DVD: Lost Horizon, starring Ronald Colman and Jane Wyatt, and directed by Frank Capra.
Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley gently guided from a monastery of lamas; it is an earthly paradise. The story begins with a soldier and diplomat named Robert Conway, played by Ronald Colman, rescues 90 Westerners in Baskul, China during 1935 revolution and gets his plane hijacked and lands in mysterious place in Himalayan Mountains called Shangri-La. The founder of Shangri-La is several hundreds of years old, preserved by the magical properties of the paradise he has created and he wants Conway to head the mission as a future High Lama. Most residents are very old and had found peace in the valley and Conway is expected to lead. Initially he and his rescues wish to return to civilization, but gradually they learn to love Shangri-La, including paleontologist Alexander Lovett (Edward Everett Horton), swindler Henry Barnard (Thomas Mitchell) and terminally ill Gloria Stone (Isabel Jewell). Conway is particularly enchanted, especially when he meets Sondra (Jane Wyatt), who has grown up in Shangri-La. However, he changes his mind and leaves for his home in England. Eventually he changes his mind again and finds his way back to Shangri La. The highlight of movie is filming of snow scenes in Himalayas and the avalanche that kills many Conway’s followers. It is a spectacular piece of photography even by today’s standards with computer imagery and graphics.
The message of the movie is given by High Lama in his conversation with Conway, when he says, “When brutality and the lust for power must perish by its own sword; against that time, is why I avoided death, and am here. And why you were brought here. For when that day comes, the world must begin to look for a new life. And it is our hope that they may find it here. For here, we shall be with their books and their music, and a way of life based on one simple rule: Be Kind! When that day comes, it is our hope that the brotherly love of Shangri-La will spread throughout the world.”
I strongly recommended this DVD to anyone who likes Frank Capra’s movies.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Homes of rich and famous in Hollywood
Book Reviewed: Movie Star Homes, By Judy Artunian and Mike Oldham.
This is a very interesting book for all fans of Hollywood stars, and for those who would like to visit Hollywood and Beverly Hills to see movie star homes. This book provides the address of many Hollywood stars from silent era to the currently active actors and actresses. Most of these houses are located in Beverly Hills and surrounding areas in Southern California. So, if you are driving, then it is easy to cover a lot of houses in one day trip. The authors provide for each house, the street address, a picture of the house, and a brief profile of the actor/actress. In some cases the history of the house is also discussed.
One of the reasons that this book interested me was that it contains the addresses of some of my favorite stars of 1920s and 1930s movies. I have NOT listed all the names here, but some of my favorite star’s address includes; June Allyson, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, Fred Astaire, Mary Astor, Theda Bara, Lionel Barrymore, Joan Blondell, Clara Bow, Louise Brooks, Billie Burke, Ruth Chatterton, Joan Crawford, Marion Davies, Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Greer Garson, Janet Gaynor, Lillian Gish, Cary Grant, Jean Harlow, Barbara La Marr, Hedy La Marr, Carole Lombard, Myrna Loy, Jeanette MacDonald, Ramon Navarro, Mary Pickford, Norma Shearer, Barbara Stanwyck, Mae West, and Loretta Young. There are also some younger star home addresses that include; Kim Bassinger, George Clooney, Nicole Kidman and others. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in Hollywood history.
This is a very interesting book for all fans of Hollywood stars, and for those who would like to visit Hollywood and Beverly Hills to see movie star homes. This book provides the address of many Hollywood stars from silent era to the currently active actors and actresses. Most of these houses are located in Beverly Hills and surrounding areas in Southern California. So, if you are driving, then it is easy to cover a lot of houses in one day trip. The authors provide for each house, the street address, a picture of the house, and a brief profile of the actor/actress. In some cases the history of the house is also discussed.
