we'll let you off with a warning this time
one more song, with liner notes
Beware of the Toronto Police Department: Cherry Beach Express is a song about the notorious 52 Division of the Toronto Police force. They have long been believed to routinely take prisoners and suspects to a deserted, industrial waste land called Cherry Beach and beat the crap out of them. There was at least one major law suit where a Cherry Beach Express victim was awared a six figure settlement against the Toronto goons who took him on the Cherry Beach Express.
Following are the lyrics to a song about the practice which got a lot of airplay on Toronto radio in 1984. Needless to say the Police tried to ban the song.
Cherry Beach Express
Pukka Orchestra
I've got a bone to pick with you
not so friendly boys in blue
you come out of the station
and into the street
and everybody beats
a hasty retreat
Well it was late one Friday
I'm a little bit wrecked
you're on your way to serve and protect
you buzz out of a cruiser
like bees from a hive
and ask me if I want to
go for a drive
go for a drive?
That's why I'm riding on
the Cherry Beach Express
my ribs are broken
and my face is in a mess
and I made all my statements
under duress
52 Division
handcuffed to a chair
I'm joining the lineup
to fall down the stairs
I tell you I'm innocent
I try to explain
we're just making sure
you don't do it again
do what again?
That's why you're riding on
the Cherry Beach Express
your ribs are broken
and your face is in a mess
and we strongly suggest you confess!
I confess I'm mystified
by the way you're occupied
I confess I'm horrified
why are you so terrified?
does the pain get any less
if I confess
So I headed for Medway last night. It was a little drizzly so I arrived a few minutes late. The dj saw me enter and this big grin almost split her face. Took a look around and saw no singers. No wonder she grinned. I went over to her and she confirmed by telling me we were it. About 11:00 some more showed. My previous high in number of songs sung was thirteen. It's now fifteen.
The Lady is a Tramp Frank Sinatra
He'll Have to go Jim Reeves
After the Lovin' Englebert Humperdinck
On the Road Again Willie Nelson
Jean from Oliver
Girl You'll be a Woman Soon Neil Diamond
My Way Frank Sinatra
Crazy Patsy Cline
King of the Road Roger Miller
Sea of Love The Honeydrippers
Unchained Melody Righteous Brothers
Can't Help falling in Love Elvis Presley
Sixteen Tons Tennessee Ernie Ford
My Kind of Town Frank Sinatra
Ghost Riders in the Sky Vaughn Monroe
Google
WWWwww.moblyrics.com
Oliver - "Jean" lyrics
» More lyrics from Oliver
Oliver - Jean
Jean
Oliver
Written by Rod McKuen
Peak chart position # 2 in 1969
Jean, Jean, roses are red
All the leaves have gone green
And the clouds are so low
You can touch them, and so
Come out to the meadow, Jean
Jean, Jean, youre young and alive
Come out of your half-dreamed dream
And run, if you will, to the top of the hill
Open your arms, bonnie Jean
Till the sheep in the valley come home my way
Till the stars fall around me and find me alone
When the sun comes a-singin Ill still be waitin
For Jean, Jean, roses are red
And all of the leaves have gone green
While the hills are ablaze with the moons yellow haze
Come into my arms, bonnie Jean
(Jean, Jean)
Jean, youre young and alive!!
Come out of your half-dreamed dream
And run, if you will to the top of the hill
Come into my arms, bonnie Jean
Jean
Good morning, WA2K radio fans.
dj, Thanks for policing the studio last night. It seemed to have worked. <smile>
Bob, our audience appreciates your continuing to play Sinatra, and many folks have called in saying that their favorite is Lady is a Tramp. Also Rod McKuen's Jean has a lovely melody, and the lyrics remind us of McKuen's poem "Listen to the Warm".
Today is May Day, the first of several observances here in America and other places around the world. Let's hear what Jethro Tull has to say about the merry month of May:
JETHRO TULL LYRICS
"Cup Of Wonder"
May I make my fond excuses
for the lateness of the hour,
but we accept your invitation, and we bring you Beltane's flower.
For the May Day is the great day, sung along the old straight track.
And those who ancient lines did lay
will heed the song that calls them back.
Pass the word and pass the lady, pass the plate to all who hunger.
Pass the wit of ancient wisdom, pass the cup of crimson wonder.
Ask the green man where he comes from, ask the cup that fills with red.
Ask the old grey standing stones that show the sun its way to bed.
Question all as to their ways,
and learn the secrets that they hold.
