μεταμορφώσεις

[Jeff Bernstein]

Daniel Plainview and Seneca

 

24:35. “If I travel all the way out there and I find that you’ve been lying to me, I’m going to find you and I’m going to take more than my money back.”

 

Thyestes, 1052–1053 : “There should be some limit to committing crime—but not to avenging it.”

 

Thyestes, 195–196 : scelera non ulcisceris, nisi vincis—“A crime is avenged with a larger crime.”

 

 

 

 

Edited September 3, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

TWBB

 

27:50–28:16. The two Sunday sisters watching in telephoto : EWS, 1:10:19–1:11:04.

 

28:55. “My name is Eli.” The uncanniness of twins was touched on all the way back in Homer, Iliad, in two places, somewhere.

 

Here, Eli Sunday, unlike Paul, is dressed in a (shining) bright shirt.

 

29:48. Daniel Plainview’s puzzled reaction to this doubling? It kindles in us thoughts of the transition from the pre-WW1 mindset to the post-war Lynchian Weirdness of the 1920s. Plainview may not know it, but he is now living in a psychoanalytical world.

 

This thought segues naturally into :

 

The culture-in-transition theme as captured throughout TWBB has a structural analogue throughout the narrative of Oppenheimer (2023). One visual example from storyteller Nolan : the moment of the “futural-looking” Oppenheimer riding a horse and stepping into the Situation (a meeting of concerned physicists, etc.) as if riding in out of the old west—to confront, and answer, Questioning. Is this scene a fusion of past / present / future? A futural character riding in out of the old west to confront the present?

 

Hmm.

[Jeff Bernstein]

TWBB : past and future

 

37:40. After classic Hollywood framing of an old-time train entering a station :

 

37:45–38:00. Extensive out of phase on DDL !

[Jeff Bernstein]

TWBB

 

Daniel Plainview = “Hickey” Hickman in Eugene O’Neill, The Iceman Cometh (1939)?

 

(Speaking of Oppenheimer (2023).)

[Jeff Bernstein]

INT. CAESAR’S TENT - DAY

 

CAESAR, frowning, reading messages. TITUS watching. Awkward silence.

 

CAESAR

Forty ships?

 

TITUS

Yes, sir.

 

CAESAR

And the others?

 

TITUS

They’re repairable—with effort.

 

CAESAR looks away. Composing himself, he looks out the door of his tent :

 

POV

 

Deep mysterious forest.

 

BACK ON CAESAR

 

CAESAR

(now calm as can be)

Order fabricators to be brought here from the Continent.

 

CAESAR thinks.

 

CAESAR

I will write to our men at port. They shall build us forty ships.

 

TITUS nods, looking as if walking on eggshells. As CAESAR moves through the tent—

 

TITUS

(v.o., whispering)

All this effort. It will eat our army’s strength.

 

CAESAR steps up to a map of Britain pinned to the tent wall—the map resembles an unfinished triangle.

 

CAESAR

The ships will be repaired in how long?

 

TITUS

Ten, fourteen days.

 

CAESAR

And if we work uninterruptedly throughout?

 

TITUS

Ten, fourteen days.

 

CAESAR lowers his head and sighs.

 

INT. TITUS’ TENT - NIGHT

 

TITUS lowers his head onto a cushion.

 

TITUS

(v.o., whispering)

He won’t say it, but he won’t attack until the fleet is restored.

He refuses to admit what we’re up against is the Unknown.

So it is. So we wait.

 

INT. CAESAR’S TENT - NIGHT

 

Candlelight. Caesar in bed, thoughtful, ancient manuscript in hand.

TITUS (cont’d.)

(v.o., whispering)

Two weeks of draining our provisions.

And if the Island attacks us?

 

CAESAR glances up :

 

POV

 

The unfinished map of Britain.

 

TITUS (cont’d.)

(v.o., whispering)

Where do we run?

