Hope and anchor

The Witnesses were out in force in Red Hook this morning, so I had to run a couple of gauntlets. Several were dragging their children about, clear cases of religious indoctrination as child abuse. I shook off the soul-killers south of the public housing and east of Van Brunt, finding myself on the back roads of the borough. An occasional car, an occasional house with a silver maple gracing the yard. The humidity was thick and oppressive, though, and I was nearly run down by a semi plowing through a stop sign on Bay Street. Signs of life returned when a cutie on a smoking break outside of Hope and Anchor smiled at me.

Friday night at BAM saw Teorema, part of the Signore & Signore series. Not enough signore, actually, but Passolini didn’t swing that way. Terrance Stamp comes visiting and seduces the maid, son, mother, daughter, father, and, yes, the dog; the haut bourgeoisie meets Jesus, or Satan (one of those guys, I get ‘em confused). The signorina I saw it with was not amused. It’s nearly silent, and so Euro-Sixties, so PSI, so Catholic. I was surprised to see Anna Wiazemsky, the second Mrs. Godard, as the daughter. No Anna Karina, she. But she’ll be back in La Chinoise at the Film Forum in October. Altogether now, “Mao, Mao!”

Speaking of communist hysteria, in Drama of Jealousy, another of the S&S series, Monica Vitti, splayed atop a garbage dump, tells Marcello Mastroianni that he can have anything, anything he wants from her (Mamma Mia!), so he says “Vote for the Communists on Sunday.” Monica, Monica, Monica, flame of my film studies nights! To see your emotionless face against the blank walls of Modernism, a la Antonioni, the hottest alienation effect ever. But now, in this, uh, dramedy, not so much.


Googlegoof: looking for images of La Vitti and finding one so labeled, but it's of Anna Karina. Happens to the bird images all the time, too.