Walk the lines of nature's palm
crossed with silver and with gold.
Pass the cup and pass the lady, pass the plate to all who hunger.
Pass the wit of ancient wisdom, pass the cup of crimson wonder.
Join in black December's sadness,
lie in August's welcome corn.
Stir the cup that's ever-filling
with the blood of all that's born.
But the May Day is the great day, sung along the old straight track.
And those who ancient lines did lay
will heed this song that calls them back.
Pass the word and pass the lady, pass the plate to all who hunger.
Pass the wit of ancient wisdom, pass the cup of crimson wonder.
Question for today:
What is the etymology of the term "May Day" when used as an SOS?
Good Day to All.
Bravo, Bob. That's a lot of singing for one evening.
I had completely forgotten about Oliver and "Jean" - and Oliver's recording of "Good Morning Starshine". I wonder what he's doing today?
Well for a pleasant change here, I can say Good Morning sunshine and Happy Birthday to the May 1 celebs:
1764 Benjamin Henry Latrobe engineer/architect (built Capitol) died 1820
1830 Mary Harris Jones (Mother Jones), labor leader (Cork, Ireland; died 1930)
1852 Martha Jane Burke (Calamity Jane), frontier adventuress/Indian fighter (Princeton, MO; died 1903)
1909 Kate Smith, singer (Greenville, VA; died 1986)
1916 Glenn Ford, actor (Quebec, Canada)
1918 Jack Paar, TV personality (Canton, OH) died 2004
1919 Dan O'Herlihy Ireland, actor (Fail Safe, Last Starfighter, Robocop) died 2005
1923 Joseph Heller, novelist , Catch 22; (Brooklyn, NY; died 1999)
1925 Scott Carpenter, astronaut (Boulder, CO)
1929 Sonny James [James Loden] Hackelburg AL, rocker (Young Love; Running Bear)
1939 Judy Collins, singer (Seattle, WA)
1940 Bobbie Ann Mason, writer (near Mayfield, KY)
1945 Rita Coolidge, singer (Nashville, TN)
1946 John Woo, director (Guangzhau, China)
1954 Ray Parker Jr Detroit MI, rock guitarist/vocalist (Ghostbusters-Who You Gonna Call?)
1962 Bobcat Goldthwait, comedian/actor (Syracuse, NY)
SOS "may day" is from the French expressiom m'aidez.
Send In The Clowns
Artist: Judy Collins
Album: Send In The Clowns
Isn't it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground,
You in mid-air..
Where are the clowns?
Isn't it bliss?
Don't you approve?
One who keeps tearing around,
One who can't move...
Where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns.
Just when I'd stopped opening doors,
Finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours.
Making my entrance again with my usual flair
Sure of my lines...
No one is there.
Don't you love farce?
My fault, I fear.
I thought that you'd want what I want...
Sorry, my dear!
And where are the clowns
Send in the clowns
Don't bother, they're here.
Isn't it rich?
Isn't it queer?
Losing my timing this late in my career.
And where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns...
Well, maybe next year.
My word, Bob. I really did not know that. I am truly enlightened. Wonder how many of our listening audience knew that.
Raggedy, thanks again from your timely celeb updates. Back later to comment and expound for our listeners.
A joke
A blonde policewoman pulls over another blonde who has been speeding.
"You were going way too fast back there" the police woman said, "I'm going to have to see your license."
The blond in the car looks at her dumbfouned. It is clear that she doesn't understand.
"It's that square with your picture on it" the policewoman says.
The blonde in the car reaches into her purse, finds her small mirror and hands it to the policewoman.
Said the policewoman: "Oh, I see! You're police also. Just move along then."
Heart of Glass
Blondie
(Deborah Harry/Chris Stein)
Once I had a love and it was a gas
Soon turned out had a heart of glass
Seemed like the real thing, only to find
Mucho mistrust, love's gone behind
Once I had a love and it was divine
Soon found out I was losing my mind
It seemed like the real thing but I was so blind
Mucho mistrust, love's gone behind
In between "what I find is pleasing" and "I'm feeling fine", love is so
confusing
There's no peace of mind if I fear I'm losing you
It's just no good, you teasing like you do
Lost inside
Adorable illusion and I cannot hide
I'm the one you're using, please don't push me aside
We coulda made it cruising, yeah
Yeah, riding high on love's true bluish light
Once I had a love and it was a gas
Soon turned out to be a pain in the ass
Seemed like the real thing only to find
Mucho mistrust, love's gone behind
Well, listeners, the diversity here is really great, right?