[Jeff Bernstein]

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon

 

Has anyone in the world yet remarked on the obvious David Lean shot in Oppenheimer?

 

The initial shot of Isidor Rabi greeting the character Oppenheimer at the Trinity site.

 

Rabi says something like, “You can’t improvise this.”—as if the character Oppenheimer might be a movie director.

 

(Didn’t Scrooby mention Lawrence of Arabia (1962) in his commentary on the Oppenheimer trailer above?)

 

But this particular shot might just as well have slotted into The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).

 

 

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Eugene O’Neill : Syncing up with Aristotle

 

Coincidence that O’Neill, heavily grounded in the ancient classics, wrote two of the greatest works of world literature of the 20th century?—Long Day’s Journey into Night (finished 1941) and The Iceman Cometh (1939).

 

Good news : Director John Frankenheimer shot a wonderful version of The Iceman Cometh in 1973, in which Lee Marvin seems born to play the role of “Hickey” Hickman. (So I will give time-stamps to this particular production.)

 

Here is a species of playwright O’Neill syncing up with the audience—perversely.

 

19:30. In answer to the question :

“What kind of joint is this anyway?”

Larry (the mouthpiece of O’Neill himself) answers : “What is it? It’s the No Chance Saloon. It’s Bedrock Bar, The End of the Line Café, The Bottom of the Sea Rathskeller! Don’t you notice the beautiful calm in the atmosphere? That’s because it’s the last harbor. No one here has to worry about where they’re going next, because there is no farther they can go. It’s a great comfort to them. Although even here they keep up the appearances of life with a few harmless pipe dreams about their yesterdays and tomorrows, as you’ll see for yourself if you’re here long.”

 

Larry/O’Neill is talking about the audience. And this is a sort-of early climax of O’Neill drubbing the audience with Hard Truth mercilessly during the first 15 or so pages (mostly via his mouthpiece, the character Larry).

 

And the drubbing continues unabated for a play with a running time of 3:58:58 in the Frankenheimer.

 

Bonus : Eugene O’Neill gives us a Henry James Positive-Negative Statement

 

6:30. Larry : “Yeah, it’s my bad luck to be born with an iron constitution.”

 

btw, the title is mock-grandiose : it’s humorous, it’s dark, it’s perverse. What it isn't is “artsy”. It only sounds it.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 3, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

PTA and Eugene O’Neill : together in one line

 

LARRY : “There’ll be no showdown! I don’t give a tinker’s damn—” (Act 2)

 

TWBB : “When it comes to the showdown, they won't be there.” (16:49)

 

PT : “No one gives a tinker’s f***ing curse about Mrs. Vaughan’s satisfaction!” (51:18)

[Jeff Bernstein]

PTA and J. G. Ballard and Cronenberg

 

PT : “Mrs. Vaughan” (51:18)

 

One of the creepy main characters of J. G. Ballard’s perverse novel Crash (1973), filmed by David Cronenberg in 1996, is named Vaughan (played in the film by Elias Koteas). In fact, the first line of the novel is :

 

“Vaughan died yesterday in his last car-crash.”

 

If anyone thinks this detail is too small for PTA to worry about, how about Kubrick in EWS :

 

1:48:10

“Listen, how's my afternoon looking?”

“I think it's just Mrs. Akerly at 2:30 and Mrs. Kominski at 4.”

as in

“Three of the five men were put aboard asleep . . . [including] Dr. Victor Kaminsky.” (2001 : A Space Odyssey, 59:32)

 

Hmm.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 3, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Harmonic Convergence : PTA / Oppenheimer / J. G. Ballard

 

Ballard once described the atomic blast on Hiroshima as “that spectral mushroom cloud”.

 

spectral : Phantom . . .

mushroom : . . . Thread

mushroom cloud : Oppenheimer

[Jeff Bernstein]

PTA and David Lean and Nolan

 

Woodcock driving excessively fast = Lawrence riding his motorcycle excessively fast (6:18—7:43).

