Elvira Madigan

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 92^nd 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

LXV

Yesterday was one of those days on which I could not help but thinking about how different it might have been had my life not veered off-course five years ago. Yesterday was my 65^th birthday.

Lucky for me, Barry did not allow me much time to wallow in such morbid thoughts. Five years ago, when I turned 60, Barry and our daughters had planned a beautiful and heartfelt celebration for me. I was not feeling very well, and Barry recalls considering cancelling the party, but I am glad we soldiered on. I ended up being diagnosed just a few weeks later.

This year our plans were somewhat lower key. I knew that he had purchased tickets to “Book of Mormon” on Broadway. But I didn’t know that he had also purchased tickets for the November 1^st performance of the show everyone wants to see, “Hamilton.” He topped it all off with a beautiful opal pendant necklace that goes well with a pair of opal earrings he bought me a few years ago.

Like all long-running Broadway musicals, “Book of Mormon” was filled with talent, enjoyable music, and tremendous energy. The play was made especially enjoyable by the couple seated next to us, who (we learned chatting before and after the show) have lived for many years in Park City, Utah and are vacationing for a week in New York. They are not Mormons, and acknowledged in our conversation after the performance that they did not imagine their Mormon friends would have found the play entertaining. But I cannot remember the last time I saw anyone laughing as hard as that fellow! Because we are not that familiar with the Mormon religion or community, there were probably a lot of references that we simply did not appreciate. But laughter is infectious, so I suspect that the play seemed funnier to me than it might have had we been seated differently.

Having said that, I have been offended at times by plays and television shows that have poked fun at Jewish stereotypes. The line between humor and insult can be quite thin. In the end, it seemed to me that the real take-home message of “Book of Mormon” is that love and respect should always have the upper hand. I hope that any Mormons who may have seen it have felt the same way.

So now I am in my LXVI^th year. Cool.

Love,

Rebecca

Clear and obvious

I have tried to stay away from political issues in my posts. I am not a student of history, and my memory and cognitive function are not sufficient to allow me to absorb and process everything I need to know. But some issues are just so simple and obvious that even I can understand them. So when I saw this yesterday on Facebook I simply knew I had to share it.

For those of you not familiar with Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, the author of this brief essay, here is a brief biography from his webpage.

An international religious leader, philosopher, award-winning author and respected moral voice, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks was recently named the winner of the 2016 Templeton Prize in recognition of his “exceptional contributions to affirming life’s spiritual dimension.” Described by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales as “a light unto this nation” and by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair as “an intellectual giant”, Rabbi Sacks is a frequent and sought after contributor to radio, television and the press both in Britain and around the world.

Since stepping down as the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth – a position he served for 22 years between 1991 and 2013 – Rabbi Sacks has held a number of professorships at several academic institutions including Yeshiva University and King’s College London. He currently serves as the Ingeborg and Ira Rennert Global Distinguished Professor at New York University. Rabbi Sacks has been awarded 17 honorary doctorates including a Doctor of Divinity conferred to mark his first ten years in office as Chief Rabbi, by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey.

Take a few minutes and watch this video. You may even want to watch it more than once.

Lord Sacks releases anti-BDS animation video

Have a peaceful weekend.

Love,

Rebecca

Two moving films

In response to a few questions about that lovely car we have our eyes on, there are (only?) 400,000 souls who have placed their names on the wait list, each of whom has a $1000 bill on their credit card for this honor, fully refundable if minds or plans change. So who knows?

On that subject, here was the clue for 1-Down in this morning’s New York Times Crossword Puzzle

Autos with charging stations

6 letters, and I knew the 3^rd letter was an “s”…..

TESLAS

Amazing timing, huh?

Back to the Oscars, one of the movies nominated for Best Picture was “Lion,” a film based on the true story of a very poor family in India, a mother and her three children. The two older boys, who seem to be about 5 and 10 years old, go off to try to help earn some money. The little one is tired so his big brother leaves him to rest while he goes off to find work. But the big brother never returns (we later learn that he was killed that same evening), and the little guy is left wandering around unable to find his way home. After searching for his brother from place to place, narrowly evading a number of threatening situations, he eventually ends up in an orphanage, from which he is adopted by a lovely family from Australia. He has a wonderful life with this loving couple but as a young adult he decides he must try to find out what happened to his birth family. Through the miracle of Google Earth he eventually finds his way back to his mother and his young sister, twenty-five years after having seen them last.

This was a gripping story beautifully told. I am almost surprised myself at how much I loved it and cannot recommend it highly enough. I can now see why it was one of the nominees for Best Picture. The actors who played both the boy as a young child (Sunny Pawar) and as an adult (Dev Patel) were outstanding.

The second movie we saw over the past few days was quite a bit less enjoyable, but extremely well done and an important film, a documentary called “Keep Quiet,” which received a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This film is about a Hungarian man named Csanad Szegedi, the former vice president of the Jobbik far-right political party in Hungary. A few years ago he discovered, much to his initial hooror, that his maternal grandparents were in fact Jewish. In the Jewish tradition, Jewishness is inherited through the mother’s line. His grandmother, who had survived Auschwitz, had hidden her faith in the hopes of never again being persecuted. Szegedi hooks up with a Chabad rabbi in Budapest, Rabbi Boruch Oberlander, who helps him find his way back to his traditional Jewish roots. But not everyone in the Jewish community embraces him, and even law enforcement officials are uncertain of the sincerity of his transformation.

