Jeff Bernstein

Bernardo. Who’s there? Line 1. Shall we stop here? Before entering Hamlet, let’s look back at four tense questions—reflecting a pervasive mood—in Macbeth. Duncan. Who comes here? (1.2.49) Banquo. Who’s here? (1.3.92) Banquo. Give me my sword. Who’s there? (2.1.12–3) Macbeth. Who’s there? what, ho! (2.2.12) (Now back to Hamlet.) Francisco. Stand ho! Who is there? 1.1.15 Hamlet. But soft, what noise? Who calls on Hamlet? 4.2.3 Horatio. Peace! Who comes here? 5.2.91 * * * Horatio Well, sit we down, And let us hear Bernardo speak of this. Bernardo Last night of all, When yond same star that’s westward from the pole Had made his course to illume that part of heaven Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself, The bell then beating one— Enter Ghost (1.1.40–6) Bernardo’s scene-setting is pointlessly drawn-out. To begin his tale all he requires is : “Last night at one a.m.—” Shakespeare elaborately introduces a mood only to immediately shift gears. He lulls the audience into a false sense of peace—then—surprise! Fundamental : Scene-setting truncation cf. Tatlock. I wasn’t expecting to see you. Oppenheimer. I have to make an appointment? . . . Alvarez! * Hamlet 1.1 : Amplitude of Contrast Shakespeare engineers-in enough contrasting twists and turns in 1.1 (in character, plot, language, emotion) to provide the audience with a breathtakingly extensive Masterclass in Dramatics. Example 1 : Quick character contrast In Hamlet 1.1, Horatio from the first is set-up as the man who knows. Example : Marcellus Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio. (1.1.49) but then Horatio makes an arguably bad decision . . . Marcellus Shall I strike at it with my partisan? Horatio Do, if it will not stand. . . . Marcellus ’Tis gone! We do it wrong, being so majestical, To offer it the show of violence (1.1.153–59) Example 2 : Double contrast Bernardo’s convoluted scene-setting is in stark contrast to Horatio’s concise political speech (91–119)—which itself contrasts, in its hard reality, with the spooky supernatural ghost now walking the castle battlements. * Kind Reader, kindly identify how many moods, contrasts, and reversals are packed into Hamlet 1.1. You may be surprised at the substantiality of the number. Shakespeare ensures that the audience stays one step behind the Situation throughout the entire scene. The first 190 lines of Hamlet are a consummate rollercoaster ride from a Master Storyteller. * Shakespeare—up to self-references again? Hamlet is written in a style markedly different from Macbeth. Rather than a work of Sophoclean dream condensation, the poetry of Hamlet may be compared to Gibbon’s well-proportioned, majestic prose of his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Is the following line, delivered right at the start of the play, Shakespeare’s deliberate indication of the well-proportioned poetry of Hamlet? Francisco. You come most carefully upon your hour. (1.1.6) * Perverse humour? Bernardo. Long live the king! (1.1.3) What happens? The dead King Hamlet suddenly appears. (1.1.47) * * * What is a ghost? Karl Marx, Der 18te Brumaire des Louis Napoleon, in Marx, Frederick Engels, Werke, 8 (Berlin : Dietz Verlag Berlin, 1960), 115. Die Menschen machen ihre eigene Geschichte, aber sie machen sie nicht aus freien Stücken, nicht unter selbstgewählten, sondern unter unmittelbar vorgefundenen, gegebenen und überlieferten Umständen. Die Tradition aller toten Geschlechter lastet wie ein Alp auf dem Gehirne der Lebenden. People make their own history—but not of their own free will, not under self-choice, but under circumstances . . . inherited [by the past]. The tradition of the dead past weighs heavily, like a nightmare ghost [Alp], on the mind of the living. * * * incoming Scrooby theory Marcellus Therefore I have entreated him along With us to watch the minutes of this night Anyone thinking of Milton’s “darkness visible”? (Paradise Lost, 1.63) And Milton’s phrase may itself have been inspired, at least in part, if not wholly, from— lucem dabit nox atra terris (Seneca, Thyestes, ll. 479–80). * * * Some Hamlet references in Phantom Thread (mined from old Scrooby posts at Xixax.com) : (Yes, PT is not only the Sophoclean Triple Tone, but is also heavy with Hamlet.) 1. The word “woodcock” appears twice in Hamlet (1.3.124 and 5.2.336). 2. Hamlet says (metaphorically), “Methinks I see my father” (1.2.191) prior to seeing his father’s ghost in 1.5. Similarly, Woodcock says : “Been having the strongest memories of Mama lately” (10:03) immediately before Alma enters the picture, who, later, is visually associated with the ghost of Woodcock’s mother (1:29:55). 3. Woodcock says, “There is an air of quiet death in this house” (1:51:41), which, of course, recalls “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” (1.4.100) 4. Francisco. You come most carefully upon your hour. (1.1.6) Recalling? Alma. Whatever you do, do it carefully. (31:53) (Also : Titus Andronicus : “attend the Emperor’s person carefully.” 2.2.8) 5. Consider the chilling depth of Alma’s initial revelation : “Every piece of me.” (1:02) Chilling, because “every piece” would, we must agree, encompass all that is bad in her as well as all that is good. Such is evoked in the all-inclusive word “every”. In Hamlet 3.1, King Claudius, murderer of his brother, is informed that a play is scheduled for performance that very night in the castle; and the king is very happy to hear the news. Polonius adds : Hamlet . . . beseech’d me to entreat your Majesties to hear and see the matter. (3.1.23–5) To all this, in its creepy truth, the king’s response is very like Alma’s : King. With all my heart. (3.1.26) Why is this response creepy? Because the performance of the players in their play will kindle in the king’s heart a series of thoughts of all the horrible deeds he’s done to his brother. Thus, King Claudius’ cheery response, “With all my heart”, is a creepy prolepsis. The impromptu play will indeed encompass every piece of his heart—including all that is bad in there. * Alpdrücke A person’s perception of oneself is a minor projection from the greater darkness of the unconscious. So . . . ? We’re each of us a poor shadow of whatever we might have been. We’re each of us a ghost of ourselves for as long as we live. From birth to death we’re ghosts of the past (mechanical unthinking AI Inhumans) unless we Think ourselves towards present Humanness. * The animal lives in the eternal present. It is the AI Inhuman who has sliced-and-diced Temporality into clock-time. Clock-time is convenient for time-clock slavery. * Hamlet. The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals! (2.2.331) Woodcock. Been having the strongest memories of Mama lately, coming to me in my dreams, smelling her scent. 2024 : Embrace the Animal.

