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A math guy's random thoughts. |
| A math guy's random thoughts. |
| Richard Corey My personal soundtrack includes at least a half-dozen songs by Simon and Garfunkel. I remember when, in 1969, my brother gave me their LP The Sounds of Silence for Christmas and being astonished at the music. That album had amazing songs on it, including the title track that had been used in The Graduate, a movie that I was only vaguely aware of at the time. I was 19, and I don't think the movie even came to the little Iowa town where I grew up. About that movie. I have a confession to make. But first, bear with me. I know that The Graduate is a great movie. It's got many iconic scenes. There's the one where the middle-aged guy tells Benjamin, played by Dustin Hoffman, that the future is "plastics." Turns out he was prescient, but not in a good way. Then there's the scene near the end, at the wedding. Of course, the most famous scene is the seduction scene with Mrs. Robinson, played by Ann Bancroft. Today, it's impossible to imagine anyone but Hoffman and Bancroft in their roles, but the director, Mike Nichols, considered many other actors. For Mrs. Robinson, Nichols considered Doris Day, Shelly Winters, Ingrid Bergman, and at least a half dozen others. Doris Day turned the role down because the nudity offended her. Nichols originally offered the part of Benjamin to Bart Ward, who turned it down to play Robin the TV series Batman. (!) Others he considered included Harrison Ford, Robert Redford, and Jack Nicholson. Charles Grodin turned the role down because he wasn't offered enough money. While they weren't the first choices for their roles, both Hoffman and Bancroft were nominated for the Academy Award, for best actor and best actress respectively. This was only Hoffman's second movie appearance, his first being a minor part in a long-forgotten film called Tiger Makes Out. Sometimes, it turns out that your second choice, or even your tenth choice, is the best choice. Anyway, I know that The Graduate is a great movie. The thing is, I've never actually watched it all the way through. That's my confession. It's not like I've not tried. I just can't stay awake during this movie. If Mike Nichols were reading this, I'd want to tell him, "It's not you, it's me." Every time I try to watch it, I wind up falling asleep. I'll wake up and see bits and pieces, but not the whole thing. Maybe I'll try again some day, but I'm so old now I can barely stay awake all the way through any movie, so it's probably a lost cause. Anyway, that's my Simon and Garfunkel confession. This doesn't have much to do with the song in the title of this blog, except that it was on the album my brother gave me that year, the one that introduced me to Simon and Garfunkel and The Graduate. I remember being awestruck by the songs. It led me to seek out Edgar Arlington Robinson and read his poetry as well as explore other songs by Simon and Garfunkel--songs that may or may not make it to this compilation. I chose the song in the blog's title because of its connection to Arlington and his compelling poem. I'm a sucker for a twist ending. Here are some links, starting with Simon and Garfunkel singing Richard Cory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAGKpoVFbmw Richard Cory, poem by Edgar Arlington Robinson https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44982/richard-cory Sounds of Slience, Simon and Garfunkel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fWyzwo1xg0 Seduction Scene in The Graduate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3lKbMBab18 Final scene in The Graduate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahFARm2j38c There's a great future in plastics, from The Graduate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMtLdE5Zq-8 |
| La Mer I just wrote two blogs about classical music, so you probably thought this was going to be about Debussy's "symphony," La Mer. It's not. Instead, it's about the song of the same name by Charles Trenet. Trenet wrote the song one afternoon in 1943 in the south of France. He sang it the same night, "without much impact," according the artist. After the end of the War, the song was recorded in 1945 by Roland Gerbeau after Suzy Solidor declined it. Again, not much impact. It took a while, but eventually the song caught on and now it's a world-wide favorite, a chanson classic and a jazz standard. Along with Edith Piaff's La Vie en rose, it's probably the most recorded French song of all time. By the time of Trenet's passing in 1970, there