One of the reasons that this book interested me was that it contains the addresses of some of my favorite stars of 1920s and 1930s movies. I have NOT listed all the names here, but some of my favorite star’s address includes; June Allyson, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, Fred Astaire, Mary Astor, Theda Bara, Lionel Barrymore, Joan Blondell, Clara Bow, Louise Brooks, Billie Burke, Ruth Chatterton, Joan Crawford, Marion Davies, Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Greer Garson, Janet Gaynor, Lillian Gish, Cary Grant, Jean Harlow, Barbara La Marr, Hedy La Marr, Carole Lombard, Myrna Loy, Jeanette MacDonald, Ramon Navarro, Mary Pickford, Norma Shearer, Barbara Stanwyck, Mae West, and Loretta Young. There are also some younger star home addresses that include; Kim Bassinger, George Clooney, Nicole Kidman and others. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in Hollywood history.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Alla Nazimova’s melodrama, Salome, in all its gaiety
Movie Reviewed: Salome (1923), starring Alla Nazimova
This is Alla Nazimova’s most enduring cultural significance in Oscar Wilde’s Salome, a dramatized and excessively stylized silent film produced in 1923. In this Art Nouveau treatment of the Biblical tale with sets and costumes designed by her lesbian lover and close friend Natacha Rambova, the expression of incest, blood-lust and provocative nakedness is handled wonderfully except for the fact that there is an excessive gay overture among guards. This movie is largely regarded as an art film with catchy costumes, gay guards, and even John the Baptist looks more like a gay man than a prophet. The set is minimal which shows the courtyard of King Herod and his execution of John the Baptist (called Jokaanan) at the request of his stepdaughter, Salomé, with whom the king lusts and long for incestuous affair. Salome spurned by John the Baptist for her act of love; she turns against him, and gets him executed and eventually expresses her love for the severed head. The movie is only 43 minute long and it is focused on atmosphere where Salome expresses her love for John the Baptist. The two guard characters, next to Salomé, have the most screen time, express stereotypical gay romance, and many female courtiers are actually drag queens. The movie is strongly supported by the music of Richard Strauss (Op. 54) who wrote the music and opera for Wilde’s Salome.
Hollywood historian Kenneth Anger’s claimed that Nazimova hired only “homosexual” cast members for this film, because of her traditional support for that life style. She spent most of her fortune, $350,000 in 1923 to make this movie which turned out to be a dud. She went bankrupt after this movie. There are numerous edited versions of this film circulated for many years, but this restored DVD which is shortened significantly to only 43 minutes is acceptable in terms of film quality but sure is a treat for all Nazimova’s fans. Salome was added to the National Film Registry in 2000 for its historical significance.
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This is Alla Nazimova’s most enduring cultural significance in Oscar Wilde’s Salome, a dramatized and excessively stylized silent film produced in 1923. In this Art Nouveau treatment of the Biblical tale with sets and costumes designed by her lesbian lover and close friend Natacha Rambova, the expression of incest, blood-lust and provocative nakedness is handled wonderfully except for the fact that there is an excessive gay overture among guards. This movie is largely regarded as an art film with catchy costumes, gay guards, and even John the Baptist looks more like a gay man than a prophet. The set is minimal which shows the courtyard of King Herod and his execution of John the Baptist (called Jokaanan) at the request of his stepdaughter, Salomé, with whom the king lusts and long for incestuous affair. Salome spurned by John the Baptist for her act of love; she turns against him, and gets him executed and eventually expresses her love for the severed head. The movie is only 43 minute long and it is focused on atmosphere where Salome expresses her love for John the Baptist. The two guard characters, next to Salomé, have the most screen time, express stereotypical gay romance, and many female courtiers are actually drag queens. The movie is strongly supported by the music of Richard Strauss (Op. 54) who wrote the music and opera for Wilde’s Salome.
Hollywood historian Kenneth Anger’s claimed that Nazimova hired only “homosexual” cast members for this film, because of her traditional support for that life style. She spent most of her fortune, $350,000 in 1923 to make this movie which turned out to be a dud. She went bankrupt after this movie. There are numerous edited versions of this film circulated for many years, but this restored DVD which is shortened significantly to only 43 minutes is acceptable in terms of film quality but sure is a treat for all Nazimova’s fans. Salome was added to the National Film Registry in 2000 for its historical significance.
