portrait of people who were born in 1956, of that generation.' It's very hard to draw a conclusion—a definitive view—of English society. That was the great kind of metamorphosis that the film and I went through. It definitely started out with a political agenda. It was a very socialist, left-wing company, Granada Television, working on a very provocative program, World in Action. Social barriers shouldn't exist. They are a great waste of people's time and talent. The humanity of the film came out after 21 when we'd kind of grown through all that.

RE: ‘63 [the year 7 Up was made] is that year that Larkin says [here he quotes Larkin, see below]. ‘63 was The Beatles. And, that year, for many people, represents the difference between people wearing suits and ties and everything since.

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

- from Annus Mirabilis, by Philip Larkin (1922-1985)

MA: England was waking—we were hoping—from a big sleep. Maybe there was a brave new world out there. But, for the everyday life of people, the class system was very much alive and well. It was us and them. The empowered and the unempowered. That's what's thrilling about the film. That generation—it was possible to break through. And it was my good luck—I'm 15 years older than them—that I was able to document that. America woke up after Eisenhower, with Kennedy, and I documented that generation. I hit a period when it did change very dramatically. My film, in a way, is a history of that.

RE: The returns are in. They can see that this film they were in was a wonderful opportunity. They're happier now than they've ever been, as a group. And they're wiser.

MA: Whatever has happened, has happened. They behaved with dignity throughout, and they were treated with dignity. These stories elevate the ordinary life. … Much more powerful—dare I say?—than a book. Just to see these people. Human history. Film does that so brilliantly. There is so much information coming at you out of the corner of your eye.

RE: I think it's the most noble use of film that I've been able to witness as a film-goer. Noble in its simplicity and its honesty and its directness. Just the gaze of an interested observer coming into these lives and saying “How're you doin'?”

Filmmaker statement [from the 56 CD extra features]: 21 Up was full of hope. 28 was about children and responsibility. 35 was concerned with mortality, when some were losing parents, and 49 had a sense of disappointment with lives maybe not fully achieved. Yet 56 is quite different again, which goes to prove, if nothing else, that our series mirrors life, and is always full of surprises.

Irena Sendler

The ghetto-bench system [at Warsaw University] stated that Jewish students were forced to sit in the left section of a lecture halls; otherwise they would be expelled. Irena had strong loyalties towards her Jewish friends. In the 1930’s Irena stood up and went to sit on the Jewish side of the classroom. When the teacher told her to move she replied “I am Jewish today.” This led to her being immediately expelled. (Decades later, under Communist rule her son and daughter were not allowed to attend the Warsaw University due to Irena’s actions.)

- http://irenasendleressay.weebly.com/early-childhood.html

In 2007, it was widely reported that Irena Sendler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. She lost to Al Gore. (Over time, many individuals have become known as "Nobel Peace Prize Nominees," but this designation has no official standing because the list is not made public until 50 years have passed.) Other notable Nobel omissions: "The greatest omission in our 106-year history is undoubtedly that Mahatma Gandhi never received the Nobel Peace prize. Gandhi could do without the Nobel Peace prize; whether the Nobel committee can do without Gandhi is the question." (Quote is from the secretary of the Nobel Committee, 2006.)

Soul of a People: Writing America's Story

Voice-over: "The agency had to find writers nationwide. Not just a few scribes in Washington. They had thousands of slots to fill in quick succession, all without any idea what that work would be. Word went out through every channel. A Montana professor relayed the news to a colleague living in a remote cabin in the Idaho mountains. Vardis Fisher was leery of The New Deal and, like many Americans, deeply suspicious of the government. Still, hunger won out."

[Words of Vardis Fisher] "It looks now like I will supervise the Writers’ Project in Idaho. I feel absurd going into this work. But when a man is financially against a wall and has two sons, he does absurd things. ... I received a wire from Washington telling me to put on 20 writers at once."

The chief of the labor division asked him, "Will 20 truck drivers do? They've travelled around a lot and seen a lot of things."

"I told him we need 20 Kiplings or Hemingways. They said they had a lot of clerks. So, they sent me 20 clerks. The next day I got another telegram [from Henry Alsberg, head of the agency in Washington]: "Put on 20 more writers. STOP. In two weeks put on 10 more. STOP."

I wired back, "I am sitting on packing box. STOP. No writers in Idaho. STOP.""

This page has been accessed times since January 15, 2014 Last revised: January 15, 2014

This page has been accessed times since January 15, 2014

Last revised: January 15, 2014