Oppenheimer (2023) : “Pragmatic” / “Pragmatic” The Apartment (1960), dir. Billy Wilder; scr. Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond Shirley MacLaine : Why can’t I ever fall in love with somebody nice like you? Jack Lemmon : Yeah, well, that’s the way it crumbles, cookiewise. Fred MacMurray : What’s he got against you, anyway? Shirley MacLaine : I don’t know. I guess that’s the way it crumbles, cookiewise. 1:35:30 / 2:01:45

Our unconscious withholds from us. A problem. But thinking is self-administered damage limitation. DUNCAN What bloody man is that? He can report, As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt The newest state. “The newest state”?—What follows of the play leads directly to the installation of a new state in Scotland, with Duncan dead and Macbeth ascendant. Right at the beginning, famous last words.

Easy does it : Two colossal reveals Oedipus at Colonus, 327–332. The blind Oedipus, sitting by the Grove of the Eumenides, is told by his daughter Antigone that her other sister, Ismene, has arrived from a distance. Ismene speaks, and her father answers : Οἰδίπους ὦ τέκνον, ἥκεις; Ἰσμήνη ὦ πάτερ δύσμοιρ᾽ ὁρᾶν. Οἰδίπους τέκνον, πέφηνας; Ἰσμήνη οὐκ ἄνευ μόχθου γέ μοι. Οἰδίπους πρόσψαυσον, ὦ παῖ. Ἰσμήνη θιγγάνω δυοῖν ὁμοῦ. Oedipus. My child, are you here? Ismene. O father, I see your sadness! Oedipus. Child, are you actually here? Ismene. Not without hardship, but it’s me. Oedipus. Touch me, my child. Ismene. I touch you both together. For a moment, Oedipus cannot be sure if he is dreaming. Might he require the touch as confirmation? The gentle human touch confirms Ismene’s here, and the ancient audiences weep. Earlier (223–224), the audience-surrogate Chorus of Citizens, discovering Oedipus, screamed in horror at him— ὢ ἰοὺ ἰού . . . ὢ ὤ. Now, a hundred lines later, the audience weeps—because they may have (momentarily) forgotten that Ismene is the product of an incestuous union. Though this is no play of Triple Tone, the moment is certainly perverse; it’s the Cronenberg-meets-Terms of Endearment vibe again. The audience pities the outcasts and the spurned. Sophocles plays the audience like the proverbial piano, over two thousand years before Hitchcock tickled the keys. * * * Two decades have passed, and venerable patriarch Jacob has believed his dear son Joseph dead all those years. Joseph is not dead. His brothers, conspirers to the end, engineer a method to reveal the truth to their father without the shock of the revelation killing him instantly. How do they communicate the magnitudinous news to Jacob? Through song. A charming song sung by little Serah on her zither, counterpointed with her grandfather’s gentlest admonishments along the way : “Child,” said Jacob, greatly moved, “truly it is lovely and pleasant that you come before me and sing of my son Joseph, whom you never knew, and devote your gift to divert me. But your song is riddling: the rhymes are well enough but not the reason, and so it hath neither rhyme nor reason. I cannot let it pass; for how can you sing ‘The Boy’s alive’? Such words can give me no joy . . .” Serah continues to sing her stanzas in her mellifluous voice, including : Let my burden be believed, True and beautiful, thy son’s alive! Finally, finally, it sinks in, and Jacob doesn’t fall dead. The hyper-serious patriarch received a consummate “Break it to me gently.” Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers IV. Joseph the Provider, ed. Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter (Middlesex : Random House [Bertelsmann], 1978), 1134–1135. * * * (25) And they went up out of Mitsrayim [Egypt], and came to the land of Canaan and Jacob their father. (26) And told him : “Joseph still lives, and rules over all the land of Mitsrayim.” Jacob went numb inside, and did not believe his sons. (27) But they spoke, and told him what Joseph had told them. And when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to bear him back, Jacob took breath, and his heart beat again. (28) And he said, “It is enough. My son Joseph lives! I will go to him, and see him before I die.” Genesis 25–28 (29) And Joseph went to him and fell on his neck and wept there a long time.

