Okay. Inasmuch as this is a dream blog, I think I should have some comment here on "Inception" because (thank goodness - it's been a long time) I've thought about this movie for much of the day. I could certainly make the case that it's flawed, not strange ENOUGH, over-explained, "awesome, but not great" as one Rotten Tomato critic wrote. Yeah. On the other hand, as with "Memento", I think this film does something new in terms of the relation of individual psychology to time - and here of collective (oh geez) psychology to imagination.
Personally, "The Fall" remains to me the more impactful, subtle and incredible of the two.
Still, there is something going on here that is not cool simply because it is Barouquely complex but because - I guess my favorite thing about the film - it manages to subtly (and credibly in terms of dream logic and its 'physical' manifestations) relate various psychological realities one to the other (as when, in real life, a car backfiring outside your bedroom window, becomes a door slamming in your dream). Here though the dream to dream ramifications are more dynamic than that, coupled with commentary on the variance of time, between real time and dream time and deeper and deeper spaces of dreaming. Interesting that these scenes were shot with variable speeds, the effects rendered at variable speeds. So, while there were a few too many assassins and explosions, it was nice to see computer effects be necessary. But I do appreciate what he could say with non CG imagery too'; I'm thinking of the very first shot; the pushing wave, joined mid-swell-, the pressure and natural volume and velocity of the non-physical that that conveys.
The insistence on realism as an effective way to describe dreamspace (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/07/16/movies/20100716-inception-aoas-feature.html) largely works and the invention of the weirdness of dreams is well-done. I felt the 'rolling wave' of the inverting Parisian boulevard was as close a representation of my endless tidal wave dream series as I've ever seen in scale and specificity and dream-insistence, whatever that is (it feels like the right phrase now).
So, anyway, to see a fully realized film from someone who clearly gets the architecture of the architecture of dreams was well worthwhile. I felt it could be more subtle perhaps but - next time. First, as in the story of the film, the dreamspace needs to be built. Christopher Nolan (who else could do this? -- maybe "The Fall" guy..) has built that, has visually identified the stratification and deep invention of the psyche. Some ground, I think, has been broken here. The ground that is the 'idea of ground' while not being ground. That this is a territory that can be filmed is a feat.
I lay back in bed to think about it this morning. Not because of the film, but because these things happen, all the time, I spent forty waking minutes, an hour? watching what looked like the flurries of the teeniest particulate snowflakes or flakes, tiny particles of something, very individually clear, flurry and gather (whiter dust) and fly apart (blacker space - starlike) in a movement that was musical, dimensionally complex, absolutely in focus and perfectly 'observable' as it happened.
The mind is a miracle. It is itself visionary. I can't help but appreciate any effort to explore that fantastical reality.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
For this week's prompt, write an "after the rain" poem. There are a lot of possibilities for this poem, because there are a lot of possibilities for what could happen after the rain. For instance, my six-year-old-named-Reese likes to hunt snails after the rain. (what?!!!?!) Baseball games may resume after the rain has passed. Rainbows may appear. Of course, another rain shower may follow the one that just rolled through.
After the rain
After the rain
for a long while
- or a long while it seemed -
the red birch leaves would drip into the cheap blue Piglet bucket
that used to collect sand
that for a long while
- or a short while, maybe even then it seemed -
would fill and tip and make ten perfect turrets
Adults know how to make castles.
Do it this way.
Watch.
Perhaps it was just one day
that the sand pit
at the end of the drive contained castles
and little girls and faux uncles and talkative strangers others
sexy now new yorkers all
- the hell with them.
wait.
after the rain.
the birds, so beautiful
so annoying that woke us - after the rain - to soft
- the softest light
unbelievably gentle I didn't want to see it
birdsong. no. too early
something, what now, lost too soon
I want, wanted the rain that was
in the middle of the night
or was it the ocean
I knew it was there
like a hand -night-black-
through the open window
petting my hair
I want the rain
the storm
the middle of the night
the lightning bolt that went
- actually -
from the south bedroom (hers) to the north (my mothers)
in a fat blinding line
blasting through both doorframes at the same instant
in one window out the next
thuderclap that had us that fast
trembling together
three ladies in white nightgowns
bending to study the wooden floor to see if the bolt
had burnt the house right through
smoldering line
not even that
we tucked each other in
down to the feet. sweet.
