Tonight's movie was "Another Time, Another Place" (1958), a positively Sirkian melodrama starring Lana Turner and a young Sean Connery as war reporters in England, covering the action on the home front. As the movie opens, Connery - working for the BBC - is broadcasting live from the site of an unexploded V-2 rocket that has landed in London. An army bomb squad is attempting to disarm it, but it could blow up at any moment. Into this tension comes Lana Turner, a New York newspaper columnist with a war correspondent credential. She shows up at the V-2 scene not only to report on it, but because she knows Connery is there. She follows his every broadcast, and after the bomb is successfully disabled, we see that the two are in love.
What follows is a scene of the highest melodramatic order (which is why I referenced Douglas Sirk), replete with gauzy close up photography, in which Turner and Connery meet, embrace, and hold on to one another in the "love me and never let me go" mode of 1950s existential romantic dramas. We find out that the couple have known each other for several months. They are separated much of the time because of their respective professional duties, but when they do meet up, as in the opening sequence, they never want to part. There is an obstacle in the way of their happiness, though : Lana Turner's boss, her newspaper publisher, is in love with her and has asked her to marry him. But he is back in New York, and she tells Sean Connery - only 28 here, and softer than his James Bond image - that she will break off the engagement to her boss because it was never serious to begin with.
Nothing insurmountable so far. Everything looks rosy, except for the war and the pounding England is taking from the rain of Hitler's V-2s. Connery and Turner have to return to their jobs, but the war is coming to an end, and when it does, they can finally be together for good. Bring on the heavy string section to play over the glistening eyes of the actors. This was the way in which the full abandonment of two people to their love for one another was portrayed in these types of dreamy 50s melodramas,with sweeping music, tight clothing and body language, a style from which David Lynch, among others, took a huge influence.
Tragedy must always insert itself into the melodramatic form, however, and it does so here when Sean Connery, just as he is about to leave to begin a new assignment, drops a bombshell of his own on Lana Turner. He tells her that he won't be back, because he is married.
I was debating whether to reveal that to you, and I decided in favor of it because that detail leads to everything that happens in the remainder of the film. It is enough to say Turner is at first devastated by this news, then angry at Connery. Why didn't he tell her! But then all is forgiven, because their love is all consuming. He promises to see her again, very soon, and then he leaves on a plane for his next broadcast in Paris.
Left unresolved is what will be done about Connery's family situation, his marriage and his young son. He leaves Lana Turner hanging on a promise that could be sincere, or not. She is emotionally laid bare and vulnerable as he departs, and that is all I can tell you because.......
A second tragedy is about to strike, and I shouldn't have told you that, either, but I do because it will result in the real basis for the story, which will take place over the second half of the film and will be quite surprising.
"Another Time, Another Place" was directed by Lewis Allen, an Englishman who also worked in Hollywood and was at the helm of a classic cinematic ghost story called "The Uninvited", which I have on dvd. His style ranges into the metaphysical, and attempts to place human beings "half in" and "half out" of the spirit world, in touch with and yet beyond control of the romantic emotional forces that move them forward.
I'll say no more, but I must ask you at this point if you Googled Schopenhauer's picture, the one i mentioned to you last night. Did you see it? I'll bet Schopenhauer would have a lot to say about this movie, haha.
I am super-tired once again, but I will give you a quick musical recommendation for Bela Bartok, whose birthday was yesterday. This is for his piano music, and specifically his short compositions known cumulatively as "Mikrokosmos", of which there are six volumes consisting of well over a hundred pieces all together. They are atonal, which may be off putting, but they also have a stark beauty and a rhythmic simplicity that is easy to connect to if you give the music a chance. I love the "Mikrokosmos" myself, and I suggest just putting it on in the background to start with, as you do the dishes or read the newspaper.
Just go about your day and let it flow over you.
That's all I know for tonight. See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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