were over 4000 versions of it and at least seventy million copies in recordings and print. It's been covered by many artists, starting in 1947 when Harry James released an English version of the song, Beyond the Sea, sung by Marion Morgan and with lyrics by Jack Lawrence. The French lyrics are an ode to the sea, but Lawrence turned it into a love song, a perfect fit for the yearning expressed by the melody. This version became Bobby Darin's signature song. Personally, I prefer the French version, not because of the lyrics but because of the sound of the French language. The song itself is romantic in any language regardless of the words, but most especially in French. It has an aching meloncholy that evokes a nostalgia for a lost, and less cynical, era. What made me think of this song was that we happened to watch episode six of the UK SciFi series Black Mirror last night which features the song. The episode is titled, approrpriately enough, Beyond the Sea. The episode itself is pretty wrenching to watch, and not romantic at all. That just makes the song even more achingly beautiful. Here are some links. Charles Trenet in a live performance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXQh9jTwwoA The Harry James, Marion Morgan, Jack Lawrence release of 1947 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s-QnH-IbiA Bobby Darin's version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8OlDPqYBLw Lyrics for La Mer with English translation https://www.rougemusic.com/la-mer Lawrence's English Lyrics for Beyond the Sea https://www.songfacts.com/lyrics/bobby-darin/beyond-the-sea Just for completeteness, here's Piaff singing La Vie en rose https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFzViYkZAz4 In case anyone is interested, here's a link to the Debussy work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOCucJw7iT8 |
| The Hours Who doesn't like cake? Much as I enjoy baking and eating cake, that's not what this blog is about. It's about a piece for piano by Philip Glass, but I've got a circuitous route to explain why. I first heard another modernist piece of music, Stravinksi's RIte of Spring, in a movie theater, watching a Walt Disney animated film, Fantasia. When Rite premiered in 1913, it was shocking. The audience rioted, so hostile was their reaction. Twenty-seven years later, it was still controversial, and Stravinksy was happy to sell the right to use the song to Disney. While the film initially failed commercially, the critcs were generally supportive of the use of the music, in that it brought modern music to the masses. Later, when I heard Stravinksy conducting the actual ballet, I realized that the Disney film had mangled the piece, omitting parts, repeating other parts, and using things of order. Still, I'll wager more people have heard Disney's version of Rite than have heard all of his other works combined. Which brings me back to Philip Glass. This blog about the brilliant score by Philip Glass to the film The Hours. If you haven't seen it, it's well woth watching. The working title for Virginia Woolf's 1925 novel, Mrs. Dalloway, was The Hours, and the movie is loosely based on the novel, with multiple streams of consciousness threading through the narrative. Indeed, Glass's score, with its recursive rhythms and tonalities, provides both unity to the film and another streaming consciousness. You can hear the score here, with the song in the blog's title at 11:00: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heu9tD0dzkY Glass has written scores to numerous films, and been nominated for the Academy Award three times, including for The Hours. But he's also one of the most influential living composers. He studied the classics under Nadia Boulenger, and has collaborated with such popular artists as Paul Simon and David Bowie. Besides his many movie scores, he's written widely performed symphonies and operas. The New York Metropolitan Opera's production of Akhnaten won the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording in 2022. Unlike Stravinsky, who eventually described Fantasia as an "unyielding imbecility," Glass has collalborated with artists wherever he's found them, in whatever venues he can reach. Whether it's the Met, or Netlix's Stranger Things, he's penetrated our culture at multiple levels. Whatever your taste in music, Philip Glass has something for you. Kind of like cake. |