This World is not Conclusion. A Species stands beyond— Invisible, as Music— But positive, as Sound— It beckons, and it baffles— Philosophy, dont know— And through a Riddle, at the last— Sagacity, must go— Emily Dickinson * A ≠ A A = ∞ * Freud, Jenseits des Lustprinzips (Leipzig : International Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1921), 37. Die Aufstellung der Selbsterhaltungstriebe, die wir jedem lebenden Wesen zugestehen, steht in merkwürdigem Gegensatz zur Voraussetzung, daß das gesamte Triebleben der Herbeiführung des Todes dient. Our instincts of self-preservation, which we assume are in every living being, stand in strange (merkwürdigem) contrast to the thought that life actively brings itself towards doom. * Karl Jaspers, Die Atombombe und die Zukunft des Menschen (München : R. Piper & Co Verlag), 263. Der Mensch hat, als er in die von ihm selber hervozubringende Geschlichte trat, ohne es zu wissen, in einer vergleichsweise sehr kurzen Frist von einigen Jahrtauseden sein Leben gewagt. When humankind entered into the History it had made, we blindly gambled our lives in a comparatively brief period of a few thousand years. Im Versagen von der Aufgabe lebte er nicht fort wie die Tiere, sondern er würde sich und mit sich alles Leben vernichten. If we fail, we will not live on like the animals, but destroy ourselves and everything with us. Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, 1958. The Rite of Spring is high-voltage energy-encouraging art, endlessly shattering the complacency of Inhumans. If music is pre-eminent of all the arts (because music doesn’t need the eye of reason to absorb it), then— Is The Rite of Spring the most original artwork of the twentieth century? * Scroob, name a prominent orchestral work contemporary with The Rite of Spring. Prometheus (1910), by Alexander Scriabin. Englishman E. A. Baughan speaks of Prometheus, and includes Stravinsky and The Rite of Spring : The old logic of form which wove musical detail from bar to bar, until at the end of the composition the listener felt they had made a conception of it as a whole, has no place, or none that we can yet recognise, in the music of these modern composers. E. A. Baughan, “On the Modern Language of Music”, The Musical Times 55 (Apr. 1, 1914), 231–234. * In the beginning, solo on a tightrope—a bassoon at highest register. 2:09–2:20. Under the clarinet piccolo, the alto flute plays—how to put it?—an exoticism, a “Cleopatra” theme. This proleptic moment encapsulates the meaning of The Rite of Spring : (backwards into) rebirth. The Rite of Spring—mystic, ancient, prehistoric vibes. (Courtesy of technics—e.g., the ancient scales.) These primeval vibes sync up with the humanness inside us that is anterior to (and nullified by) the Inhuman. * What if the age-old dichotomy between the concepts of “human” and “animal” is wrong thinking? What if—To be human is to be an animal? It is the Inhuman who maintains the difference. The Inhuman, however, is AI. AI is nothing new. Kierkegaard knew all about it; his thinking birthed twentieth-century philosophy. To be human is to be an animal. Why? Because humanness exists in the animality overwritten, at the beginning, by the installation of Inhumanness. A trace of this origin is encoded in our every Creation. Moving through an artwork is a journey toward the animality of humanness. Ethics is a responsible reckoning with the animal. * The Rite of Spring, consummate power generator, brings us, stargate-like, to the humanness at the heart. At its premiere in Paris in 1913— Riot as explosive energy release. * In Room 2022, Thinker Oppenheimer investigates the possibility of humanness in an Inhuman world. * The Master. Consider the opposition : Freddy (“That’s a *****.”) Dodd (“Man is not an animal.”) Freddy is the uncertainty principle. Freddy oozes humanness. Is Freddy the opposite of AI? * Garry Kasparov, on playing the chess computer Deep Thought When playing versus a human being there is energy going between us. Today I was puzzled because I felt no opponent, no energy—kind of like a black hole, into which my energy could disappear. But I discovered a new source of energy, from the audience to me, and I thank you very much for this enormous energy supply. Brad Leithauser, “Kasparov Beats Deep Thought”, The New York Times, 14 January 1990, Section 6, Page 32. * Jessup. While I was in the tank, I entered another consciousness! I became another self! A more primitive self! * Kurt Gödel, “Some Observations about the relationship between theory of relativity and Kantian philosophy” (1946), in Solomon Feferman et al., eds., Kurt Gödel Collected Works. III: Unpublished essays and lectures (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1995), 236. What remains of time in relativity theory as an objective reality neither has the structure of a linear ordering nor the character of flowing or allowing of change. Something of this kind, however, can hardly be called time. * Jessup. There is no time and space in mathematics. There is no time in atomic physics. In outer space, there is no difference between a split second and a billion years! Why the hell should there be any difference in our inner space? We’ve got millions and millions of years stored away in that computer bank we call our minds! Paddy Chayefsky, Altered States (London : Corgi Books, 1978), 123; 125. * (:20) (1:12) (2:09). Stirs a thought of the Joe Gillis musical cue in Sunset Boulevard (by Oscar-winning Franz Waxman). Note the progressive expansion of the sonic world from timestamp to timestamp. 5:12. The cornet could be extracted and inserted into a John Williams score. * Archaïscher Torso Apollos Rilke We can know nothing of the unknown head, once the apple of someone’s eye. But the torso glows still as a candelabra as one stares into it, though scaled back, as it abides and shines. And so we can see your pose, where your shoulder and chest blend, and see your light twist down to the belly, and see the smile at your heart that births. Otherwise this stone stands disfigured beneath the shining fall of the shoulders, and doesn’t flicker like predator fur, and the stone would not burst out in its essence from itself : and here there is no place where you are not seen. You must create the change.