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Wednesday, February 19, 2014
The sewing circle and the secret garden in 1920s Hollywood
Book Reviewed: Sappho goes to Hollywood: The Girls, by Diana McLellan
This is a highly readable book and the author has way with words when she describes feminists of 1920s Hollywood who were redefining sexuality and marriage. The so called sewing circle consisted of a significant number of Hollywood elite who chose and practiced their sexuality openly and lavender marriages, supported by studios, were accepted with grace. It was a daring practice of post-WWI feminism.
The author focusses on three major stars who were notorious bisexuals with large preference for women, namely, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Tallulah Bankhead. The greatest “conqueror” of sewing circle was probably poet and playwright Mercedes De Acosta who had numerous gorgeous ladies in her count, from Europe to California. Her affairs with some of the well-known ladies like; Great Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Alla Nazimova, Eva Le Gallienne, Ona Munson, Natacha Rambova, and Lilyan Tashman. She was an obscure writer but rose to prominence to enjoy the brightness of life for 40 years. She used creative methods to conquer ladies. Sometimes Mercedes would use her husband’s art studio, get models into the studio for painting and then would seduce them. In this manner she managed to make love to Helen Menken, Charlotte Monterey, Greta Cooper, Valentina Schlee, and Katherine Cornell. Alla’s marriage with actor Charles Bryant; Mercedes De Acosta with Abram Poole; Lilyan Tashman with Edmond Lowe, and Rudolph Valentino with Jean Acker and later with Natacha Rambova were well-known examples of lavender marriages.
In the vanguard of lesbian/bisexual chic included Libby Holman, DuPont heiress Louisa Carpenter, Joan Crawford, Estelle Winwood, Blythe Daly, Barbara Stanwyck, Marjorie Maine, Jean Acker, singer Libby Holman, comedienne Bea Lillie, Isabell Hill, Louise Brooks, Gladys Calthrop, Mimsey Duggett, Katharine Hepburn, Salka Viertel, Dorothy Azner, Natacha Rambova, Patsy Kelly, Kay Frances, Dolores Del Rio, Ona Munson, Jazz singer Billie Holiday, Josephine Baker and many more.
Lesbian love walked into New York stage when Edouard Bourdet’s play, “The Captive” premiered on Broadway in 1927 and Helen Menken (wife of Humphrey Bogart) plays lesbian woman who receives amour nosegays of violet, used as a symbol of lesbian love, from her lover. Menken received many warm missives from deans of several women’s colleges across United States. Radclyffe Hall’s 1928 lesbian novel, “The well of loneliness” had torn the veil of silence and Mary Casals autobiography, “The Stone Wall” about lesbian love were adding substance to the myth.
The author reveals a well-known secret about Garbo and Dietrich who claimed to be lifelong strangers, but actually they had met in Berlin and Vienna at lesbian hangouts in 1920s. In the movie, “Joyless Street” produced in 1925 casted both women. The book shows still photographs from the movie to prove this point. Garbo was well known for being secretive and went to extraordinary length to protect her privacy.
Lilyan Tashman was a highly skilled missionary for the joy of lesbian sex. Women were warned of avoiding trip to the powder room with Lilyan because she would corner any attractive woman and plunge her to highly skilled lovemaking. She boasted that she can steal any woman from any man. Her bathroom advances were so overt that Irene Selznick said that she hasn’t seen anything like her overtures. Ann Warner, wife of Jack warner seduced by Marlene Dietrich when she was in Paris and she showed the lesbian hangouts and private rooms at the famous Sphinx Club. Later Ann Warner becomes a full pledged member of sewing circle. When Marlene did the movie “A Foreign Affair” costarring Jean Arthur and directed by Billy Wilder, Marlene reportedly had affairs with everyone from the set from stand-ins and secretaries to stuntmen and didn’t give a damn about the gossip. Tallulah Bankhead sought sex of every variety constantly, hungrily, loudly, candidly and without reservation. Once she told Joan Crawford that she had sex with her husband Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and she will be next. Tallulah adored Marlene Dietrich even though they preyed on same women and men.