| Pie Jesu I'm not esecially religious, but I often find inspiration in religious music. Earlier blogs in this series have mentioned traditional hymns like Amazing Grace and Softly and Gently. Religion inspired some of the greatest music ever written, such as Mozart's Mass in C Minor or Handel's Messiah. Everything J.S. Bach composed was to the greater glory of God. There's one religious song, the Pie Jesu, from Faure's Requiem Mass, that epitmizes a kind of blissful serenity. It's the song I chose for today's entry in my soundtrack. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOvyjk8qgRQ My personal connection with this song is kind of tenuous. Starting in the fifth grade, I studied the flute. By the time I was seventeen, I was taking private lessons from a local teacher, and she helped me choose a solo for the All-State Orchestra audition. The piece she selected was Fantasie, by Gabriel Faure. I'd never heard of this composer, but I loved the harmonies and graceful melody lines of this piece. To my ear, they sounded daring and modern, especially when compared with the traditional repetoire of flautists which includes sonatas by Bach and Handel but not much written after 1800. Beetheoven is alleged to have said that the only thing he hated more than the flute was two flutes. His disdain probably came in part from the mechanical limitations of the instrument used in his day. When I read up on Faure, I learned he was an influential teacher, including Ravel and Nadia Boulonger among his students. He influenced many other composers, including Debussy, Poulenc, and Copeland, to name just a few. He was a champion of innovations in music, including the dissonances of the Vienna School and the frenetic rhythms and atonality of Stravinsky. He was an early proponent of jazz, and used elements of that genre in his later works. In many ways, he's an under-appreciated genius and a bridge from Romanticism to Modernism. In any case, there wasn't much variety in the traditional flute repertoire. Debussy wrote one obscure piece, and flute solos decorated the orchestral works of composers like Ravel, but the modern repertoire was pretty sparse. Here's François Leleux with the Orchestre de chambre de Paris performing Faure's Fantasie, the piece I used for the All-State audition (I got in the orchestra, by the way): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md7FtZ_OEEEvv This work led me to learn more about Faure, which of course led to his masterpiece, the Requiem Mass, and thePie Jesu linked above. Dave Ryan   plans to list the equally marvelous Agnus Dei from this mass in his soundtrackhttps://www.writing.com/main/books/item_id/2313407-Soundtrack-Of-My-Life so I'm listing the Pie Jesu to complement his entry. A sampling of other classical works that belong in my soundtrack I'm omitting dozens of things I could list here. String quartets by Beethoven, Brahms, and Bartok, for example. Or Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, or Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony. Anything by Satie. It would take too long to list them all, so I'll just do a short list here. Religious Works Mozart's Mass in C Minor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez0kqVShFEs Bach, Jesu, Joy of Man's Desring https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkWdBbapJKc Handel, Ev'ry valley shall be exhalted https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NCO6UzZ2R8 Rachmaninov, Vocalise (not religious, but still transcendent) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhQaeDWlZ4A Fred Bock's arrangment of Jesus Loves Me and Clair de Lune https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFBs4Q23NgY Barber, Adagio for Strings (again, not religious, but transcendent) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3MHeNt6Yjs Professional flautists performing of some of my favorite solo pieces from when I was in high school Bach, Sonata in E-flat major, BWV 1031 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jwH4dP2HQs Debussy, Syrinx https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNjroFNi7mA Handel, Allegro from Sonata in F major https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2RKPg6o8E8 Kennan, Night Soliloquy, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gS3gws-fyI In researching this blog entry, I stumbled across this cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, and it's so good I had to include a link. The song, of course, wasn't written until long after I left high school. Dos Diamonds-Crossover Music's cover of Hallelujah https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5zk7Goo4_4 Max Griffin Please visit my website and blog at https://new.MaxGriffin.net Check out most recent release!
