I am sitting here in the comfort of our warm home looking at
the accumulating snow. This storm has been predicted quite extensively over the
past couple of days, and for us the timing worked out exquisitely: we were able
to spend an enjoyable Purim in Sharon
with our family, drive back to New York in time to pick up some groceries and attend
our Monday evening class (more on that in a moment), and be safely ensconced in
our Riverdale home before the first flake fell.
One of the traditions on Purim,
particularly for children, is to dress in costumes. Maya chose to dress as Fern
Arable, the spunky eight-year-old girl from Charlotte’s Web.
Eliana, a huge fan of Minecraft, dressed accordingly:
Our niece, Sarah, who lives in Boston, came to visit and spend time with us.
All in all, we had a fun day.
In early February I wrote about the class Barry and I are taking at the 92nd Street Y, “Mozart and Beethoven: The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.” This week the instructor, Louis Rosen, chose Mozart's Concerto #21 in C major. Each week, he brings a recording of the piece(s) to be discussed, plays and describes sections of each movement in detail, and then plays the entire movement. I can never remember the numbers or keys of the various Mozart piano concertos but many are quite familiar, and from the first notes I was sure I knew #21. I quietly pulled out my iPhone to look it up and lo and behold it is, indeed, the concerto that, since the late 1960s, has come to be known as the “Elvira Madigan Concerto.”
Hearing this piece in this setting brought back memories and it was a struggle to contain a giggle. The second movement of this concerto, the Andante, was popularized in a movie called “Elvira Madigan.” Here is what Roger Ebert wrote about the film when it was released in December of 1967:
Somewhere in these pages today there is doubtless an advertisement
describing "Elvira Madigan" as the most beautiful film ever made.
That has been the New York critical line, expressed in turn by the New York
Times, Newsweek and the New Yorker. I think it does an injustice to Bo
Widerberg's great film.
"Elvira Madigan" is indeed remarkably beautiful, Almost every frame would make a painting, and yet the film is alive and cinematic, not simply photographs of pretty pictures. Widerberg composes his shots of muted colors -- usually white yellow and green -- and of the remarkably attractive faces of his stars, Pia Degermark and Thommy Berggren.
But then he uses a style of moving his camera away from the direction of the movement on the screen. The camera moves left, for example, as Berggren, on the left, passes a glass of wine to Miss Degermark, on the right. Conventional camera work, I suppose, would require the camera to follow the action. What Widerberg establishes is both the static beauty of the scene and the subtle sense that the "art" is moving against the "reality."
This sense, I believe, is what "Elvira Madigan" really conveys. And that is why it is so similar to "Bonnie and Clyde," although on any objective level the two films are unlike. Widerberg started with a legend well known in Sweden, and he has directed and photographed it with a very smooth, beautiful surface. But what is underneath is altogether different.
The story is a simple one. Elvira Madigan, a beautiful 16-year-old tightrope walker, ran away from her family's circus in the summer of 1889. Count Sixten Sparre, a young lieutenant with two children, abandoned his family and deserted from the army. After a summer together, they committed suicide in the autumn.
Widerberg begins his story with a scene in a sunny clearing. Sixten removes the brass military buttons from his uniform. He shaves off his beard to avoid recognition. They make love. Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 provides the sound track. The scene, and most of the following ones, are pure romanticism and are intended to be.
But small events take place. During a picnic, Elvira spills a bottle of red wine and it gurgles into the ground like blood. When the couple is forced to flee detection, the woman who warned them hurries to return Elvira's knitting: "You'll need it when the autumn comes." The couple runs out of money, and a charming early scene in which they dip raspberries into cream is contrasted now with a scene in which Elvira, driven by hunger, crawls on the ground eating nuts and mushrooms until she vomits.
What we have here is the story of two beautiful, stupid, selfish, romantic people, intoxicated by the legendary aspect of their own love affair. Although they seem at the beginning to be simply a young couple in love, the degree of their fanaticism becomes clear in their decision to commit suicide. This is not a tribute to love, but to the human ego.
In that class the other night, I sensed that most if not all the students had their own “Elvira Madigan” stories. Here is mine.
While growing up in St. Louis, I studied classical piano at the St. Louis Institute of Music, which appears to have ceased operation.
The Institute was founded in 1924 by J. P. Blake Sr. It was originally known as "The Progressive Series Teachers College". It was also known to be an orphanage home at one time. The address of the Institute was 7801 Bonhomme Avenue - Clayton 5, Missouri. This was at the intersection of Bonhomme and Bemiston. The building does not exist any longer.
When my family moved to West Hartford, Connecticut in 1969 when I was 17, my parents enrolled me in the Hartford Conservatory, which apparently closed its doors in 2011. I cannot remember my teacher’s name but what I very definitely remember is that he was a HUGE fan of that movie. Of course, in those days there were no computers or YouTube, so it was not until a few years later that I happened to have a chance to see the movie. By then Barry and I were a couple and we went with another young couple (if memory serves, the husband was also a student at the University of Rochester). I was SO EXCITED about going to see the movie I had long waited to see. But it turned out that it was nearly impossible to stay awake through it, and from then on none of our friends were much interested in my movie recommendations. It has only been in more recent years that I have redeemed myself and some of you who read this blog have actually gone to see movies I have recommended and even enjoyed them. I am relieved to say that you have restrained yourselves from any temptation to do me bodily harm for bad advice.
Lastly, our little Maya made it on to the front page of The Sharon Advocate, where she is seen playing with Neko, a Portuguese Water Dog from the Pets and People Foundation at the local public library.
http://sharon.wickedlocal.com/photogallery/WL/20170309/ENTERTAINMENTLIFE/309009986/PH/1
Stay safe and warm!!!
Love,
Rebecca
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