Starker on 7/2/2017 at 00:07
I'm glad I lived to see the internet. I like learning languages, which kind of sucked without internet. And my job would suck without internet.
Aja on 7/2/2017 at 01:06
Kolya, it sounds like you didn't learn your lesson from Midnight in Paris.
demagogue on 7/2/2017 at 02:50
I'm half and half with Woody Allen. Manhattan, Match Point, and Sweet and Low Down are up there. I even liked the one set in the Nepoleanic wars, which was pretty absurd.
For that matter I thought Midnight in Paris was fine. It was a fantasy. I didn't really mean to say it was a bad movie, only that it wasn't really authentic to the period. But it wasn't meaning to.
As for the best places to be in history, I think certain cities have golden ages, when something new and culture-altering is really being born, and being in one when that happens, and part of that scene, is best. Paris had it in both the 1890s and 1920s, New York in the 1950s, and Silicon Valley in the late 1970s.
heywood on 7/2/2017 at 15:08
In Paris, while famous artists and writers were hobnobbing with wealthy patrons and politicians at cafes and parties, central Paris was mostly full of poor people living in overcrowded tenements who had no idea of anything culturally significant happening. It couldn't have been that great.
Closer to home, I had friends who fantasized about living in NYC in the 1970s and going to CBGB and Studio 54 etc. But NYC was kind of a bumhole in the 1970s. In the 1980s it was booming, but America's cultural center had moved to Los Angeles. I would much rather have lived in NYC in the 80s than the 70s.
It is good to live in a city during its boom time. I've had the good fortune of experiencing it a few times. There is an air of optimism and positive energy. There is always something new going on. Lots of development. Restaurants and bars opening all the time. There is money to keep things cleaned up. Money for public celebrations. Money for the arts. But if you're willing to be mobile, and not tied down by debts, family, or too much stuff, there is always a city booming somewhere.
BTW, here's a good doco about the early 20th century Paris art scene:
[video=youtube;cgp4hGF_L3E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgp4hGF_L3E[/video]
Thirith on 7/2/2017 at 15:28
Quote Posted by henke
Dema and Thirith, do you guys like Woody Allen movies in general? I liked Midnight in Paris a lot, for the same reason I like most Woody Allen movies. They have this delightful laid-back quality to them. Everything is very low stakes and the characters just kinda amble through the movie. No huge obstacles, at least none that will leave lasting scars. It's just one smooth ride from beginning to end.
Some yes, some no. I probably like the
Annie Hall era best, although I also have a massive soft spot for
Everybody Says I Love You. I like his earlier stuff for its zaniness, but most of what he did after 2000 didn't do much for me or it actively annoyed me.
demagogue on 7/2/2017 at 15:57
For what it's worth, I think that socially well off is not necessarily always best for art and culture. And I care more about the latter than the former. I mean within reason. Obviously it's never good to live in war and extreme poverty.
But even then something special was happening in Zurich cir. 1915 when all the refugees flocked in, and they carried it to Paris in 1919 and then to NY in 1939, at the same time bebop was being born in the after hour jam sessions. Give me the power of those ideas any day.
I guess one thing that made NY special (over Paris or Silicon Valley) is that its revolutions were really democratic. Even the poor sections were participating in the Harlem Rennaissance, in the integrated dance halls or jazz clubs, or following the art. Back when poor blacks & Latinos and starving artists could all still afford rent. So I'd favor scenes like that.
Kolya on 7/2/2017 at 18:56
Incidentally Athens is a culturally booming city, despite what one might think because of Greece's debts.
Quote Posted by Aja
Kolya, it sounds like you didn't learn your lesson from Midnight in Paris.
I understood the "lesson", but chose to gracefully ignore it, since the film is such a delight for 1920s lovers. There is no actual chance to get back anyway, so I consider longing for some bygone era a harmless foible.
Kolya on 7/2/2017 at 23:53
I watched the pilot of "Z. The Beginning of everything" today despite Amazon's best efforts to keep me from watching this free episode. And it looks like Zelda is getting a (
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HistoricalHeroUpgrade) Historical Hero Upgrade. She swims naked in the sea, she speaks up to her authoritarian dad, she smokes, drinks, kisses all the men. Right off the bat she's a modern woman strangely captured in what must be 1918 by the looks. There may be some truth in fiction but it seems overdone for effect. And after reading some more I've come to understand that there are quite a few people out to revise her history.
Starker on 8/2/2017 at 03:55
Portraying past eras is always kind of difficult, because people don't perceive authentic things as being authentic. What was scandalous behaviour in the past might go completely unnoticed by the modern viewer. For example, the writers of Deadwood considered using the rough slang of the period, but they very soon gave up on the idea, because it sounded completely ridiculous to the current viewer, consisting of words like nincompoop and tarnation and goldarn.
demagogue on 8/2/2017 at 09:09
The other thing I remember from Deadwood is that the had Calamity Jane wear pants to show how masculine she was, when in every picture I could find she was always wearing a dress. She just wore a leather jacket and maybe walked rather manishly, which for the time was probably scandalously masculine, but we wouldn't buy it today.
As LP Hartley wrote, "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."