Barry and I did not grow up in traditional Jewish homes, and like many of our friends we became more involved in Jewish life in our twenties. We certainly can relate to the idea of people shifting their religious focus as adults. But that is just not the same as this. This young man was a virulent anti-Semite. At the end of the film he expresses the possibility that this newfound religion may not be a permanent transformation. I suppose time will tell.

A lot to think about.

Love,

Rebecca

On the road again?

During the years I worked for Pfizer in midtown Manhattan, I seldom drove. To the best of my recollection I have never driven in Manhattan and never wanted to do so. Still, it was nice to be able to occasionally get into the car and drive to suburban stores.

But primary CNS lymphoma made such an outing pretty much impossible. It is rather ironic that our car is in my name, a requirement for obtaining the handicap license plates for which I was eligible primarily due to my pulmonary condition. But I drove the car only once, taking a very brief drive early on a Sunday morning when we first bought it. I am not sure I even remember how to start the engine!

But my “driving” days may not be over after all. Barry happened to hear a report about Tesla’s efforts to design and manufacture a relatively affordable self-driving car, the Model 3. It seems they are getting close. For me, this may literally be the best thing since sliced bread.

So, we have just put down a deposit to hold our self-driving car. This is really exciting! Let’s just hope all the pieces come together (literally) to make this happen sooner rather than later.  

Love,

Rebecca

Thank You Your reservation is confirmed Model 3 production is scheduled to begin in late 2017. North American deliveries will be first, followed by Europe, Asia and Pacific countries then countries with right-hand drive configurations. Those who own Model S or Model X cars will be offered priority production slots as a special thanks for supporting the Tesla mission.

A fun week

We are back in New York now, having spent over a week up in Sharon. One of the many highlights of our family time was taking Julia to see “Disney on Ice” at the TD Garden in Boston. We had originally planned on just the three of us going, but when we purchased the tickets there was a group of four handicap seats and the venue insisted on selling them as a set. We invited Ella to come along and she graciously agreed. Barry and I are not as young as we once were, so having that extra pair of hands with our little not-quite-three-year-old was extremely helpful.

Dina of course knew something we had not realized, that most of the little girls who come to these events do so in their “princess” costumes, so Julia and Ella were dressed appropriately. Julia was simply mesmerized throughout the performance. The lighting was a challenge but we did manage to take a few nice pictures. This outing was such a big hit that we have now purchased tickets for “Sesame Street Live” in April, and Ella will again be joining us.

By now I am sure you are all aware of the mix-up at the end of the Oscar Awards show last evening. We had long since fallen asleep and only awoke to that news this morning. It is hard to even imagine how painful this must have been for the fellows who were in the midst of accepting the Best Picture award for “La La Land,” and their acceptance and grace was almost inspirational at a time when mutual respect often seems in short supply. Both “La La Land” and “Moonlight” are very good movies and worth seeing, but at the end of the day I think that “Moonlight” was the worthier choice for Best Picture.

We finally had a chance to pick up our annual family picture, and I have updated the cover page of this blog. This is no easy feat. Blogger keeps making changes to the software and I cannot remember from one time to the next how in the world to do these simple tasks. There was a lot of muttering helplessly before I finally pressed the right buttons! As for the picture, the little ones were not quite as cooperative as we might have hoped, but at least the rest of us did pretty well. It’s no easy feat to take a picture of a dozen people ages 0-65!

Have a good week.

Love,

Rebecca

A movie's purpose

At Eliana’s request, we took her to see “The Lego Batman Movie.” I have to say that Barry and I found the nonstop violence, albeit with animated versions of little plastic pieces, rather disturbing. To be honest, this is not a movie I would recommend for anyone, even though it received a 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a positive review by Manola Dargis, with whom I do not always agree.

But we thought we had found the antidote to this when we took Maya to see the recently released film, “A Dog’s Purpose.” Maya was not interested in Batman but requested this film instead. The film follows the lives of few dogs and their owners. The catch is that each of the dogs is a reincarnation of the dog that came before: different owners, different breeds, even different sexes, but all the same heart and soul. Some of the dogs simply die of old age, but one, a police dog, is killed while tracking down a brutal robber. In each case, the screen becomes fuzzy and the next dog in the line is introduced.

I have to say that, although somewhat sappy, it was a very sweet story. I am not a huge fan of dogs, but even I found myself tearing up when each of the dogs died. The movie seemed to be a love story for dogs and their owners.

But as I went to write about it, I discovered that this movie, when released, stirred quite a bit of controversy over the treatment of the dogs during the filming. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) strongly urged a boycott of the movie, and that may in part explain why it seemed to have disappeared from many theaters rather quickly after it opened.

Most of you know that I am a vegetarian (who does eat fish occasionally), and I am frequently asked why I have long followed that diet. I never stand on a soap box about this, but it has just always felt better to me not to eat meat and chicken. So I am sympathetic with many of the issues PETA raises. But this time I may have to respectfully disagree. Although the videotape PETA posted on-line does seem to show a rather distressing scene in which a German Shepherd is forced into a raging river, overall I thought the movie offered an incredibly sympathetic view towards animals and their relationships with their owners. I left the movie with a newfound appreciation of my many friends who keep and love their dogs and mourn them when they pass on. Of course we can never know just what the dogs are thinking, but the folks who made this movie surely have tremendous compassion for their pets.

Speaking of animals, the weather was so warm here in New England today that we went to the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Rhode Island. There is still some snow on the ground and not all of the exhibits are open, but we had a nice time with the children.

The weather does not feel like February vacation, but you will not hear any complaints from me!

Love,

Rebecca