We have been at home
in Riverdale for the past couple of weeks, so we have taken the opportunity to
see three recently-released films.
#1
The first was a film
called “The Best of Enemies,” a documentary about the relationship between intellectuals
Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr. who appeared in a series of debates
before and during the Republican National Convention and the election of
Richard Nixon as president in 1968. What began as an effort on the part of ABC
to capture some of the viewer share that was solidly focused on CBS (Walter
Cronkite) and NBC (Chet Huntley and David Brinkley) took on a life of its own.
Buckley and Vidal
were two well-known intellectuals, each of whom had unsuccessfully run for
elected office. They were also the products of very wealthy families, with all
the privileges that entailed. Their personal relationship was far from
amicable; as you watch them they appear to share no less than disgust for one another.
The timing of the
release of this film at the beginning of the process to select the next President
of the United States was enlightening. Perhaps it is just another lesson of “nothing
new under the sun.” But rather than the soundbites to which we are typically limited,
the debates themselves were on an extremely high intellectual plane. While this
topic may not be among my favorites, it was certainly a very well done
documentary and worth seeing.
#2
The second film we
saw was “The End of the Tour.” This movie traces a five-day period in the life
of the late author David Foster Wallace (played by Jason Segel) during which he
is being interviewed by David Lipsky (played by Jesse Eisenberg), a reporter for
Rolling Stone, following the 1996 publication to stellar reviews of his 1000+
page epic novel, “Infinite Jest.” In the interest of transparency, I have to
admit that I have not read the book, the same way that A.O. Scott admitted his
potential bias in his New York Times review of this film,
…by all rights I
should hate ‘The End of the Tour,’ … a portrait of the writer that has its
origins in a (never-published) magazine profile. In fact, I love it.
The plot is simple. Lipsky
(I will refer to the principals by their last names since they have the same given
name) convinces his editor at Rolling Stone to allow him to write an article
about Wallace, and he travels to Bloomington, IL, where Wallace is teaching, to
conduct a few days of intense interviews with the rather reclusive author. The
interest here is not only what Lipsky learns about Wallace, but also in what he
learns about himself. As A.O. Scott writes (far better than I could),
David Foster Wallace is
not really its subject at all. ‘The End of the Tour’ is at once an exercise in
post-postmodern literary mythmaking and an unsparing demolition of the
contemporary mythology of the writer. It’s ultimately a movie — one of the most
rigorous and thoughtful I’ve seen — about the ethical and existential traps our
fame-crazed culture sets for the talented and the mediocre alike.
Neither of the lead
characters is especially likable. Wallace was a somewhat exasperating character
to watch because I often could not tell whether he was trying to be humorous or
he was just plain mean (it was probably some of both). Lipsky was dour, a bit hot-headed,
and egocentric, just not someone with whom you would want to spend much time. It
is amazing that they managed to spend five days together.
I found a fascinating
1997 interview for which Wallace sat with Charlie Rose (attached here). Sadly,
David Foster Wallace was a troubled soul who ended his life in 2008 at the age
of 46.
#3
In all of director
Noah Baumbach’s films we have seen, the main characters are a bit flighty and
self-involved young adults. First there was “The Squid and the Whale,” then “Margot
at the Wedding,” and it was only a few months ago that we saw “While We’re
Young” (I wrote about it on 22 April).
Having seen a trailer and briefly scanned the review, we went to see “Mistress America” somewhat expecting more of a comedy than Baumbach’s previous films. Perhaps I have lost some of my sense of humor, but it may be misleading to label it this way. I thought a lot of it was rather sad. The main characters are two young women, 30-year-old Brooke (played by Greta Gerwig) and 18-year-old Tracy (played by Lola Kirke) who find themselves thrust into some sort of relationship when the (widowed) father of one and the (divorced) mother of the other decide to get married.
This sets the two
young women determined to spend some time together. Initially things go well.
Tracy is in awe of Brooke, who has an amazing enthusiasm for everything and is
full of grandiose ideas. But life is never that simple, and a different side of
her begins to emerge that ends their brief, high energy relationship as they
both return to reality.
Speaking of reality,
we are preparing for our next grandparenting extravaganza, aka Camp NanaSabba.
Eliana (10) will be coming to New York with us on Monday, and we have quite a
bit planned, including the Wednesday Broadway matinee of “Aladdin”, and a list
of other activities, including the Museum of Natural History with the
planetarium. Then on Friday we will return Eliana to her parents, spend Sabbath
in Sharon, and leave first thing Sunday morning with Eliana’s sister Maya (7),
because we have tickets for the noon matinee of “The Lion King.” We are also
anxious to take Maya to the Museum of Modern Art, and we just discovered and downloaded
to our iPhones an app for guiding children to highlights of the museum, with
fun facts about some of the major paintings there.
If I do not manage to
come up for air over the next two weeks, please do not worry about me. Just enjoy
the rest of summer!
Love,
Rebecca
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