Not everything is sex; the last few chapters discuss the work done by the leading ladies of Hollywood on USO tour and other wartime services for the troops both in United States and Europe. Notable work was done Marlene Dietrich who was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the civilian equivalent of Congressional Medal of Honor.
This is a highly readable book and the author has way with words when she describes feminists of 1920s Hollywood who were redefining sexuality and marriage. The so called sewing circle consisted of a significant number of Hollywood elite who chose and practiced their sexuality openly and lavender marriages, supported by studios, were accepted with grace. It was a daring practice of post-WWI feminism.
The author focusses on three major stars who were notorious bisexuals with large preference for women, namely, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Tallulah Bankhead. The greatest “conqueror” of sewing circle was probably poet and playwright Mercedes De Acosta who had numerous gorgeous ladies in her count, from Europe to California. Her affairs with some of the well-known ladies like; Great Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Alla Nazimova, Eva Le Gallienne, Ona Munson, Natacha Rambova, and Lilyan Tashman. She was an obscure writer but rose to prominence to enjoy the brightness of life for 40 years. She used creative methods to conquer ladies. Sometimes Mercedes would use her husband’s art studio, get models into the studio for painting and then would seduce them. In this manner she managed to make love to Helen Menken, Charlotte Monterey, Greta Cooper, Valentina Schlee, and Katherine Cornell. Alla’s marriage with actor Charles Bryant; Mercedes De Acosta with Abram Poole; Lilyan Tashman with Edmond Lowe, and Rudolph Valentino with Jean Acker and later with Natacha Rambova were well-known examples of lavender marriages.
In the vanguard of lesbian/bisexual chic included Libby Holman, DuPont heiress Louisa Carpenter, Joan Crawford, Estelle Winwood, Blythe Daly, Barbara Stanwyck, Marjorie Maine, Jean Acker, singer Libby Holman, comedienne Bea Lillie, Isabell Hill, Louise Brooks, Gladys Calthrop, Mimsey Duggett, Katharine Hepburn, Salka Viertel, Dorothy Azner, Natacha Rambova, Patsy Kelly, Kay Frances, Dolores Del Rio, Ona Munson, Jazz singer Billie Holiday, Josephine Baker and many more.
Lesbian love walked into New York stage when Edouard Bourdet’s play, “The Captive” premiered on Broadway in 1927 and Helen Menken (wife of Humphrey Bogart) plays lesbian woman who receives amour nosegays of violet, used as a symbol of lesbian love, from her lover. Menken received many warm missives from deans of several women’s colleges across United States. Radclyffe Hall’s 1928 lesbian novel, “The well of loneliness” had torn the veil of silence and Mary Casals autobiography, “The Stone Wall” about lesbian love were adding substance to the myth.
The author reveals a well-known secret about Garbo and Dietrich who claimed to be lifelong strangers, but actually they had met in Berlin and Vienna at lesbian hangouts in 1920s. In the movie, “Joyless Street” produced in 1925 casted both women. The book shows still photographs from the movie to prove this point. Garbo was well known for being secretive and went to extraordinary length to protect her privacy.
Lilyan Tashman was a highly skilled missionary for the joy of lesbian sex. Women were warned of avoiding trip to the powder room with Lilyan because she would corner any attractive woman and plunge her to highly skilled lovemaking. She boasted that she can steal any woman from any man. Her bathroom advances were so overt that Irene Selznick said that she hasn’t seen anything like her overtures. Ann Warner, wife of Jack warner seduced by Marlene Dietrich when she was in Paris and she showed the lesbian hangouts and private rooms at the famous Sphinx Club. Later Ann Warner becomes a full pledged member of sewing circle. When Marlene did the movie “A Foreign Affair” costarring Jean Arthur and directed by Billy Wilder, Marlene reportedly had affairs with everyone from the set from stand-ins and secretaries to stuntmen and didn’t give a damn about the gossip. Tallulah Bankhead sought sex of every variety constantly, hungrily, loudly, candidly and without reservation. Once she told Joan Crawford that she had sex with her husband Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and she will be next. Tallulah adored Marlene Dietrich even though they preyed on same women and men.