 

CU of Lawrence’s goggles at 7:43—

 

Do they resemble the “film director” goggles that Oppenheimer wears during the Trinity Test?

[Jeff Bernstein]

PTA and Sophocles

 

TWBB. The past returns, or has never left : 12:53 / 52:51.

 

This dreamlike conjunction-moment is revealed following an abrupt awakening from sleep : a hypnagogic Situation.

[Jeff Bernstein]

PTA and Aeschylus

 

Recall the spectral vision of Woodcock’s mother in PT (1:28:22).

 

The first ghost in Western written literary history? The Εἴδωλον Δαρείου / “Ghost of Darius” in Aeschylus, Πέρσαι?

 

Cut to Seneca : the character of Tantali umbra : Ghost of Tantalus.

 

Shakespeare applied the technique (e.g., the ghost of Hamlet’s father).

 

And so on.

[Jeff Bernstein]

What is Art?

 

Art is the Artist’s exploration into Self. Which also means, into World. Because the Self is in the World. And the World can only be understood (to whatever degree) by the Self.

 

So to understand the World, one must first come to understand (to whatever degree) the Self.

 

The more authentic an Artist’s exploration into Self (and World), the more potential that Artwork has to “work on” the Audience (i.e., plait (ἐμπεπλεγμένην) in a most succcessful and powerful way with the audience’s Unconscious), leading to colossal dividends.

 

The Artwork emerges from the Unconscious of the Authentic Artist—and works on the Unconscious of the Audience.

 

The sync up between Artwork and Audience is the Artwork’s Unconscious (so to speak) with the Audience’s Unconscious.

 

The more powerful the sync up, the better the potential for Revelation.

 

Revelation may lead to Endless Positive Questioning amid Endless Positive Change.

 

(Example : Scrooby’s thought about EWS every day since 1999.)

 

Artworks are the guides along the path to Positive Questioning and Positive Change.

 

Example : Virgil leading Dante throughout Divina Commedia (1320 or so).

 

Bad news : Most everything in life exists to obliterate all trace of a positive path available to a person. Worse, “our society” turns a baby at birth into an Inhuman.

 

Good news :

Art is heroic.

Art opens the eyes.

Art communicates Truth.

Art turns an Inhuman Human again (if the Inhuman puts in the effort).

Art is free to think about 24/7.

 

What Art isn’t : Anything the mass media says, or any school or university. These three criminal enterprises conspire our ruin. (Why should those imbeciles know anything about anything when it comes to “humanity”? Evidence : Look where where are : 2023.)

 

Dear youth of the world, you may well come to realize this—but only when it’s too late. So please hurry—for the sake of the entire world.

 

This is an Ultimate Message of Oppenheimer (2023) : WAKE UP NOW!

 

Remember Hannibal Lecter and the Pen?

The shackled uses the pen—emblem of Creative Thought—to Escape.

[Jeff Bernstein]

hypnagogic : TWBB

 

53:34. Daniel Plainview contemplates the dead body of his worker, whose on-the-job injuries brought tragic death. The circumstances of the death strongly recall—and the soundtrack at this moment aids recollection—the death of “Big Brother” at 12:53.

 

All this is similar to

 

Mulholland Drive (2001), 1:35:32

 

and, say, well . . .  

 

Sophocles, Οἰδίπους Τύραννος

 

A person can’t outrun the past. So the quicker one meets it and reckons with it, the better. What is the go-between to bring past and present together in a positive manner? (The Stargate / ἐμπεπλεγμένην of) Art.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Projecting

 

In TWBB, Eli Sunday coming close to the lens at a significant moment (climaxing at 57:00), is an actorial technique that Nolan uses expertly throughout Oppenheimer (2023).

 

 

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

“We had faces.”

 

57:04–57:18. Just how much information does DDL convey through his face?

 

It’s easy to forget, during all the interpretative activity, that this-is-cinema!

