Orson Welles in The Third Man

At the peak of a Ferris wheel in post-World War II Vienna, Harry Lime says to our hero Holly Martins:

"Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax — the only way you can save money nowadays."

Just before they part ways, Harry tells Holly:

"In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed — they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

You can watch the whole scene right here.

Kristen's thoughts from the first two classes...

Insecurity, Friendships, Devotion, Needing to Know, Information/Misinformation, Voyeur, Detachment, Fear of being alone, Mistaken Identity, Suspicious Minds, Chaos, Layers....

Stories, Eccentric Characters, Codenames, Diagrams, Technology, Visual Storytelling, The Character we never see, Spies as young people, Tall Tales, Creating the world of 'betrayal', The Reporter, Chaos, getting caught up in the moment, Silence, Stage Fighting, Mirrored Choreography, Tableaux, Use of Space, Projections, Overlapping Dialogue, Rhythm, Music, Soundscapes.....

Betrayal can only happen if you love
Betrayal is like imagining when the reality isn't good enough
Going back to get the 'What If' life
You are not telling me the story, tell me the story.
No truth is possible because there are always more than one perspective
Lying to avoid a bad past
Lying as denial rather than truth as acceptance
Not be able to get yourself out of a lie


Mata Hari, Elizabeth Robbins, Rosenburgs, Hanson, Philby, Coward, Rubens, Marlowe....

Reasons to betray: Politics/Ideology, Family, Revenge, Escapism, The Game of it.....

Jesus and Mika: DECEIVED

This is the image I found for Thursday's class. It is "The Betrayal of Christ" by Sir Anthony Van Dyck.

I was struck (and always am with this style/period of art) by the subtle - yet incredibly effective and intricate - use of color and detail of facial expressions to give intention and emotion to the piece. 

I am also particularly struck by the expression (or almost NON-expression) on Jesus' face. Also - the choice to only show the profile/back of Judas' head (thus, essentially creating another layer of dehumanization, detachment to him as a figure within the scene). 

I could not seem to get the audio/song recording I chose to upload properly into this post sooo, in lieu of said recording, I have imparted a selection of the song lyrics to all of you (ones which I felt most particularly drawn to in reference to this assignment). Should you be interested in hearing the song by some other personal means, it is called "Any Other World" by Mika.

"Cause it's all in the hands of a bitter, bitter man/

Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in/

Take a bow, play the part of a lonely, lonely heart/

Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in/

The world you thought you lived in"

------

"I tried to live alone/

But lonely is so lonely, alone/

So, human as I am/

I had to give up my defenses"

------

-Jared

Disco Bloodbath!

So here is the excerpt I had chosen to use/read for Thursday's class:

**As mentioned before, it is from James St. James' semi-embellished/fictionalized recounting of his days as a Manhattan 'club kid'-du-jour/heavy drug addict.

Originally "Disco Bloodbath" (turned "Party Monster" for the motion picture adaptation), the excerpt touches on themes of being inextricably addicted to engaging in activities/actions which inevitably lead to often disastrous, life-changing outcomes - whether with active or passive intention. It also touches on the metaphor of the 'speeding train/vehicle/etc.' - one can't be moved to help, yet cannot help but to continue looking on in a fixed state of horror/adrenaline/excitement. 

Unlike the general focus of the class and texts being studied, this excerpt/text centers around the controlling and reckless relationship between the junkie and his/her drug fix. The drugs act as the catalyst for deceit - the addictive promise for one to experience states of ecstasy and spiritual/mental/physical awakening - only to betray their user, catapulting them into dark and forboding situations/scenarios. 

Enjoy!

" There are times, when the drugs are flowing and the emotions are running high, the lights and music can make you dizzy - and the world slips out of control.

It's like a car accident that happens too quickly...you can't stop it, you can't think about it, you just have to lean back, and watch as everything changes forever.

You've lost control, you say to yourself, as the wheel of the world slips from your hands - 'It's happening too fast' - and all you can do is sit and wait for the ride to end, the car to crash, the world to stop.

It's like chasing after time, chasing after things that have already happened, because the drugs have made you too slow. You're thick and awkward, but if you can just catch up, then maybe you can grab it, maybe you can grab at time and stop it - 

But no.

It's already happened.

You have no choice. Play it out.