would untuck ourselves and go to another
what words then
falling with the rain
hours and hours of them
so familiar,
soft, reflective, winding, understood
reflexively, that conversation of forty years
(do these voices continue
moving out through space?) inaudible now
in what recollections remain
oh late hours
and hours of dear voices
then tucked in finally
thank you, perfect, and goodnight
finally
and then
as we curled into our own
private darkness
the hard rain
anew
biblical
obliterating
whole world
take it
I want the road
my little green suitcase
the tall trees spinning in wind
the old house
there
built by the whaler on around
an Indian well
driven deep
to catch the rain
for the travelers
on their way by foot
to Montauk
through the little lifting birds
and giving Calla Lilies
The porch.
Someone is there.
I can tell
from the glow of the cigarette.
I am home.
After the rain
no. that
I don't want to remember
- though it is about light
and clearing, continuance
and morning and mourning
and the sweetest of songbirds
singing a perfect complication at the earliest hint
earliest,
in the east,
of a new day
of an old darkness
passing
a filagree of notes from different birds for a different world,
a world alight now and glaring, old world
washed away like an image from a dream
an Indian drinks
and moves on
becomes invisible
in the waving grasses.
and she
and the whaling captain
-gone before dawn
to tighten the ropes and chase down the storm.
After the rain
After the rain
for a long while
- or a long while it seemed -
the red birch leaves would drip into the cheap blue Piglet bucket
that used to collect sand
that for a long while
- or a short while, maybe even then it seemed -
would fill and tip and make ten perfect turrets
Adults know how to make castles.
Do it this way.
Watch.
Perhaps it was just one day
that the sand pit
at the end of the drive contained castles
and little girls and faux uncles and talkative strangers others
sexy now new yorkers all
- the hell with them.
wait.
after the rain.
the birds, so beautiful
so annoying that woke us - after the rain - to soft
- the softest light
unbelievably gentle I didn't want to see it
birdsong. no. too early
something, what now, lost too soon
I want, wanted the rain that was
in the middle of the night
or was it the ocean
I knew it was there
like a hand -night-black-
through the open window
petting my hair
I want the rain
the storm
the middle of the night
the lightning bolt that went
- actually -
from the south bedroom (hers) to the north (my mothers)
in a fat blinding line
blasting through both doorframes at the same instant
in one window out the next
thuderclap that had us that fast
trembling together
three ladies in white nightgowns
bending to study the wooden floor to see if the bolt
had burnt the house right through
smoldering line
not even that
we tucked each other in
down to the feet. sweet.
would untuck ourselves and go to another
what words then
falling with the rain
hours and hours of them
so familiar,
soft, reflective, winding, understood
reflexively, that conversation of forty years
(do these voices continue
moving out through space?) inaudible now
in what recollections remain
oh late hours
and hours of dear voices
then tucked in finally
thank you, perfect, and goodnight
finally
and then
as we curled into our own
private darkness
the hard rain
anew
biblical
obliterating
whole world
take it
I want the road
my little green suitcase
the tall trees spinning in wind
the old house
there
built by the whaler on around
an Indian well
driven deep
to catch the rain
for the travelers
on their way by foot
to Montauk
through the little lifting birds
and giving Calla Lilies
The porch.
Someone is there.
I can tell
from the glow of the cigarette.
I am home.
After the rain
no. that
I don't want to remember
- though it is about light
and clearing, continuance
and morning and mourning
and the sweetest of songbirds
singing a perfect complication at the earliest hint
earliest,
in the east,
of a new day
of an old darkness
passing
a filagree of notes from different birds for a different world,
a world alight now and glaring, old world
washed away like an image from a dream
an Indian drinks
and moves on
becomes invisible
in the waving grasses.
and she
and the whaling captain
-gone before dawn
to tighten the ropes and chase down the storm.
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