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| Stairway to Copyright Law Led Zepelin's Stairway to Heaven is arguably one of the greatest rock songs of all time. It appears as #31 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest rock songs, and a poll of VH1 viewers voted it third all-time. Millions of fans will immediately recognize the iconic opening chords. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkF3oxziUI4 It's a great song, to be sure. But US copyright law is what places it on my personal soundtrack. That iconic opening riff sounds pretty much the same as the opening in another, earlier work, Taurus, by the band Spirit. Listen to both songs, and you'll see what I mean. Jump to the 45 second mark in the link below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFHLO_2_THgh You have to admit, they sound a lot alike. The estate of one of Taurus band members sued Led Zepellin and sought damages for copyright infringment. Litigants estimated that Stairway had earned over $550 million dollars at the time of the lawsuit, so damages could have been substantial had the case succeeded. Led Zeppelin won the lawsuit, meaning that the trial court did not find evidence of infringement. The trial court also refused to permit the jury to hear recordings of the songs. They based this ruling, in part, on the legal theory that the copyright laws in question applied only to the written documents filed with the copyright office and not any subsequent and impromptu additions made during recording sessions. Since the specific documents on file did not support infringement, the court ruled in favor of Led Zeppelin. (I note in passing that the current copyright law only requires that the work be fixed in permanent form, so a recording is sufficient to establish copyright even in the absence of the copyright symbol. However, in order to seek damages, the copyright does have to be registered, so the written documentation in the US Copyright office still matters.) In any case, the Spirit ligigants appealed, and a panel of the ninth circuit overturned the trial court's decision based on a precedent called the "inverse ratio rule." Basically, this rule said that if the party who allegedly violated the copyright likely had access to the earlier work in any form, that changes the balance of proof in the case, i.e., the greater the access, the greater the case for infringement. The panel remanded the case back to the trial court for re-hearing based on ninth circuit precedents invoking the "inverse ratio rule." However, that was just a panel of the ninth circuit, and attorneys for Led Zeppelin filed an appeal requesting that the entire circuit hear the case en banc. The entire circuit did so, and they vacated the inverse ratio rule and all judgements made thereto, finding that the rule was vague and without merit. Thus, the ninth circuit re-instated the initial finding that there was no infringement. The Spirit attorneys filed an appeal with the US Supreme Court, which denied cert, i.e., refused to hear the case. That means that the ruling in ninth circuit stands, and no further appeals are possible. Thus, the inverse ratio rule is basically toast. This is all about rock music, so why is that important to me, as a fiction author? Well, the issue at bar was, in part, whether or not a certain set of chord progressions could be subject to copyright. For example, the idea of a mystery can't be copyrighted, although an individual execution of that idea, such as The Maltese Falcon, can be. So, the question at bar was, again at least in part, whether chord progressions are to music what basic plot ideas--like "mystery" or "romance"--are to fiction. I'm not a lawyer, so straining at gnats isn't my speciality. But...consider this collection of passages from composers dating as far back as J.S. Bach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlgqkno2hB8 You will clearly hear exactly the same chord progressions as in both the Spirit song and in Stairway. That's pretty convincing to someone like me that the courts reached the right decision in this case. A few years back, about the time universities started giving online examinations, a company filed a copyright for the idea of online exams. The company then sent out cease-and-desist notices to universities all over the US demaning royalty payments for violating their copyright. As far as a I know, no one bit and the company didn't collect a dime. If it had gone to court, the company's broad reading of the thier copyright would doubtless have been found invalid. Maybe the Courts can actually get it right, at least sometimes. In any case, their ruling in the Stairway case secures the song's place in legal history as well as rock history. Max Griffin Please visit my website and blog at https://new.MaxGriffin.net Check out most recent release!