Why are all blondes considered bubble-headed, Cyracuz?
Here's a Norwegian joke:
Two Norwegians got trouble with their car. The lights didn't work. They stopped, and one of them told his friend to check if the blinker worked. The friend went out and said:
- It works... It doesn't work... It works... It doesn't work... It works... It doesn't work...
Present company excluded, of course.
Of course we all know the joke about Americans:
Who lives in American and has an IQ of 160? Answer: Chicago.
I was looking at Raggedy's celeb, Ray Parker. Quite a singer and who wouldn't remember Ghost Busters--
Whatever happened to Deborah Harry, edgar?
I don't know where Debbie went, letty. Probably one too many blonde moments did her in.
It just occurred to me, listeners, that there is a member of our audience who is a real clown by profession. Booman, who has returned after a long absence, sings and clowns around.
Not to be overlooked in the field of entertainment is the mime:
MARCEL MARCEAU
"The world's greatest mime"
Marcel Marceau - universally acclaimed as the world's greatest mime, was born in Strasbourg, France. Marceau's interest in the art of mime began at an early age when he would imitate with gestures anything that fired his imagination. Later he discovered such silent screen artists as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harry Langdon, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and his admiration for these great actors inspired him to pursue the art of silence as a profession.
In 1946, he enrolled as a student in Charles Dullin's School of Dramatic Art in the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre in Paris, where he studied with the great master, Etienne Decroux, who had also taught Jean-Louis Barrault. The latter noticed Marceau's exceptional talent, made him a member of his company, and cast him in the role of Arlequin in the pantomime entitled Baptiste - which Barrault himself had interpreted in the world famous film Les Enfants du Paradis. Marceau's performance won him such acclaim that he was encouraged to present his first "mimodrama", called Praxitele and the Golden Fish, at the Bernhardt Theatre that same year. The acclaim was so unanimous that Marceau's career as a mime was firmly established.
In 1947, Marceau created "Bip", the clown who in his striped pullover and battered, deflowered opera hat, has become his alter-ego, even as Chaplin's "Little Tramp" became that star's personality. Bip's misadventures with everything from butterflies to lions, on ships and trains, in dance-halls or restaurants, are limitless.
As a style pantomime, Marceau has been acknowledged without peer. His silent exercises, which include such classic works at The Cage, Walking Against the Wind, The Mask Maker, and In The Park, and satires on everything from sculptors to matadors, have been described as works of genius. Of his summation of the ages of man in the famous Youth, Maturity, Old Age and Death, one critic said, "He accomplishes in less than two minutes what most novelists can not do in volumes.
In 1949, following his receipt of the renowned Deburau Prize (established as a memorial to the 19th century master) for his second mimodrama, Death before Dawn, Marceau formed his Compagnie de Mime Marcel Marceau - the only company of pantomime in the world at the time. The ensemble played the leading Paris theaters - Le Theatre des Champs-Elyees, Le Theatre de la Renaissance, and the Sarah Bernhardt, as well as other playhouses throughout the world. During the 1959-60, a retrospective of his mimodramas, including the famous Overcoat by Gogol, ran for a full year at the Amibigu Theatre in Paris. He has produced 15 other mimodramas, including Pierrot de Montmartre, The 3 Wigs, The Pawn Shop, 14th July, The Wolf of Tsu Ku Mi, Paris Cries--Paris Laughs, and Don Juan - adapted from the Spanish writer Tirso de Molina.
He first toured the United States in 1955-56, close on the heels of his North American debut at the Stratford (Ontario) Festival. After his opening engagement at the Phoenix Theater in New York which received rave reviews, he moved to the larger Barrymore Theater to accommodate the public demand. This first US tour ended with a record breaking return to standing room only crowds in San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and other major cities. His extensive transcontinental tours have included South America, Africa, Australia, China, Japan, South East Asia, Russia and Europe.
Mr. Marceau's art has become familiar to millions of Americans through his many television appearances. His first television performance as a star performer on the Max Liebman Show of Shows won him the television industry's coveted "Emmy" award. He appeared on the BBC as Scrooge, in A Christmas Carol in 1973. He has been a favorite guest of Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas, and Dinah Shore, and he also had his own one-man show entitled Meet Marcel Marceau.
