Incontinence We Trust

Now that thanksgiving has given my brain plenty of terrestrial, non-plastic food to work from, I've found the ol' lump o' green lard catching up on magazine reading, blog visiting, T.V.-watching, and movie gorging, all done in earnest, and all performed with a haste natural only to the worst manifestations of lethargy, unambition, and lackadaisical sloth. Among the winners this week:

• Barry Lyndon is surely one of the most underrated movies in history. Captured on special lenses designed so that artificial lighting wasn't necessary (the largest apertures ever used in film), Lyndon is both the oft-copied blueprint and the defining oeuvre of "period" cinema. Everything in this movie is gorgeous, cinematic, and thouroughly 18th Century. Looking very much like a series of Early Modern and late-classical paintings, and using not one film set, Lyndon follows a young Esquire from Ireland (Redmond Barry, Esq., who is later to assume the title of the movie's namesake) as he makes his way across Europe, posing, at different times, as a solider, a deserter, a spy, a gambler, an addict, a chauvenist, a debutante, a sidekick, a conman, a Prussian, a Prussian solider, an Irishman pretending to be a Prussian police officer, an Irishman pretending to be a Prussian police officer pretending to be an Irish spy, a British lieutenant charged with delivering fictional dispatches to a rather deceased General, a father, a deadbeat, and so on. Just read this bit of a passage, all delivered in deadpan Irish by the actors, with great pauses of silence inserted between each line (the accent is essential for things like "How do you do?", which end up sounding more like "Whoodyadoo?"):

Captain Feeny: How do you do? I'm Captain Feeny.
Redmond Barry: Captain Feeny?
Captain Feeny: Captain Feeny at your service.
Redmond Barry: The Captain Feeny?
Captain Feeny: None other. May I introduce you to my son, Seamus?
Seamus: How do you do?
Redmond Barry: How do you do?
Captain Feeny: To whom have I the honor of speaking?
Redmond Barry: My name's Redmond Barry.
Captain Feeny: How do you do Mr. Barry? And now I'm afraid we must get on to the more regrettable stage of our brief acquaintance. Turn around, and keep your hands high above your head, please.
Seamus: There must be 20 guineas in gold here, father!
Captain Feeny: Well, well, well. You seem to be a very well set up young gentleman, sir.
Redmond Barry: Captain Feeny, that's all the money me mother had in the world. Mightn't I be allowed to keep it? I'm just one step ahead of the law myself. I killed and English officer in a duel, and I'm on my way to Dublin until things cool down.
Captain Feeny: Mr. Barry, in my profession we hear many such stories. Yours is one of the most intriguing and touching I've heard in many weeks. Nevertheless, I'm afraid I cannot grant your request. But I'll tell you what I will do. I'll allow you to keep those fine pair of boots which in normal circumstances I would have for myself. The next town is only five miles away, and I suggest you now start walking.
Redmond Barry: Mightn't I be allowed to keep my horse?
Captain Feeny: I should like to oblige you, but with people like us, we must be able to travel faster than our clients.



Later, from the narrator, this passage is read in a taught, dry English accent:


The Prussian service was considerably worse than that of the English. The life that the private soldier led was a frightful one. Punishment was incessant, and every officer had the right to inflict it. The gauntlet was the most common penalty for minor offenses. More serious ones were punishable by mutilation or death. At the close of the Seven Years' War, the army, renowned for its disciplined valor, was officered by native Prussians. But it was composed, for the most part, of men from the lowest levels of humanity — hired, or stolen from almost every nation in Europe. Thus Barry fell into the very worst of courses and company, and was soon very far advanced in the science of every kind of misconduct.



And finally, this gem of a dandy:


Fate had determined that he should leave none of his race behind him, and that he should finish his life poor, lonely and childless.



Unfortunately for Ryan O'Neal, whose career never went anywhere afterwards, Barry Lyndon was directed by Stanley Kubrick and is thus looked down upon in light of its directorial company, the likes of which include A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Paths of Glory, Spartacus, Dr. Strangelove, and, of course, Lolita. I love a good period piece, though, and Barry Lyndon stands head-and-shoulders above most as one of the best (along with recents like Master and Commander, Gangs of New York and Memoirs of a Geisha... though the latter two were somewhat contrived, I still find them simply beautiful pieces of setwork and photography). Plus, Lyndon is Martin Scorcese's favourite Kubrick film. Do give poor Barry a try!

• Heroes is a great show. I haven't seen the first two episodes, but "sat in" on the third when it aired earlier this week. I quickly found myself looking up the plots to the first two episodes online — as lame as a show about people with "superpowers" could be, this one is not.

• Lastly, thanks to my friend Devin DeCiantis at The Walrus Magazine for passing this along. It seems the Chinese have an Area 51-type installation in Ningxia, Northern China — but instead of hiding aliens and testing stealth technology, the Chinese have decided to built a 900m x 700m, 500:1 exact scale model of their border with India and Pakistan... some 2,500 kilometres away from that border. And, according to a snapshot taken by Xinhua News Agency, the area is inhabited by men in blue jumpsuits. Utterly bizarre. The best part of all of this is that someone simply stumbled on the site while using Google Earth.

Zaht is Ahl,
再见。