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| M'appari, Tutt' Amor It's Valentine's Day, so of course I wanted to list of a love song as for today's entry in "The Soundtrack of Your Life"  .There are so many to choose from! There's a whole list of songs that I considered at the bottom of this blog. The one I chose is kind of obscure, an aria from Frederich von Flowtow's opera Martha. You'll recognize it when you hear Pavarottie singing it , even if you're not familiar with the composer or the opera. But Pavarotti's performance isn't what motivated this choice. It's another performance, in a movie.It could have been the way Hitchcock used the aria in Rear Window. In that movie, the aria is whistled as part of the background noise as the wheel-chair bound L.P. Jeffries ("Jeff"), played by Jimmy Stewart, spies on his neighbors through the window of his apartment. It's the backdrop as the various characters--Miss Torso, the composer, and others--go about their nightly routines. It's especially poignant as Miss Lonely Hearts primps for her fantasy dinner date. Eventually, the murderer Thorwald, played by Raymond Burr in his pre-Perrry Mason days, appears and the song and the bittersweet romance it invokes turns threatening. Yeah, it could have been that scene, but it wasn't. I could cite Ulysses, where Joyce references the song in several places. It figures prominently in the "Sirens" scene, for example, where the music is being played inside the Ormond Hotel where Bloom is exchanging amorous letters with his mistress, Martha. Yeah, Ulysses references could have been what motivated the song's choice, but they weren't. Instead, I chose a scene from the coming-of-age movie Breaking Away. In this movie, four high school slackers in Bloomington Indiana find inspiration and themselves in a local bike race. The layered screenplay won Steve Tesich an Oscar, and the movie earned four more nominations. In an amazing performance, Dennis Christopher stars as Dave Stohler, a rather nerdy young man with many obsessions. There's bike racing, of course, but he also has longing for a large and close family, expressed in a desire to be "Italian." He's also obsessed with a coed he chances to see on the Indiana University campus, and it's in that forlorn chance at romance that the themes of the movie and the character's obsessions intersect. The scene in the movie that inspired this choice for my soundtrack is the one where Christopher's character serenedes his love interest outside her room on campus. There's a corresponding scene that the director intercuts with the serenade, where Stohler's parents have a romantic moment when his mother puts a recording of the song on their phonograph. We see the closeness of his family and the love his parents share, juxtoposed with the romance that Stohler yearns for. Here's a clip from the movie where Christopher, as Stohler, does a credible job singing the aria. At least, I think it's Christopher singing--that's what IMDB says in the credits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVXvjKv1d50 The movie itself is well worth watching. The script is great, but the cast and the perfmances are stellar. It's another one of those movies with the perfect combination of artistic talent coming together to produce a masterpiece. The song is best known in its Italian translation, possibly due to Caruso's early recordings. But the original opera is in German, by a German composer. The original German title, Ach! so fromm, ach! so traut, doesn't sound nearly so romantic. Of course, it adds an element of irony that the Italian-obsessed Stohler would choose a song from a German opera to serenade his love love interest. Lyrics Lyrics to M'appari, Tutt' Amor in Italian and with an English translation https://lyricstranslate.com/en/m039-appari-she-appeared-me.html Here are the original German lyrics. https://opera-cat.livejournal.com/8692.html Some alternative love songs Just an Old-Fashioned Love Song, Three Dog Night https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oiXpHojBjg I'll have to say I love you in a song, Jim Croce https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6Vn17S37_Y Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, The Platters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2di83WAOhU Unchained Melody, Righteous Brothers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiiyq2xrSI0 For Emily, Wherever I may Find Her, Simon and Garfunkel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVaisTSsDVA Dream a Little Dream of Me, sung by Momma Cass https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ0PZRYin2s We've Only Just Begun, sung by Karen Carpenter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__VQX2Xn7tI For the Longest Time, Billy Joel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_XgQhMPeEQ |