Not everything is sex; the last few chapters discuss the work done by the leading ladies of Hollywood on USO tour and other wartime services for the troops both in United States and Europe. Notable work was done Marlene Dietrich who was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the civilian equivalent of Congressional Medal of Honor.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Discovering the Self
Book Reviewed: Me, Myself, and Why: Searching for the Science of Self, by Jennifer Ouellette
Self is a process and not a thing and the process is present at all times when we are presumed to be conscious. It is not located in any particular part of the body but it is an emergent phenomenon. If there is no matter (or energy), the mind doesn't exist. Soul is uniquely generated by the causal interaction with myriads of elements of the self. The Self-as-Object (the material "me") and Self-as-Knower (the subjective, self-aware "I") are linked. The former is the fundamental cognitive layer that we share with all animals and the latter is a richer self-representation that is uniquely human.
The Self is viewed differently in many fields of study. Physicists suggest that consciousness and the laws of physics are a coherent whole. Existence is explained by the operation of laws of physics on matter (or energy) in spacetime, and consciousness is inherently entangled with physical reality. For a biochemist, self would result from biochemical mechanisms involving genes, hormones, proteins, enzymes and a host of environmental factors that shapes up an individual. The intricate wirings of the brain are the essence of self for a neurobiologist, and for a social psychologist, it is a product of our environment and surroundings. For Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism and many philosophers, reality is an illusion.
In this book, Science journalist Jennifer Ouellette has done extensive literature study to write this challenging book. Even though she has not done any original research in this field, but she has been in touch with the subject matter from discussions with leading biologists, neurologists, geneticists and psychologists. A brief summary of the book is as follows; one of the most active regions of brain, when it comes to our sense of self, is the prefrontal cortex. It is the default mode network which is more active during daydreaming and is critical to self-recognition. This is where we store our representations of the people we know and process social information and predict how other people are likely to behave. So what accounts for the individual differences? The information encoded in the unique synaptic patters in a person's brain is determined partly by genes and partly by environment. Synapses are not passive storage devices but are modified by experiences, and the brain shapes its unique sense of self. Each and every wire in the brain; the dendrites and axons that form the synaptic connections between neurons shapes self. A comprehensive map of neural connections in the brain (the wiring diagram/circuit diagram of brain) is called connectome and they define the characteristics of self. The functions of the connectomes during the resting state and during tasks help in understanding how neural structures result in specific functional behavior such as consciousness. Connectomes are modified by altering the connections as a response to neural activity patterns that accompany experiences. This is where personal nature meets physical nature. Since brains re-wire constantly in response to experience, one would need many connectomes to construct detailed map of synapses. In addition we need a theory to relate brain-functions to anatomical connectivity, because mere anatomy is like a network of roads, but that will not provide the functions, unless we know all the vehicles on the road and cargo they are carrying and where they are headed including their origin, then we will have some knowledge of overall economic and social functions.
With regards to future, the author has something interesting. It is possible to get a total personality download of our selves, an avatar or an incarnation of an individual self in virtual reality in cyberspace. With immersive digital technology, the avatar won't be you in the sense of a conscious being, but a perfect representation of you with which your future generations can interact with this digital self of yourself. An avatar of the future will learn and grow just like a real life of you. It not only uses real life memories of you and your experiences but also learns from its interaction with its environment and people. You can upload your consciousness, mind, memories, thoughts and experiences into cyberspace and achieve immortality. Many neurobiologists believe that this may create many different representations of us that live in virtual space. The biggest challenge in all this is creating human consciousness in cyberspace.
She amuses herself and the readers with her excursion into the Wonderland using "Orange Sunshine," the mind-altering substance LSD to discover herself. This is unorthodox and juvenile excursion, but she defends her actions by listing many luminaries in science, technology and show-business who also used this psychedelic substance. The author concludes with no firm thought on the nature of self and consciousness but some key ideas from leading biologists and medical professionals are discussed. One thing that struck me was that she has not discussed physicists' perspectives of consciousness that are in better agreement with many philosophers, even though many of her friends are physicists and her husband is Caltech physicist Sean Carroll. I recommend this book to anyone interested in biology of Self.