Art et responsabilité sociale Oppenheimer. Albert? When I came to you with those calculations? We were worried that we’d start a chain reaction that would destroy the entire world. . . . I believe we did. * La science nous a rendus maîtres de l’anéantissement; cela ne nous sera plus enlevé. Science has made us masters of annihilation; it can no longer be taken from us. Ou bien l’homme disparaîtra ou bien il se transformera. Cette transformation ne sera pas seulement d’ordre institutionnel ou social, mais ce qui est requis par le changement, c’est la totalité de l’existence. Conversion profonde, par la profondeur, et telle que seule la philosophie—et non pas la religion avec ses dogmes et ses Églises, ni l’État avec ses plans et ses catégories—peut l’éclairer et la préparer. Conversion tout individuelle. Either humankind will disappear or it will transform itself. This transformation will not only be of an institutional or social order. What is required in the change is the whole of existence. A profound conversion, and only philosophy alone—and not religion or the state—can enlighten us and prepare us. There is only individual change. Je dois changer ma vie. I must change my life. Je dois devenir celui à qui l’on peut se fier. I must become the one who can be trusted. Par ce changement, par le sérieux avec lequel je m’y engagerai seul et absolument, j’éveillerai aussi les autres à la même exigence, car « si la transformation ne s’accomplit pas chez d’innombrables individus, il ne sera pas possible de sauver l’humanité ». With this change . . . I will also awaken others to the same necessity, because “if the transformation is not accomplished by innumerable individuals, it will not be possible to save humanity.” « si nous ne pouvons pas supporter l’épreuve, c’est que l’homme aura montré qu’il n’est pas même digne de la survie ». “If we cannot handle the test, we will have shown that we are not worthy of survival.” Maurice Blanchot, “L’Apocalypse déçoit” in L’Amitié (Paris : Gallimard, 1971), 118–127. (Quotes from Karl Jaspers) * The task of thought is to help limit the dominance of technology. . . . [Yet] For us today the greatness of what is to be thought is too great. A big question is, What’s the position of Art? Where does it stand? Heidegger in “Only a God Can Save Us Now”, Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, Winter, 1977. * “The awful truth of nuclear weapons is that concern about them ebbs and flows with the geopolitical situation. But it shouldn’t. The threat is always present, but sometimes an event will happen that brings it more front of mind. But that’s not how it should be; it’s a danger that hovers over the planet and will never go away.” Christopher Nolan in Variety, 8 Nov 2023. * Hölderlin, “Patmos” Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst Das Rettende auch. But where danger is, grows the saving power, too.

Variété “PROMETHEUS STOLE FIRE FROM THE GODS AND GAVE IT TO MAN.” (1) * Insofern das Wesen des Geistes im Entflammen beruht, bricht er Bahn, lichtet diese und bringt auf den Weg. Als Flamme ist der Geist der Sturm, der »den Himmel stürmt« und »Gott erjagt«. Insofar as the essence of [our] Spirit is equivalent to conflagration, it breaks the path, clears it, and sets it on its way. As flame, Spirit is the storm that “storms the sky” and “chases God”. Heidegger, Unterwegs zur Sprache (Frankfurt am Main : Vittorio Klostermann, 1985), 56. * FOR THIS HE WAS CHAINED TO A ROCK AND TORTURED FOR ETERNITY. (1) * Le phénomène de la mise en exploitation du globe, le phénomène de l’égalisation des techniques et le phénomène démocratique, qui font prévoir une deminutio capitis de l’Europe, doivent-ils être pris comme décisions absolues du destin ? Ou avons-nous quelque liberté contre cette menaçante conjuration des choses ? The phenomenon of the exploitation of the globe, the phenomenon of the equalization of techniques and the phenomenon of “democracy”, which anticipate a deminutio capitis of Europe—should these be accepted as absolute decisions of destiny? Or do we still have some freedom against this menacing conspiracy of things? Paul Valéry, Variété (Paris : Gallimard, 1924), 32. * Oppenheimer. Lawrence, you embrace the revolution in physics, can’t you see it everywhere else? (21) * When we merely stare at something, our just-having-it-before-us lies before us as a failure to understand it any more. Heidegger, Being and Time (Oxford : Blackwell, 1962), 190. * BLINDING SILENT WHITE . . . INSTANT DAYLIGHT . . . BRIGHT AS THE SUN . . . (132) * Oppenheimer. I wanted to learn the new physics. (3) * Οἰδίπους. τίς δ᾽ ἔσθ᾽ ὁ χῶρος; Ξένος. . . . Τιτὰν Προμηθεύς. Oedipus. Where am I? Stranger. This place belongs to the terrible goddesses, the daughters of Earth and Darkness. . . . People call them the Eumenides. . . . This entire site is sacred. . . . Here also is an altar to the fire-bearing Titan Prometheus. . . . Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, ll. 38–56. i.e. The god Prometheus was worshipped at Colonus—the burial place of Oedipus.

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon Psychology encoded into character by storyteller Nolan. Oppenheimer. A bomb, Alvarez. A bomb. cut to Tatlock. I told you, Robert, no more flowers. cut to Eltenton. I’m Eltenton. All this, on pages 33–34, is a close congruence : Jean troubling Oppenheimer just moments before Eltenton enters the picture. Theory : In Oppenheimer’s unconscious is a fusion of trouble : Tatlock-Eltenton. The trouble worsens. Page 65 : Chevalier. You know who I ran into the other day? Eltenton. The trouble intensifies. Page 88 : Oppenheimer experiences an uncomfortable encounter with Jean Tatlock in room 805 in San Francisco. Just one screen-minute after this moment : Oppenheimer. I wanted to give you a heads up on a man named Eltenton. (90) So when Eltenton enters Oppenheimer’s mind as potential trouble, is this due, in part, to a dreamlike association in Oppenheimer’s unconscious with all his trouble with Jean Tatlock? * Oppenheimer. I wanted to give you a heads up on a man named Eltenton. What if we approach this line as if written by Eugene O’Neill? Oppenheimer. I have deep feelings, guilt, and troublous thoughts about Jean Tatlock. Perhaps I require a sort of penance for how it turned out with the two of us—and how it is about to turn out for her—so why don’t I cause some unnecessary trouble for myself? * The concept of Freudian vibe-association in dialogue has been considered before in this thread with respect to TWBB, when Eli unwisely speaks the name “Bandy” to Plainview in what turns out to be the final scene of both their lives. * As Oppenheimer says after “no more flowers” : It’s not that simple.