| Disco Myopia I spent the 1970s in graduate school, earning a PhD in mathematics. I also had a teaching assistantship, so I was teaching freshman. Mostly I taught the business math course since I had an undergraduate degree in economics. But, later, I got interested in using mathematics to model diseases, so I wound up teaching the math course for pre-med students. When I wasn't busy proving theorems or flunking out freshman, my wife at the time and I would get together with another couple for bridge. That means I mostly missed out on the popular culture of the 70s and, most especially, disco. Now, every so often I'll hear a song on TV or radio and turn to my current spouse and say, "That's a nice song. You could dance to that!" He just rolls his eyes and mutters, "Bee Gees." So this song is kind of the an anti-entry to the soundtrack of my life. We saw lots of movies in the 70s, so we probably saw Saturday Night Fever, but it didn't make much of an impression since I don't remember doing so. Here's a link to the song and the movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa9n7GirhsI |
| Dueling Anthems Nationalism can elicit powerful emotions. Hearing the US Congress, gathered on the steps of the Capitol on 9/11, break out in "God Bless America" was one such moment for many Americans, myself included. I'll likely blog on that one later. It's rare that another country's national anthem can have the same emotional resonance, but when the refugees in Casablanca sing La Marseilles, I find myself blinking back tears. This is layered storytelling at its finest. We all know the set-up. Rick, played by Humphrey Bogart, and Ilsa, played by Ingrid Bergman, had a whirlwind love affair in the days before Paris fell to the Nazis. A planned rendezvous never happens, leaving Rick embittered against his lover. Meantime, Ilsa has married a French patriot and Resistance hero, Laszlo, played by Paul Henreid. When the pair show up in Casablanca seeking exit visas to the US, the plot takes off. Rick initially seeks petty revenge and refuses assistance to Laszlo. But, just as that happens, the two hear Nazis in the bar singing Die Macht am Rhein, a German patriotic song. The camera pans across the dejected refugees in Rick's bar. We see a fearful Ilsa, huddled in the bar. Laszlo is uncowed and orders the band to play La Marsielles. Rick gives his assent, and the dueling anthems start. Just as the Germans sing "Lieb vaterland, magst ruhig sein" (Dear fatherland, no fear be thine), the French anthem swells to victorious triumph. The camera cuts to Ilsa as she transforms from fear to loving admiration for Laszlo. Then we see Rick's resolve, and Laszlo's determination. But most of all we see the faces of the patrons as they celebrate this tiny, social victory. One of them, Rick's former lover played by Madeleine Lebeau, weeps as she sings. This is doubly moving since Lebeau was, herself, a refugee from the Nazis, as were many of the extras playing patrons and musicians in the bar. The scene is the fulcrum on which the plot and character arcs turn. Rick finds a higher duty. Louis Renault, played with charming insouciance by Claude Rains, sets aside his easy life of corruption and allies with Rick. Ilsa remembers why she fell for Laszlo in the first place. There's more, but you get the idea. The movie plays against the larger stage of the war and all that implies, and the individual decisions coalesce with that backdrop in this scene. It's one of the many scenes that make this movie unforgettable and still relevant today. It's a brilliant combination of the right script, the right score, and the right creative talent all coming together. It's an unforgettable moment in the Soundtrack of my life. Here's a link to the scene. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM-E2H1ChJM |
| Iowa Fight Song Watching football today, and kind of sleepy, so today's entry is going to be kind of short. I saw my first Iowa Hawkeye football game when I was six years old. They won the Big Ten and the Rose Bowl that year (1956). Later, I went to the University of Iowa and earned four degrees there (BS econ/math, MS math, MS stat, PhD Math). During the time I was a student, Iowa had the worst record of all teams in division one football, but I remained a fan. RIght after I left and took a job at Oklahoma (go Sooners!), they hired a new coach who turned it around and they've done well at football ever since. The University has been a big part of life, and I owe a lot to all the awesome teachers I had while there. My one regret is that I never went to the Iowa Writers Workshop. Anyway, "On Iowa," the Iowa fight song, is my song for today. The song was written by Iowa native Meredith Wilson, who also wrote "The Music Man." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4ANP8g8wrE |