Self is a process and not a thing and the process is present at all times when we are presumed to be conscious. It is not located in any particular part of the body but it is an emergent phenomenon. If there is no matter (or energy), the mind doesn't exist. Soul is uniquely generated by the causal interaction with myriads of elements of the self. The Self-as-Object (the material "me") and Self-as-Knower (the subjective, self-aware "I") are linked. The former is the fundamental cognitive layer that we share with all animals and the latter is a richer self-representation that is uniquely human.
The Self is viewed differently in many fields of study. Physicists suggest that consciousness and the laws of physics are a coherent whole. Existence is explained by the operation of laws of physics on matter (or energy) in spacetime, and consciousness is inherently entangled with physical reality. For a biochemist, self would result from biochemical mechanisms involving genes, hormones, proteins, enzymes and a host of environmental factors that shapes up an individual. The intricate wirings of the brain are the essence of self for a neurobiologist, and for a social psychologist, it is a product of our environment and surroundings. For Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism and many philosophers, reality is an illusion.
In this book, Science journalist Jennifer Ouellette has done extensive literature study to write this challenging book. Even though she has not done any original research in this field, but she has been in touch with the subject matter from discussions with leading biologists, neurologists, geneticists and psychologists. A brief summary of the book is as follows; one of the most active regions of brain, when it comes to our sense of self, is the prefrontal cortex. It is the default mode network which is more active during daydreaming and is critical to self-recognition. This is where we store our representations of the people we know and process social information and predict how other people are likely to behave. So what accounts for the individual differences? The information encoded in the unique synaptic patters in a person's brain is determined partly by genes and partly by environment. Synapses are not passive storage devices but are modified by experiences, and the brain shapes its unique sense of self. Each and every wire in the brain; the dendrites and axons that form the synaptic connections between neurons shapes self. A comprehensive map of neural connections in the brain (the wiring diagram/circuit diagram of brain) is called connectome and they define the characteristics of self. The functions of the connectomes during the resting state and during tasks help in understanding how neural structures result in specific functional behavior such as consciousness. Connectomes are modified by altering the connections as a response to neural activity patterns that accompany experiences. This is where personal nature meets physical nature. Since brains re-wire constantly in response to experience, one would need many connectomes to construct detailed map of synapses. In addition we need a theory to relate brain-functions to anatomical connectivity, because mere anatomy is like a network of roads, but that will not provide the functions, unless we know all the vehicles on the road and cargo they are carrying and where they are headed including their origin, then we will have some knowledge of overall economic and social functions.
With regards to future, the author has something interesting. It is possible to get a total personality download of our selves, an avatar or an incarnation of an individual self in virtual reality in cyberspace. With immersive digital technology, the avatar won't be you in the sense of a conscious being, but a perfect representation of you with which your future generations can interact with this digital self of yourself. An avatar of the future will learn and grow just like a real life of you. It not only uses real life memories of you and your experiences but also learns from its interaction with its environment and people. You can upload your consciousness, mind, memories, thoughts and experiences into cyberspace and achieve immortality. Many neurobiologists believe that this may create many different representations of us that live in virtual space. The biggest challenge in all this is creating human consciousness in cyberspace.
She amuses herself and the readers with her excursion into the Wonderland using "Orange Sunshine," the mind-altering substance LSD to discover herself. This is unorthodox and juvenile excursion, but she defends her actions by listing many luminaries in science, technology and show-business who also used this psychedelic substance. The author concludes with no firm thought on the nature of self and consciousness but some key ideas from leading biologists and medical professionals are discussed. One thing that struck me was that she has not discussed physicists' perspectives of consciousness that are in better agreement with many philosophers, even though many of her friends are physicists and her husband is Caltech physicist Sean Carroll. I recommend this book to anyone interested in biology of Self.
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