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon 7:23–7:27. Soaring shining mountain vista. 7:28–7:32. Colourful fundamental particles. Is the second shot a restatement of the first?—a zooming into the visible world to the subatomic level. Further into the Education Breakthrough Sequence, the join between a “visible world shot” and a “subatomic world shot” becomes broken. The second shot is no longer a visual restatement of the previous shot. What breaks the join? The mind of the Thinker. This happens a number of times.—A shot of the visible world, then a shot of the fundamental world, but the second shot is not a zoom-in of the first. Rather, the suggestion is of Thinking about . . . Finally, fusion. The two elements that were previously presented sequentially (visible world, subatomic world) now inhabit the same frame via cinematic superimposition. The Thinker breaks down the world, then sees anew what is, and inhabits many perspectives at once. by the way 7.23–7:27. Soaring shining mountain vista. 7:28–7:32. Colourful fundamental particles. Might this be defined as the closest CU in cinema history?

Genius Moves : Paradise Lost Remember the frequency of the letter “m” in Macbeth 1.2? And the similar repetition of the “n” sound in the opening speech of Oedipus at Colonus? It’s like déjà vu all over again. The last stanza of Book V of Paradise Lost features an extremely conclusive ending with its musical restatement of the letter “d”. So spake the Seraph Ab(d)iel faithful foun(d), Among the faithless, faithful only hee; Among innumerable false, unmov’(d), Unshak’n, unse(d)uc’(d), unterrifi’(d) His Loyaltie he kept, his Love, his Zeale; Nor number, nor example with him wrought To swerve from truth, or change his constant min(d) Though single. From ami(d)st them forth he pass(d), Long way through hostile scorn, which he sustain(d) Superior, nor of violence fear’(d) aught; An(d) with retorte(d) scorn his back he turn’(d) On those prou(d) Towrs to swift (d)estruction (d)oom’(d). This is the only example in the entirety of Paradise Lost with this particular structural technique at the end of a Book. Why here? Because a colossal battle sequence is on the way in Book VI. The thudding “d” sound is akin to the sound of an oncoming military march (“O what is that sound . . . drumming, drumming?” W. H. Auden), or, say, Beethovenian “hoofthuds” (Ulysses, 8). But on this point Milton’s genius isn’t over yet. After the end of the colossal battle sequence, Book VI completes with these lines : But list’n not to his Temptations, warne Thy weaker; let it profit thee to have hear(d) By terrible Example the rewar(d) Of (d)isobe(d)ience; firm they might have stoo(d), Yet fell; remember, and fear to transgress. The three line endings with the (d) are equivalent to an “eerie trumpet call over a lost battlefield.”

Rainbow Lens Flares : Priscilla (2023) Similar to the Oppenheimer situation, why not, in this case as well, discard the concept of “biopic” and simply call this film an account of a relationship of two people—any two people. Is the digital photography in this film state of the art? Seems so. Dream team Sophia Coppola and cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd bring digital photography ever closer to the softness and texture of a film image. * Theory : The four uses of the rainbow lens flare that Scroob noticed are not random but intentionally engineered in to the dreamy, delicate tapestry of the narrative. 3:09 / 3:30. The first flare is the first shot following the opening credits. Both rainbow flares, appearing in the same sequence, are associated with burgeoning love. 43:42. Visually complex. 1:08:57. Visually complex. * Theory : Four rainbow lens flares engineered into one film may be a noteworthy number. Question : How many films in cinema history have begun with a rainbow lens flare? * Sophia Coppola and her expert crew weave a sweet and dreamy vibe throughout. The film is gentle and reflective, with lovely touches, such as the following four moments : 10:38. Young, naive Priscilla unknowingly wears a questionable, ill-fitting dress. 14:53. The romantic intimacy of . . . simply holding hands. 42:18. “You will be graded on penmanship, as well as spelling and grammar.” Scroob hasn’t heard this edict since the third or fourth grade. 1:13:00. Priscilla looks straight into the lens as if to challenge the women in the audience with the question : What if this were you? What would you do?