That's how Michael described to me the moments leading up to the murder. That's the way he described killing Angel."

------------

What is it within us that drives us to choose an action that will essentially lead us to make other life-altering choices - subsequent choices which have escaped our immediate control? And in knowing that such a choice will lead to circumstances which escape our control, what drives us to forge onward, one repeat performance after the next? 

Just some thoughts..at least thoughts I find myself left pondering..

-Jared

Word Associations, Sounds and Spectrums

This is a little different, and we flatter ourselves that we thought it interesting, but maybe for those who are struggling for inspiration (aka, me), it might be a link to a spark to an idea. Forgive repeated themes, some became more famous more quickly than others...

Things i heard:

Angel: Father; protector; negative gesture; madhouse; hope; safe; help; gave up; control; fantasy; sorry; rigid; ragged; pile of rags; existence; consequences; garbage; burst; game; thorough; "feed me something, anything"; too late; why.

Eitra: Exciting; enemy is the spouse, living with your greatest enemy behind the lines; trainwreck; mythology; treasure; embezzled; failed; "publish his poetry"; wisdom; prodical; weak character; ignore news of sexual indiscretion; "It's best not to know."

Adam: Spoke down; rub up; dysfunctional; politically correct; "I thought the meeting was over"; pod area; involve; insubordinate.

Rob: Aftereffects; shame; monitor; finally agree; colourblind; automatically; "trees arch closer together"; faded; enduring attraction; two empty hooks.

Shira: Execution; ready; "Good shoes had always been a passion"; dry moat; beyond the chateau; polygon; last rites; faced off; "exploded in the deathly silence of he morning"; the ceremony of execution vs. the crime (?) of murder.

LaRondo: Dark brown books muffling noise; family secrets, family only; "throb with my own importance"; terrified concentration; hyper-awareness; details; black eyes.

Katie: Deathouse letters; censorship; simplification; wedge; effort; not alone; "Everybody must have been a spy"; help; "This is quite serious"; "nearsighted and psychopathic".

Hannah: Anarchy; cataract; uncompromise; cloven; shouted against the shouting; not to rebut, but to earn; frantic; melancholy; inexperienced.

Terry: Pity; old man; free of income tax; renaissance; cuckoo clock; detachment.

Alex: Diplomatic skill; Balthazar; connoisseur; borders; Infanta Isabella; 1628; Milan; opening negotiations of peace and truce through paintings.

Jared: Disco Bloodbath; memoir vs. fiction; manipulations of addictions; awareness.

Tiffany: Abruptly frightening; burst of intuition; angst; muted; "Better frightened than lied to."



You can forgive me for this too, but i won't apologise for it, that i'm immediately attracted to sound ideas; so phrases like, "the sounds of my mother feeding my brothers"--aside from being an amazing segment of literature--are instantly interesting to me.

Lastly i'll take this post op to propose a Risk Spectrum, since we talked quite a bit about risks and the extents to which we go to "feel something finally": In the middle you have Addicts and Thrill Seekers, a person consumed with his self and his own world; at one end, say the right end, you have the Believers and Sacrificers, those consumed with a wider idea, usually what they perceive to be a positive idea. Open to debate, but i think at the opposite are the Anarchists, (according to Chesterton) those who thrive on the power, status, clout that they derive from destroying things with malicious intent.

Noel Coward and Magritte

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~edb/pipe.html- for my image of Magritte's pipe that isn't a pipe....

Below is the text I read in class about Noel Coward.....

Kristen

‘The Playboy was a Spy’: Excerpts from the Stephen Kock article in the NYT about Noel Coward’s espionage work

‘Celebrity was a wonderful cover, My disguise would be my own reputation as a bit of an idiot…..a merry playboy.’

‘I learned a lot from the technical people. ‘

‘I could have made a career in espionage, except, my life’s been full enough of intrigue as it is.’

The ideas was to use his public personality- the merry playboy- the ‘don’t ask/don’t tell’ gay celebrity- as a mask for his passionate antifascism.

‘We have nothing to worry about but the destruction of civilization.’

‘I wanted to prove integrity to myself ‘

Perhaps a lifetime of concealing his own private life gave him a knack for the clandestine.

‘I was the perfect silly ass. Nobody considered I had a sensible thought in my head and they would say all kinds of things that I’d pass along.’

It was Robert Vansittart, senior diplomat, who spotted how to use Coward’s flamboyance, intelligence and flawless memory to help lend an unofficial, off-the-books anti-Nazi intelligence network he had set up across Europe.

Coward failed to fool the Nazis. He was soon on the Gestapo’s list of people to be ‘liquidated’ when Britain fell.

‘I wrote in a memorandum that if the policy of His Majesty’s Government was to bore the Germans to death I didn’t think we had enough time. ‘

‘Secret papers have disclosed his pro-Nazi perfidy, which, of course, I was perfectly aware of at the time…What a monumental ass he has always been.’ (on Windsor)

‘I had a gnawing suspicion that there was something about me he didn’t like’ (on Churchill)

In 1940 he kept the White House in stitches singing ‘Mad Dogs and Englishman” straight through, very fast, twice. Over a private nightcap, Roosevelt discussed his desire to ‘manage’ the march of events toward aid for Britain.

On an unmarked floor in a gloomy building near Victoria Station, Coward has his first meeting with ‘Intrepid’,(Sir William Stephenson, spymaster code named Intrepid) who immediately sent him back to the Americas, with a stop in Hollywood.

How important was Coward’s work? In 1941, Intrepid was sufficiently impressed to propose Coward for a still mysterious job requiring approval from the top. The answer, from Churchill, was ‘no’.

‘With me, everything always turns out for the best, because I am bloody determined that it shall. ‘(his response at being turned down).

A week later, he sat down and wrote Blythe Spirit in five days. It kept Londoners laughing for the rest of the war.

Language in Service of a Naritive

"Historical events should be used as props to hang ideas on"
-an approximate quote from Melia

Quotes and ideas from materials brought in:

• risk so much for so little
• why do we risk
• necessity for violence
• The immortal story about making love on the tracks
• Happiness come from contribution to a larger belief
• protector figure
• ray of hope
• fantasy and solitude
• murder V execution and the ceremony of death / killing
• excitement from own importance
• where loyalties lay
• top of the ferris wheel detachment / cost of actions
• intuition
• soft silence makes things clear
• anxious hands
• better frightened than lied to

Questions and thoughts to answer:

• Does drama need character? To be decided BUT it does need a story.
• Thematic V Dramatic
• The human ripple > effects of actions on and throughout your time history

Responses to the scenes:

• Text in to sound
• the elasticity of time and events / repetition of themes throughout time
  
• Importance of rhythm and pulse
• Faining ignorance or stupidity to trick people into trusting you
• How do the betrayers gain trust? Through charm?
• Choreography of ceremony. Courtly dance.
• Showing the process of artistry
• Disruption of everyday life because you are bored
  
• Life as white noise and some people are okay with it
• people who do / people who watch
• line of people gossiping

Another Melia quote for your entertainment:
"Because I'm your mother and I don't need shit every moment of my life"

I was looking for the clip of the tale of gossip / pillow feathers from Doubt and didn't find it but did find footage of mass pillow fights. Maybe not useful but funny.

If you would like to use this as a place to load your pictures and songs do it up.

Checking My Capacity To Post Properly

Here's a list of movies i was encouraged to check out late one night after explaining the nature of this class to some old-school thespians. I've added a couple others that went by...

"The Spy Who Came In From the Cold"
"39 Steps"
"The Truman Show"
"Sex, Lies and Videotape"
"Apocalypse Now"
"Who Killed the Electric Car"
"Quiz Show"
"Syriana" (sp?)
"The Last Emporor"
"Serpico"
"Catch Me If You Can"
"The Departed"

A Dalton Trumble was also recommended, an author i think. Also, Heart of Darkness by Conrad. Bear in mind, if some of these seem a stretch, that it was quite late at night, after a large dinner, with quite a bit of good wine, good company, and good indigestion.

Anyway, this is just a test. But watch them all tonight.

testing a post

I am trying to learn how to post something on our new blog. I urge you all to try too!
-Melia

Welcome to Adaptations. You Lie. All of You!

First Class: Why do we START telling LIES?

insecurity

devotion

NEED to Know

friendship

loneliness 

defense

misdirections

misinformation

trust

dependent

infiltrate 

prod

hierarchy 

allegiance 

Betrayal

faithful

cheating