He has also shown his versatility in motion pictures, such as First Class in which he portrayed 17 different roles, Shanks where he combined his silent art, playing a deaf and mute puppeteer, and his speaking talent, as a mad scientist, and Mel Brooks' Silent Movie. A further example of Mr. Marceau's multiple talents was the mimodrama Candide, which he created for the Ballet company of the Hamburg Opera. He directed this work and also performed the title role.
Children have been delighted by his highly acclaimed Marcel Marceau Alphabet Book and Marcel Marceau Counting Book. Other publications of Mr. Marceau's poetry and illustrations include his La ballade de Paris et du Monde, which he wrote in 1966, and The Story of Bip, written and illustrated by Marcel Marceau and published by Harper and Row. In 1982 The Third Eye, his collection of ten lithographs, was published in Paris with an accompanying text by Mr. Marceau. Belfond of Paris published Pimporello in 1987.
The French Government has conferred upon Mr. Marceau its highest honor, making him an "Officier de la Legion d'Honneur," and in 1978 he received the Medaille Vermeil de la Ville de Paris. In November of 1998, President Chirac named Marceau a Grand Officer of the Order of Merit, and he is an elected member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, the Academie des Beaux Arts France, and the Institut de France. The City of Paris awarded him a grant which enabled him to reopen his International School, which offers a three year curriculum.
Mr. Marceau holds honorary doctorates from Ohio State University, Linfield College, Princeton University, and the University of Michigan - America's way of honoring Marcel Marceau's creation of a new art form, inherited from an old tradition.
In 2000, Mr. Marceau brought his full mime company to New York City for presentation of his new mimodrama, The Bowler Hat, previously seen in Paris, London, Tokyo, Taipei, Caracas, Santo Domingo, Valencia (Venezuela) and Munich. Since 1999, when Marceau returned with his classic solo show to New York and San Francisco after 15-year absences for critically-acclaimed sold out runs, his career in America has enjoyed a remarkable renaissance with strong appeal to a third generation. He has recently appeared for extended engagements at such legendary American theaters as The Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC, the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, MA, and the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, to overwhelming acclaim, demonstrating the timeless appeal of the work and the mastery of this unique artist.
Mr. Marceau accepted the honor and responsibilities of serving as Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Second World Assembly on Ageing, which took place in Madrid, Spain in April, 2002. A new photo book for children titled "Bip in a Book", published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, is in the bookstores in the US, France and Australia. Marceau's new full company production Les Contes Fantastiques (Fantasy Tales) recently opened to great acclaim at the Theatre Antoine in Paris.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
lol Letty. We norwegians are very intelligent. Just not very smart. A friend and me once went to macdonalds. We approached the door, my friend stops in front of it. It does not open. Our superb reasoning leads us to the conclusion that it's closed. We turn around, but just as we do we notice customers inside. Puzzled we look for other entrances. There are none. We return to the door. It still doesn't open...
I then had a moment of clarity: I went to the door and put my hand on it and pushed. Miraculously the door opened... True story.
This has led me to believe that a persons IQ is not a fixed number, but a varying one. You need an IQ of 30 to open a door. 60 to close it. I estimate my IQ around the time of the macdonalds incident to have been around 25.
Quote:Why are all blondes considered bubble-headed, Cyracuz?
Their own brilliant plan to dominate mankind. It's working too.
We get a great deal of arabic immigrants to our country, and there are two things these people want above all else. A BMW and a blonde woman. The BMW can be from 1979, no problem, and the blonde can look as if she has been assembled from leftover parts of roadkill, it doesn't matter. It's the two B's. Go figure.
By the way...
The flaw in every complete philosophy
The point on wich every philosopher lies
Is it's masquerade of coherency
Of symmetry where chaos resides
Cause everyone knows who truly knows his mind
That questions posed devise in part their answers
Thus what you seek is always what you'll find
And once again by the dance outwaltzed, the dancer
Cause thoughts do not appear at thinkers summons
Nor at his sheduled hour do they call
They lurk within the darkest of mind's dungeons
Until suddenly into his head they fall
So I repeat what greater men have stated:
The thought, it came to me because I waited
Applause for you, Cryacuz, both for the joke on yourself and that marvelous bit of philosophy.
A very bright student of mine once told me that philosophy was all questions, not answers, listeners. Perhaps that is why we'll never know if truth is objective or subjective.
B&B, Cyracuz. Bed and breakfast for blonde and BMW.<smile>
News item:
By ELIZABETH WOLFE, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 56 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - First lady Laura Bush stole the show with a surprise comedy routine that ripped President Bush and brought an audience that included much of official Washington and a dash of Hollywood to a standing ovation at a dinner honoring award-winning journalists.
The president began a speech late Saturday at the 91st annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner, but was quickly "interrupted" by his wife in an obviously planned ploy.
"Not that old joke, not again," she said to the delight of the audience. "I've been attending these dinners for years and just quietly sitting there. I've got a few things I want to say for a change."
The president sat down and she proceeded to note that he is "usually in bed by now" and said she told him recently, "If you really want to end tyranny in the world, you're going to have to stay up later. "
She outlined a typical evening: "Nine o'clock, Mr. Excitement here is sound asleep and I'm watching `Desperate Housewives'." Comedic pause. "With Lynne Cheney. Ladies and gentlemen, I am a desperate housewife."
The line earned particularly rambunctious applause from the area of the Hilton Washington hotel ballroom where actor James Denton from the hit ABC show sat.
Laura Bush added that she and her husband obviously were destined to be together as a couple because "I was the librarian who spent 12 hours a day in the library and yet somehow I met George."
The guest professional comedian, Cedric the Entertainer, next came to the microphone to deliver one-liners, but not before conceding the first lady was a hard act to follow.
Joining the Bushes were Vice President Dick Cheney and wife, Lynne. News organizations hosted show business and sports stars such as Goldie Hawn, Richard Gere, Jane Fonda, Mary Tyler Moore, tennis sisters Venus and Serena Williams and a few supermodels.
Award winners announced earlier this month:
_Ron Fournier of The Associated Press, the Merriman Smith Award for presidential coverage under deadline pressure for his stories on Bush's victory over John Kerry.
_Susan Page of USA Today, the Aldo Beckman Award for her stories on the presidency and the presidential campaign.
_Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams of the San Francisco Chronicle, the Edgar A. Poe Award for a series of stories on athletes' steroid use.
Presidents since Calvin Coolidge have attended the dinner hosted by the association, which was established in 1914 as a bridge between the press corps and the white house.
Laura certainly isn't blonde, but I do wonder who her ghost writer was.
Laura - from the Spike Jones repetoire
Laura is the face in the misty lights
Footsteps that you hear down the hall
The laugh that floats on a summer night
That you can never quite recall
And you see Laura on a train that is passing through
Those eyes how familiar they seem
She gave your very first kiss to you
That was Laura but she's only a dream
Letty's post on Marcel Marceau remarked on a film seen by me long ago in Harvard Square, Cambridge Ma.
Les Enfants du Paradis
by Girish Shambu
Girish Shambu is a Professor of Business at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. Les Enfants du Paradis
Les Enfants du Paradis (1945 France 195 mins)
Source: Potential Films Prod Co: Pathé Prod: Raymond Borderie Dir: Marcel Carné Scr: Jacques Prévert Ph: Roger Hubert Ed: Henri Rust Art Dir: Alexander Trauner, Leon Barsacq, Raymond Gabutti Mus: Maurice Thiriet, Joseph Kosma
Cast: Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, Pierre Brasseur, Marcel Herrand, Maria Cesarès, Pierre Renoir, Etienne Decroux, Louis Salou
An anecdote about the makers of Les Enfants du Paradis might serve as an illuminating prologue. After the writer-director team of Jacques Prévert and Marcel Carné made the ominously fatalistic Quai des Brumes in 1938, the collaborationist Vichy government pointed to the film as a cause of the subsequent war. The barometer, Carné replied, shouldn't be blamed for the storm.
The rich and ambitious Les Enfants du Paradis has a dangerous history. During the grim days of the early 1940s Occupation, Carné and Prévert made the film at Victorine studios in Nice. To get around the Vichy edict that a film could not exceed 90 minutes, Les Enfants du Paradis was constructed in two parts totaling three hours. Starting out as a Franco-Italian co-production, it was abandoned by the Italians when Allied forces invaded Sicily. Pathé stepped in, and the film was completed after two years of on-and-off work. Alexandre Trauner designed the awe-inspiring sets and Joseph Kosma penned the yearning-filled music, and yet both men, being Jews, had to perform their work in the strictest of secrecy. The actor Robert Le Vigan (who originally played the part of the informer-thief Jericho) was sentenced to death for collaboration by the Resistance, and fled the country. His scenes were reshot, this time with Pierre Renoir (brother of the director Jean) playing the part. Just as real-life events threatened to disrupt the project, the film itself used as its central metaphor the tension-charged relationship between theatre and life.