Artists and critics misunderstanding what they’re talking about for a spectacular example : MILTON AND SENECA TL;DR. (a) Paradise Lost is as much a religious epic as Oppenheimer is a biopic. But since the glorious English is in desperate need for an epic poem in order to celebrate itself, Paradise Lost is—surprise!—now first and foremost a religious epic. (b) The glorious English, realizing that a great epic artwork is a fine requirement for representing and encouraging the strength of a nation, requires such an artwork as Paradise Lost. Ah, if only too-many talking heads of the English-speaking world understood that last point with regard to Oppenheimer. 1. Fission Milton, embarking on the creation of Paradise Lost, had Seneca in his sights. At the outset of Book 1, Satan, in his envy, his ambition, his contempt, his wickedness, his ‘deep despair’ and ‘endless misery’, in his exile, his ‘study of revenge’ and seductive evil and perverse nature of ‘stedfast hate’, is a quintessentially Senecan character; and Satan remains Senecan throughout the whole of Paradise Lost.[1] In Book 1, the imagery Milton uses and various techniques of his poetry, as well as the tenebrous gloom[2] of the narrative, all recall Seneca’s plays and their language. Yet why is a learned scholar provoked to support the probability of Milton having read the works of Seneca by providing evidence, in a paper in Notes & Queries, in 2019?[3] Hundreds of years of readers of Paradise Lost haven’t understood Paradise Lost. Milton is intentionally embodying Seneca in Book 1. Moreover, at the outset of the poem Milton has chosen to compete with Seneca. Furthermore, Milton plans to swiftly surpass Seneca. In the creation of Paradise Lost, Milton’s strength of storytelling—according to his own plan (1.12–16)—would be peerless. And Seneca would be the first domino to fall. Consider the final speech of the chorus in Seneca’s Thyestes. The chorus imagines the stars of the zodiac falling from the sky into the sea (ll. 835–74). It is a passage that the youth of today would idiomatically call ‘epic’, and it seems to be the model for Milton’s use of the word ‘fall’ that runs like ostinato throughout Book 1 of Paradise Lost. In one passage of this choral speech Seneca uses a verb for ‘fall’ nine times, and the adjective ‘fallen’ once, in quick succession (ll. 841–67).[4] Milton uses the word ‘fall’ or a variation thereof in Book 1 eleven times in 715 lines.[5] For comparison purposes: in Book 1 the name ‘Satan’ occurs four times,[6] the noun ‘light’ seven times.[7] According to Milton’s plan, in outdoing Seneca he would thereby outdo Shakespeare, and all of the Elizabethan authors. And the poetry of Paradise Lost would be the culmination of a lifetime’s mastery of Latin. Samuel Johnson marvelled at Milton’s command of classical Latin. When Milton was young, ‘he is said to have read all the Greek and Latin writers.’[8] When Milton was in middle age, one of his prospective employments was ‘a dictionary of the Latin tongue.’[9] Dr Johnson relayed Milton’s posthumous reputation on this point: ‘In Latin his skill was such as places him in the first rank of writers and criticks.’[10] If Milton the author was a last vestige of the English Renaissance—the plays of Seneca had been a powerfully fructifying force to the playwrights of the Elizabethan stage—what about his contemporary readers? Some number of readers holding the fresh first edition of Paradise Lost would have made the Senecan connection. Milton’s contemporary readers, however, didn’t write literary criticism. 2. Fusion In the eighteenth century Seneca was out of fashion. Joseph Addison published eighteen essays of literary criticism of Paradise Lost between 31 December 1711 and 3 May 1712 in The Spectator. The names of Homer and Virgil, Ulysses and Aeneas, appear numerous times in Addison’s 137 pages. Close to three sequential pages are devoted to Virgil alone.[11] Ovid appears twice.[12] Aeschylus and Sophocles appear in passing;[13] as do Spenser and Ariosto.[14] The name of Seneca, however, appears only once—and not as the poet and playwright, but as a prose epigrammatist: ‘Seneca’s Objection to the Stile of a great Author, Rigot ojus oratio, nihil in ea placidum nihil lene, is,’ Addison reports, ‘what many Criticks make to Milton.’[15] In his eighteen essays Addison keeps the context of Paradise Lost in the specific category reserved for ‘the Odyssey, the Iliad, and Aeneid’.[16] It is as if Seneca the playwright had never existed. If nothing in Milton reminded Addison of Seneca the playwright, nothing from Addison’s own words did either. At one point he describes as a ‘fault’ Milton’s ‘frequent use of what the Learned call Technical Words. . . . When he talks of Heavenly Bodies, you meet with Eccliptick, and Eccentric, the trepidation, Stars dropping from the Zenith, Rays culminating from the Equator.’[17] Addison had evidently forgotten the large-scale set-piece of the Chorus’ final speech in Thyestes. For example: ‘Monstraque numquam perfusa mari/merget condens omnia gurges’. Seneca has us imagine the fabulosities of the constellated figures of the zodiac, never before dampened by the sea, now plunged into the immersion of raging waters.[18] Dr Johnson followed Addison’s lead and placed Paradise Lost among the ‘heroick poems’ and thereby faced no interpretative complications.[19] Dr Johnson doesn’t mention Seneca in the context of Paradise Lost and attempts to shut the door on any inquiry altogether: ‘of all the borrowers from Homer, Milton is perhaps the least indebted. He was naturally a thinker for himself.’[20] The nineteenth and twentieth centuries were no friendlier to Seneca: he remained essentially in oblivion, a skeleton in the closet of literature. T. S. Eliot noted: ‘in modern times, few Latin authors have been more consistently damned.’[21] Seneca’s plays have been too perverse for Europe since the Elizabethan era—until now. We are understanding Paradise Lost all over again. [1] ll. 126, 142, 58, 107. Compare, for example, Satan’s plan (‘who overcomes/By force, hath overcome but half his foe’ (648–9)) with Atreus’ in Thyestes (‘quod est in isto scelere praecipuum nefas, hoc ipse faciet’ (285–6)). Atreus’ continuously articulated resolution in his vile schemes is identical to Satan’s continuously voluble plans for evil in Bks 1 and 2; compare also the exhaustive catalogue of horrors delivered by the Fury in Act 1 of Thyestes. [2] Milton’s Hell is described as a ‘gloomy Deep’ (152): gloominess is the preferred ambient atmosphere of Seneca (e.g., Thyestes, 17, 106–21, 665–79, 896–7, 994–5; and Medea, 11, 741). The dismal twilight of Milton’s Hell, the ‘darkness visible’ (1.63) and ‘seat of desolation, voyd of light’ (1.181), recalls the passage beginning ‘Solitae mundi periere vices’ in Thyestes (813–827) and the entirety of Act 5; also ‘aeterna nox permaneat’ (Thyestes, 1094) and ‘noctis aeternae chaos’ (Medea, 9). ‘The Sun, as from Thyestean Banquet, turn’d/His course intended’ is found in Bk 10 (688-9). The flaming swords illuminating Milton’s Hell (664–6) recalls ‘iam flammis agros lucere et urbes decuit ac strictum undique micare ferrum’ in Thyestes, 182–4. There are, however, so many Senecan elements in PL that I will leave it for a future scholar of this theme to enumerate the totality. [3] Russell M. Hillier, ‘Comparable Apocalypses of Barrenness and Superabundance: Seneca’s Phaedra and John Milton’s Comus, or A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634’, N&Q 66:4, 535–7. [4] ibit (l. 843), lapsa (847), labens (847), ibit (850), trahet (854), cadet (856), cadet (857), cadent (858), trahent (859), cadet (864). [5] fall (l. 30), fall (76), fall’n (84), fall’n (92), downfall (116), Fall’n (157), falling (174), fall’n (282), fall’n (330), fall (643), falling (745). [6] ll. 83, 192, 271, 757. [7] ll. 63, 73, 85, 181, 245, 391, 729. [8] Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets (London: Cassell and Company, 1901), 143. [9] Ibid., 164. [10] Ibid., 194. [11] CCCLI. [12] CCCXXXIII and CCCLI. [13] Such as in CCLXXXV. [14] CCXCVII. [15] CXCVII. [16] CCCLXIX. [17] CCXCVII. [18] ll. 867–8. Also, in Bk 1 Milton’s use of ‘flood’ (six times) and ‘whirlwinds’ (once) evokes the Senecan note, for those two marvels are among Seneca’s favourite visual imagery. [19] Johnson, Lives, 230. [20] Ibid., 230. [21] T. S. Eliot, ‘Seneca in Elizabethan Translation’, in The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot 1927–1929 (John Hopkins University Press, 2015), 195.

Eugene O’Neill : master of the Indirect Long Day’s Journey into Night begins with this dialogue exchange between a husband and wife of thirty-six years : TYRONE. You’re a fine armful now, Mary, with those twenty pounds you’ve gained. MARY (smiles affectionately). I’ve gotten too fat, you mean, dear. I really ought to reduce. TYRONE. None of that, my lady! You’re just right. We’ll have no talk of reducing. What are these characters actually saying? TYRONE. I’m so glad you’ve kicked the morphine habit. Now you’re regaining your health. MARY (threateningly). Oh really? You want me back on morphine? TYRONE. No talk of morphine! Everything’s been going so well of late! Please don’t speak of reverting back to all that badness!

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon White sheets FLAP CRAZILY in the wind. . . Kitty comes out . . . notices a JEEP . . . (122) recalls MARGARET RYAN (Rodat, 11)— and therefore an entire women’s world back at the home front of WWII and therefore of Hollywood’s colossal war-themed output during WWII Amid the flapping sheets Kitty says, “Break a leg.” (122) A common expression that in this context has multidimensional meaning. Just one point here. By hoping for the best, Kitty at the same time wishes what may be the worst not undone.

Rainbow lens flare at a death : Bridge on the River Kwai, 2:37:04. * τέκ(ν)ο(ν) τυφλοῦ γέρο(ν)τος Ἀ(ν)τιγό(ν)η, τί(ν)ας χώρους ἀφίγμεθ᾽ ἢ τί(ν)ω(ν) ἀ(ν)δρῶ(ν) πόλι(ν); τίς τὸ(ν) πλα(ν)ήτη(ν) Οἰδίπου(ν) καθ᾽ ἡμέρα(ν) τὴ(ν) (ν)ῦ(ν) σπα(ν)ιστοῖς δέξεται δωρήμασι(ν); σμικρὸ(ν) μὲ(ν) ἐξαιτοῦ(ν)τα, τοῦ σμικροῦ δ᾽ ἔτι μεῖο(ν) φέρο(ν)τα, καὶ τόδ᾽ ἐξαρκοῦ(ν) ἐμοί: στέργει(ν) γὰρ αἱ πάθαι με χὠ χρό(ν)ος ξυ(ν)ὼ(ν) μακρὸς διδάσκει καὶ τὸ γε(ν)( ν)αῖο(ν) τρίτο(ν). ἀλλ᾽, ὦ τέκ(ν)ο(ν), θάκησι(ν) εἴ τι(ν)α βλέπεις ἢ πρὸς βεβήλοις ἢ πρὸς ἄλσεσι(ν) θεῶ(ν), στῆσό(ν) με κἀξίδρυσο(ν), ὡς πυθώμεθα ὅπου ποτ᾽ ἐσμέ(ν): μα(ν)θά(ν)ει(ν) γὰρ ἥκομε(ν) ξέ(ν)οι πρὸς ἀστῶ(ν), ἃ(ν) δ᾽ ἀκούσωμε(ν) τελεῖ(ν). The first fourteen lines of Oedipus at Colonus, the posthumous play by Sophocles. Remember the repetition of the letter “m” in Macbeth 1.2? Note the 53 uses here of the letter “ν” (equivalent to the English letter “n” in sound). The sound-repetition helps to sustain, in the words spoken by Oedipus, a fine, calm stability. * Old-school visual effect in Macbeth Macbeth is full of visual tricks of the theatrical trade—e.g., The witches hovering in 1.1, the visible stage mechanics of the three prophecies of 4.1, and the following : Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Scrooby theory : The glimmering dagger was attached to a pitch-black pole that dangled into sight and dazzled the audience, which saw the blade as if it were floating mid-air in darkness. Recalling “If it were up to George, we would have hung a black backing, and put the ships on broomsticks and waved them around.” (John Dykstra in Easy Riders, ch11) “We’re suckers for this absolute depth of resolution that IMAX gives us. But when you go to VFX, you have to scan it, and the moment you do that, it loses half of its resolution.” (Hoyte van Hoytema in Variety, 22 July 2023)

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon The character Oppenheimer is Lawrence of Arabia and Colonel Nicholson at once. He is self-drunk both with the Divine and with Reason. But storyteller Nolan goes beyond this. The character Oppenheimer is also Clarity. The character Oppenheimer carries out an epic act, then spends just as much running time exploring the consequences. His journey through the narrative is his exploration of responsibility and ethics. He is a brainy character of a questioning age (to come?). This is a character our world needs—to survive. Storyteller Nolan has engineered an original character of our time. A thinker. (“The most thought-provoking thing in this thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.”/ “Thinking is what we already know we haven’t started yet.”) The character Oppenheimer : symbol of Responsibility.

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon Colonel Nicholson : “Take a good look. One day the war will be over. I hope the people who use this bridge in years to come will remember how it was built and who built it.” Oppenheimer : “If atomic weapons are to be added to the arsenals of a warring world, then the day will come when people will curse the name of Los Alamos.” (151)

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon The second half of Lawrence of Arabia—the shots in which actor Peter O’Toole is optically indistinct in the role, whether captured as a moving shadow across the sand, or backlit by the sun in silhouette. These shots obscure the actor’s personality, to offer an uncanny eyewitnessing effect of actual history, as if we’re seeing through a window back in time, via willing suspension of disbelief, to a revelation of the historical character of Lawrence himself, visual in his flesh-and-blood being. cf. The long shot of the character Oppenheimer meeting Einstein at 11:27.

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon When they saw him coming in the distance, one to another they said, “Look! The Dreamer is coming. We will kill him and drop him into one of the pits. Then we’ll see what becomes of his dreams.” Genesis 37:18–20 “Members of the Security Board, the so-called derogatory information in your indictment of me cannot be fairly understood except in the context of my life and work.” Oppenheimer (1) Room 2022 : Both dropped into the pit and questioned at the gates of Heaven. “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whoever is permitted toward God will be permitted to Heaven.” Matthew 16:19 I drifted up to a gate with a swarm of people, and when it was my turn the head clerk says, in a business-like way—“Well, quick! Where are you from?” Mark Twain, “Extract from Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven” Judgment Day in Oppenheimer. Who judges? The audience. Privately he was convinced that God looked further than the pit, that He had far-reaching things in mind as usual and had His eye upon some distant purpose, in the service of which he, Joseph, had been made to drive the brethren to the uttermost. They were being sacrificed to the future, and he suffered for them, however badly things went with himself. Thomas Mann, “In the Pit”

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon Clearly drawn geometry of extensive location + large cast of characters + audience doesn’t get lost = Directorial genius. The unspeakably breathtaking feat of the Trinity test : 1:47:54–2:00:15. The whole area of combat was one complete area—it actually exists. One of the things I tried to do was give you a sense of where you were, where everything else was. Which, in war movies, is something you frequently don’t get. Kubrick in Tim Cahill, Rolling Stone Interview : Stanley Kubrick in 1987 I constantly point out whenever I’m asked about these long visual sequences and why they work—and I never quite realized I was doing it—when you have an action sequence, you’ve got to lay out the geography. The trouble is with 99% of directors, they don’t. Hitchcock knows how to do it. I know how to do it. (Steven) Spielberg knows how to do it. (Stanley) Kubrick knows how to do it. You have to lay out the geography of the location so the audience knows where everything is before you set the action going, whether it’s two armies colliding, it’s a shootout in a train station or it’s Cary Grant at a crossroads in the Midwest. The key is that you’ve got to slow everything down. If you look at every shootout you see, you have no idea where anything is. I’ve said this a thousand times and I think I’m the last practitioner. Q&A: Brian De Palma, AP, 18 March 2020 last practitioner—not quite. Oliver Stone is another director who has spoken on this point. On the DVD commentary of Any Given Sunday, Stone recalled the storytelling necessity and editing complications of organising for the audience the locations of the large cast of characters populating the climactic game sequence. For a movie that doesn’t clearly draw the geography for its climactic battle, so that the action sequence is simply a series of shots, see My Darling Clementine (1946)—(a film with technical-structural links with Scorsese’s latest), 1:28:15–1:33:10. Post-production shenanigans (with director John Ford frozen out of the editing) led to a hazy cinematic Situation. The Trinity test is storytelling on the largest scale—and Oppenheimer pulls it off to perfection, going on the evidence of an unanticipated global word-of-mouth of $953.2 million.

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon Clear-cut desert celebration : Lawrence, 1:20:00–1:22:06 Ambivalent desert celebration : Oppenheimer, 1:58:48–1:59:51

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon Oppenheimer. 1:54:19 Lawrence. 28:35 / 1:17:14

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon Prince Feisal : “Gordon of Khartoum.” The association apparently energizes Lawrence inside. The character Oppenheimer, however, has to be convinced of things in a comical manner via the 1930s-Capraesque Ernest Lawrence : “Because you’re not just self-important, you’re actually important.” Things change. “Thank God for that, anyway.” “Yes, thank him.” “Lawrence, I do not think you know how you have tempted him.” “I know.” Oppenheimer : “The atomic bomb will be a terrible revelation of divine power.”

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon Lawrence. I cannot fiddle, but I can make a great state from a little city. Groves. Oppenheimer couldn’t run a hamburger stand. Oppenheimer. I couldn’t. But I can run the Manhattan Project.

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon Shot 1 of Lawrence of Arabia and shot 1 of Oppenheimer share a similar visual quality : the various concrete slabs joined together in the first recall the grouted paving slabs of the Cambridge courtyard in the second. (Yet another evocation in at least the Oppenheimer shot : a suggestion of film frames cut together. . . . )