Stoopid

Remember to let me know what you thought, down with the download!

No no, it's important, but forgive me...what are the Rodan??

Well, it would be unthinkable for me to understand Pasolini; let's just say that I proceed by flashes and suggestions, now and then he, like others, sparks a chain of neurons in me, that’s all. In fact, I have never reviewed a Pasolini due to my obvious incapacity. But by intuition, it seems to me that these are damn serious matters. The other day I watched a documentary about Fassbinder (in Russian). At one point, a guy who knew him said something that my translator conveyed to me as follows: "being close to him (Fassbinder) made you feel like you were truly living." This is what’s called serious thinking (and what the hell!).

Everything is fine, of course. But please don’t frame it as something between us (but who are "us," anyway?) and you (where "you" would be you, Pasolini, Citti, and Vian?!). Pasolini said everything you quote (or is it "Citti"?), and for that reason, you should address him formally. You can speak to me informally without fear. But above all, he did not know arrogance, nor did he go to write in the neighborhood rags to quarrel with the little lords of the faculties. He had serious matters in mind.

Failed because there are ways and ways to abuse the Italian language, some of which are magnificent and open up other worlds. But your distortions (evidently intentional, hence provocative) seem to me only annoying and childish. In short, Vian meant none of this, believe me. The idea of an unaccented "sè" is nice; imagine how cool it would be to superimpose it on the hypothetical "se" and start a discussion about the hypothetical nature of being itself, and so on. But in your "se," I really see very little of value. Failed also because the only decent stuff in your texts is well-written and belongs to Vian, Rollins, or Pasolini himself. Finally, failed for the vulgarity of YOUR comments in YOUR review, so that no one feels inclined to comment or talk about art. In short, Paso would not be happy to read this arrogant page.

Thanks to you Dalet, I had invoked at least one who would watch it and love it, and I’m glad it happened. Last night I was on Google Earth retracing the locations from the movie, the Death Valley and the dry lakes of Utah. A spectacle.

Surely there is no beauty in itself. In our praises of Visconti and those who create beauty, there is no absolute judgment (unlike the praises for those who create shopping malls). It’s simply a mutual recognition, you see, someone starts with the praises, I recognize that beauty and raise my hand: "I praise too." And so on. As for philosophizing about beauty, well, I stop at the primordial dichotomy of beautiful-ugly; beauty is beautiful and ugliness is not.

For example, in the recently reviewed "Gerry," everything unfolds in a dimension that is in a sense ethereal: friendship, hope, despair, dawn. Van Sant creates a very fertile metaphysical humus and you experience "elevated" feelings. Provided, of course, that it is perceived as such, but here we would fall into "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" or something even worse, so let's leave it at that.

Wow, and you’d like to know it from us?!? I don’t know, beauty is a bit like love, who knows, think about when you’ve seen something really... beaautiful! When I perceive beauty, I feel like another "substance" is released into the air. For me, Beauty transcends matter, always. For example, the representations of Visconti go beyond matter, they refer to something superior, just like the gaze of Martin/Helmut Berger. But in fact, this thing can't be explained, fortunately.

Certainly, Visconti is a formal and aesthetic director, but beware, nothing in Visconti is an end in itself. And after all, what is more substantial than Beauty?