Set in the teeming theatre district of 1840s Paris (the "boulevard du crime"), the paradise of the film's title is a reference to "the gods", the highest, cheapest seats in the theatre, occupied by the poorest of the poor. As Prévert said when asked about the meaning of the title, "it refers to the actors (.) and the audiences too, the good-natured, working-class audience". The film follows the Garbo-like Garance (Arletty) and the four men in her life: moonstruck mime Baptiste (Jean-Louis Barrault); philandering thespian Frederic Lemaitre (Pierre Brasseur); murderer-dandy Lacenaire (Marcel Herrand) and the wealthy, loveless count Edouard (Louis Salou). Each of the film's two parts begins and ends with the rise and fall of a curtain on a stage, explicitly situating the narrative as a theatrical spectacle. Within this spectacle, the film plays with opposing theatrical forms (silent mime theatre versus melodramatic spoken-word theatre). At the pantomime theatre Funambules, all performers are summarily fined for making noise backstage (or, horror of horrors, uttering a sound during a performance!). The dreamlike passions and fragile sensitivity of Baptiste the mime form a strong contrast to the loud and blustery Frederic, who booms, "I will die from silence like others die from hunger and thirst". Yet, while Frederic later achieves fame as an actor-star on the boulevard, the common folk are drawn to Baptiste and his delicate stories wrapped in the gauze of pantomime. In one poignant piece, Baptiste plays Pierrot as he loses his beloved, a statue, to Harlequin, played by the flamboyant Frederic. The object of their love, this moon-complexioned statue, is played by Garance. The amoral and dissolute Lacenaire writes farces which remain unperformed and unread. He ends up mounting a real-life assassination with the loving detail of a theatrical production. After the meticulous murder of the Count, the murderer waits calmly after the "performance" for the arrival of the police. The Count's open contempt of theatre ("I don't like this Monsieur Shakespeare: his debased violence, and his lack of decorum") co-exists with a passionate bent for casual killing in the name of honor - thanks to that old tradition, the duel. Thus, theatre weaves its thread intimately into the fabric of every life we witness in the film.
The sad, elusive, and sublime presence of Garance is at the very heart of this film. Richard Roud praised Arletty's towering performance and called it "one of the greatest portraits of a woman in all of cinema (.) a performance for the ages." (1) Garance casually invites Frederic into her bed minutes after Baptiste professes his deep love for her. To her, love is simple, as simple as the tune of a music box ("When I want to say yes, I can't say no"). After several years away, drawn back to the theatre by her desire to see Baptiste, the one man she truly loves, she confesses in a speech of quietly moving dignity: "I'm not sad, but not cheerful either. A little spring has broken in the music box. The music is the same but the tone is different." A complex and tragic character, Garance's easy devotion to the fleeting passions of love is innocent yet destructive; her flighty nature brings her a succession of moments filled with pleasure, yet the comfort of love eludes her. At the end of the film, when Baptiste runs into the carnival crowd, attempting unsuccessfully to catch up with the departing Garance, he is swallowed up by the "audience", he is one with them, unable to be anything other than what they are. We have grown accustomed to seeing him in the privileged space of the stage, gazed upon by the admiring audience, straining forward silently in their seats. We are not ready for this fall from the rarefied spotlight of the stage to the bustling anarchy of the oppressively celebratory carnival crowd. It is a descent from artifice to reality.
The invisible membrane between theatre and life is repeatedly ruptured in the film. When Frederic mocks the melodrama he plays in ("Brigands Inn"), he throws away his lines and turns the play into an acerbic farce, improvising lines that luxuriate reflexively in condemning the solemn pretensions of the play he is mocking. He then bounds off stage and appears in one of the audience boxes, and upon pleading, returns to the stage. When Baptiste runs into a blind beggar and befriends him, he discovers when they arrive at a tavern that the man has been "acting" blind. He is assuming the character of a sightless person to improve the quality of his performance on the street of life (and improve the state of his alms!). Lacenaire the murderer is also a public scribe. He assumes the character of his client and writes a love letter from the client's point of view. In these explorations, the film looks presciently forward to the mid-1950s theatre-as-life-as-theatre period of Renoir (Golden Coach and French Can-Can) and Ophuls' piercing Lola Montes. Perhaps the most crushing lesson to emerge from the theatre-life dialectic by film's end is probably this: Love and happiness are much more easily achieved in the indoor make-believe space of unreality than on the wide-open boulevard of life.
Since I'm in a nostalgic mood do you remember these?
http://www.singingman.us/DYR.htm