[Jeff Bernstein]

Reflections : PTA and Nolan

 

The elaborate fiery-orange lens flares, associated with the burning Tower and occupying both left and right edges of the screen at

 

TWBB, 1:03:32–1:03:42

 

brings to mind

 

the elaborate fiery-orange lens-flare-type-effect around the Tower in

 

Oppenheimer (2023) : in the seconds before the Trinity detonation.

 

And especially the eye-shaped lens flare at TWBB, 1:04:54.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

PTA and John Carpenter

 

Let’s lighten the mood.

 

TWBB. The wide on the burning tower at night at 1:04:59?

 

The size of the fire has an extremely similar geometry to :

 

the final shot of The Thing (1982), 1:41:57–1:42:07. One of the most nihilist endings in Hollywood studio history up to that point? Master cinematographer : Dean Cundy.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Bolt of Lightning : PTA

 

 

What if we see the Tower in TWBB as a symbol of, among other things, the Imagination?

 

 

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Yes, Scrooby’s come late to the understanding. Plainview’s Tower is a species of Kubrick’s Monolith.

[Jeff Bernstein]

PTA and David Lynch

 

TWBB. 1:08:21. H.W. Plainview = the Eraserhead baby.

 

It’s all syncing up, so to speak.

 

This scene looks forward to PT, 45:09, disquiet (before and) after Creation.

 

 

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Smile

 

1:50:50. Plainview : “I’ll pay you five thousand dollars.”

 

“Your turn to change her.”

“(dead-serious) I’ll give you one thousand dollars if you’ll do it.” Three Men and a Baby (1987), 36:32.

[Jeff Bernstein]

God’s Lonely Man

 

Like Travis Bickle and Fast Eddie Felson, Daniel Plainview is one of “God’s lonely men”. How do we know this? PTA withholds allowing the audience even one iota of good cheer when H.W. returns to Plainview at 1:57:40. Plainview embraces H.W. for the considerable running time of 1:58:03–1:58:22—yet the camera remains at an exteme distance, so the audience cannot pick up on any emotional cues provided by the actors. Instead, the audience watches very small people occupying a wide, emotionally-cold landscape empty of civilization except for a slender pipeline—which is awry, not sealed together : a cinematic symbol of the relationship of Plainview and H.W. There is a break in the continuum of the horizontal pipeline that spans the central portion of frame. The Unconscious may receive it (one way) as a dream-symbol of “broken communication”?

 

Imagine the immense power of a sudden extreme CU of Daniel and H.W. embracing. What a geometrical surprise and emotional boost! (As for a powerful Panavision-wide cut to a CU face, see, for example, John Carpenter’s Christine (1983), 1:39:37–1:39:38.) No, PTA intentionally withholds any iota of cinematic emotion. 

 

TWBB tries a second time, as the principal characters come closer to the lens and embrace again at 1:59:09—but no, there will be no respite from aloneness : the characters remain small in the frame.  

 

What is success if it earns a person aloneness?

[Jeff Bernstein]

Nolan and Eugene O’Neill and Tarantino

 

In Oppenheimer (2023) the character Oppenheimer criticizes Edward Teller’s concept of the hydrogen bomb, remarking (something like) “It’s so unwieldy one would have to convey it by ox-cart.”

 

The Iceman Cometh : “Me, in old days in Transvaal, I vas so tough and strong I grab axle of ox-wagon mit full load and lift like feather.” (Act 1) / “In old days in Transvaal, I lift loaded ox-cart by the axle!” (Act 3)

 

(Oppenheimer’s allusion might very well be recalling the ancient Homeric world.)

 

The Iceman Cometh : “Be God, you can’t say Hickey hasn’t the miraculous touch to raise the dead, when he can start the Boer War raging again!”

 

The Hateful Eight (2015) : “I strongly suggest we don't restage the battle of Baton Rouge during a blizzard in Minnie’s haberdashery.” (1:06:47)

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein