Tonight at CSUN we saw Wajda's "Innocent Sorcerers" (1960), the story of a young sports doctor (he works with boxers), who also plays drums in a semi-pro jazz band. Stitching up fighters pays the rent, but his heart is in the music......well, sort of. His heart is really in the adulation he gets from the girls who show up at the band's club shows. This is a new Poland in 1960. Stalin died several years back and the new Communist government in the Soviet Union, led by Nikita Khrushchev, had eased up a bit on some of the cultural restrictions. Jazz clubs were no longer verboten.
So the young (and handsome) doctor plays jazz drums at night, and has no shortage of groupies. He becomes bored with being chased, though, and decides to become the chaser.
He and a friend (played by the "Polish James Dean" Zbigniew Cybulski, hooray for him!), go into a bar where the doc spies a girl he immediately fancies. She is an Audrey Hepburn type in looks and sophistication. The doc enlists Cybulski in a scheme to get the girl away from the guy she is with. The scheme works, and soon he finds himself alone with the young woman on the train platform outside the bar. She seems to appreciate his chutzpah and agrees to accompany him back to his apartment. She even pays for his train ticket.
But it's not what you think.
Instead, their evening together is mostly conversation. In the flyers that we always receive at the Cinematheque, it is noted by the reviewer that this film bears a resemblance in the conversational respect to Richard Linklater's "Before Sunrise" with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, and I would agree. I would bet that Linklater saw "Innocent Sorcerers" and was influenced by it. His film was almost 100% conversational; in "Sorcerers", the night of conversation results from an on-the-spot "contract" that the young lady writes up. She has agreed to go to the doctor's apartment only because she finds him to be an interesting person, and her "contract", which she writes down on paper, is all about having a discussion. The doc agrees, but he has met his match, because not only is this Polish Audrey very sophisticated, but she seems to have even more self-confidence than he does.
There are many political subtleties in this short 84 minutes film, but they are all image related and unspoken in the dialogue. Once again it's a film best seen and not described too much.
I think "Innocent Sorcerers" takes it's place among classic 1960s European Youth Culture cinema, alongside films by Godard and Antonioni (of whom we still haven't figured out why he needed two "oni"s in his last name).
I give it two Big Thumbs Up, and I think it's high time that Wajda - now that I am experiencing more of his movies, and in a theater - is given the same recognition as that of the above-named cinematic greats, for he is every bit their equal. ///
Tonight I am fighting a bit of a germ, doggonnit. Man - I have been avoiding this godawful flu like the plague (and I must pause while you appreciate that metaphor)........ ;)
But I have been trying to avoid it ever since Christmas, or whenever it started. This flu season has been one of the worst in recent times, so I've been trying to steer clear of any coughing I hear, or any other signs of contagion, because this year the bug has been everywhere and everyone has had it.
I did not get it. I was lucky. I was handwashing like a madman, not touching my face. I am not a germ-o-phobe, but I am the Next Best Thing, a guy who absolutely hates getting sick. The last flu or cold I got was two years ago, and I have only been sick twice since 2014.
But I must have screwed up, because this morn I awoke with a minor sore throat. Initially I chalked it up to sleeping with the fan on. That can do it, can dry out your sinuses or whatever. But by this afternoon, I knew it was A Bug.
So, I immediately went home and took two gigantic pills of Wellness Formula. If you have never heard of Wellness Formula, you can Google it. It is an herbal remedy, with echinacea as a main ingredient.
I took it the last time I got sick a couple years ago, and it really worked. Instead of a five day flu, I was done in two days, with symptoms that were nowhere near as bad as they would have been without the Formula. This afternoon, when I realised that my sore throat was germ based, I took two Wellness pills as soon as I got home, and my symptoms have not increased very much. I can feel The Bug trying to kick my ass, but the Wellness Formula is putting up it's dukes in a formidable defense.
Two Big Thumbs Up, then, for Wellness Formula. Google it if you haven't heard of it.
I hope I will be okay tomorrow. I know that this flu bug is no slouch itself.
Elizabeth, I saw your Valentine's Day post. I was glad to see you back on FB. One thing I like about posts with dogs, besides the fact that dogs rule, is when, in a photograph, a Dog Nose is situated in the foreground.
There is something about Dog Noses. I used to think, back in the days of Shemp and Ygor, and continuing through my beloved Alice and Trixie, that dogs had to get in line to have their noses attached. The Dog Nose seemed to be composed of a different material than the rest of The Dog. So I always figured they had to go stand in line at the Rubber Shop, or the Naugahyde Shop, to have their noses put on.
Whether I am right or not - and I'll bet I am - I have thought in recent years that it is very important for the Dog Nose to be photographed at a prominent frontal angle in any Dog Picture, preferably to where it plays a central role in the interpretation of same.
Second to the Dog Nose in photographs is the Dog Eyeball, but we will have to explore that another night. :)
Fingers are crossed for a germ-free morning.
See you then. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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