| Dave Brubek and Miles Davis Take Five and So What I know! Jeff's challenge is called "The Soundtrack of Your Life" . That means it's supposed to be the music that plays in the background of MY life, not some dumb movie's soundtrack. Except that, sometimes, movies and their accompanying soundtracks can so perfectly enacpsulate something that they can represent personal life transitions.We're also suppose to have one song per day, but sometimes it's the pairing of songs that matters. Today, two songs paired in a movie, Pleasantville , come together for my personal soundtrack. One scene in the movie, in particular, is perfection. If you're unfamiliar with the movie, it's a 1998 release starring Tobey Maguire, Reese Witherspoon, William H. Macy, Joan Allen, Don Knots (!), and Paul Walker. The movie is a kind of slipstream that sends contemporary teens, played by Maguire and Witherspoon, back to a fifties sitcom named Pleasantville. Of course, when are characters are transported to the eponymous town, the film transitions from technicolor to black and white. The thing is, their presence in the fifities disrupts the perfect harmony of that black-and-white world. Some people start seeing--gasp!--colors. A few, when they test the social or sexual mores, even become colored, as in technicolor in a black-and-white world. Chaos and conflict ensues between those who can see colors and those who cannot. The obvious metaphors make this sound like boring sermonizing, and indeed it could have become exactly that. But instead the script is charming, funny, even ingenious, and engages the readers in multiple character arcs that mesh together seemlessly. In the sitcom world of the movie, everything is both perfect and shallow. All streets lead back to Pleasantville, and there's nothing outside the perfect little world of the town. Nothing substantial ever goes wrong. Firemen in Pleasantville exist for the sole purpose of rescuing cats caught in trees. When an actual fire breaks out, they are flummoxed. That is, until the Maguire character shows them what to do, after which he wins an award from from the fatuous mayor, pjlayed to perfection by J.T. Walsh in one of his final movies before his untimely death. Another scene involving the high school basketball team's practice is hilarious. The movie makes its points with gentle humor. In Pleasantville, even the library books are blank--no words on the pages. Imagine, if you will, a library with classics like Huckleberry Finn and Catcher in the Rye on the shelves, but when you pull the books down, the pages are all blank. If you grew up in the fifties, as I did, that's actually not all that hard to imagine. Those books were in the library, and the words were on the pages, but thinking about what those words meant? That was another thing altogether. Thinking was, at best, regimented, at worst, proscribed. That is, of course, one of the points the movie is making. But this isn't supposed to be a movie review, so I'll stop here. Instead, I want to point to one scene in the movie in particular. In this scene, the Maguire character shows up for his job at the local ice cream bar hangout, which is kind of like Arnold's on Happy Days. The subservise beat of Dave Brubeck's Take Five provides the background. The ensuing conversation, which involves the gathered teens wonderment at discovering there are are worlds outside Pleasantville, and that the books in the library have ideas in them, perfectly encapsulates the themes of the movie. At the moment of discovery, involving Maguire explaning Huckleberry Finn, the soundtrack transitions to "So What" by Miles Davis. It's a near perfect representation of how liberating it felt to transition from the rigid and shallow fifties to the modern world. You can think at last. But so what? What's next? The musical transition from Brubek to Davis, the choice of Hucklebury Finn as the book, the acting, the cuts, all of these are genius. The song "Take Five" invokes images of smoky New York coffee houses filled with the beatniks of the fifties--outcasts with suspiciously deviant ideas about equality and morality. The cool yet rebellious jazz of Davis anticipates the sixties. Yet the liberation we see in the movie doesn't happen in those coffee houses in New York and it's still the fifties. It happens in the pristine perfection of Pleasantville. There's wonder in that transition, but there are thorns, too, as what comes next when the community reacts. But the wonder and anticipation is what this particular scene in the ice cream parlor captures, and Take Five and So What are the prefect counterpoint to what's happening on the screen--and to what happened in real life. I grew up in a small, rurual, Iowa town. It may as well have been named Pleasantville. Changing of the Guard, a Pulitzer-nominated novel loosely based on luminaries in the town, was so controversial you had to show your ID and sign a waiver to check it out of the library. It was that kind of town. Transitioning from then to now was both marvelous and terrifying. But the wonder of enlightenment and anticipation of discovery--those were golden. The book reading scene in Pleasantville, with "Take Five" and "So What" playing in the background, captures that personal and social nexus. Here's a link to the scene. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3FE5o_67lQ Take Five, Dave Brubek Quartet, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm-q80gA7NI So What, by Miles Davis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqNTltOGh5c |
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Take on me is an excellent choice.
Interesting... and thankfully, not germaine to me at this time 
