"Authors and actors and artists and such"

by Eve Fisher

Because the search for really good entertainment is never ending - especially these days -  I'm here to help.  I noticed a while back that there a gajillion stories about rock stars (and, dare I say it, not all of them that good - in fact, mostly extremely formulaic), but there aren't nearly enough about authors and artists and such.  Not to say that I don't like a good movie about musicians:

These are some great documentaries:

Amazing Grace - Aretha Franklin, directed by Sidney Pollack in 1972, released 2018.  Some great, great, great music - and a few surprising cameo shots of the audience.  (Netflix, DVD only)

Miles Davis:  The Birth of the Cool - 2019 (Netflix)

Chasing Trane:  The John Coltrane Documentary - 2016 (Netflix)

Yes, I like jazz - sue me.  

Now let's commingle the musicians as we move on to authors and artists and such:

Impromptu - (Netflix, DVD only)  with Judy Davis as George Sand, Hugh Grant as Chopin, Mandy Pantinkin as Alfred de Musset, and Julian Sands as Listz.  (And also Emma Thompson, and Bernadette Peters as a wickedly wonderful villain.)  I love this movie - a rom-com with great music, costumes, settings, set in the 1830s, all of it true, and Judy Davis knocks me out as George.   

I'm really becoming a fan of Argentinian Director Gaston Duprat.  I mentioned his Mi Obra Maestra (My Masterpiece) on Netflix back last July.  (https://www.sleuthsayers.org/2019/07/miscellany.html)  As I said then, You gotta love a movie that opens up with a guy saying, "I'm a murderer".  

So we finally watched another Duprat movie, and I wished I'd seen it earlier:

The Distinguished Citizen (Netflix), is a film that should become one of every writer's darkest nightmares.  What happens when you go back to the small town you came from for a "special event"?  For a "special honor"?  It captures small towns perfectly.  I knew every freaking character all too well, and I have been to - in fact, I have JUDGED - that art competition, by God.  Small towns are the same in Argentina or South Dakota.  And while cities may have a real edge on small towns with sudden random violence, only in a small town can you get the slow, slow, slow burning build to the disaster you know is coming, but cannot stop.  Wonderful.  

We watched Trumbo last night on Netflix:  Helen Mirren was brilliant as Hedda Hopper, who really was even more of a bitch in real life.  (Favorite story about HH:  she wrote a nasty about Joseph Cotton having an extramarital affair with Deanna Durbin.  When Cotton saw HH, in a restaurant, he pulled her chair out from under her.  The next day he got endless flowers and telegrams from people who wished they'd had the courage to do the same.)  Brian Cranston, excellent as Trumbo.  Louis C.K. was interesting casting.  Of course the script made Trumbo a little more of a hero of the Constitution than he actually was, and much more fun than he probably was - but one of the things I liked was watching him, writing, rewriting, cutting-and-pasting, and obviously wrestling his way through his great screenplays.  

A truly great movie about artists is Donnersmarck's Never Look Away.  It's a fictionalized version of the life and art of Gerhard Richter, who said himself said that it goes too far (in this The New Yorker article HERE).  But I can understand why and how Donnersmarck couldn't resist:  

The heart of the plot is wrapped around the true story of Richter's schizophrenic aunt, who was forcibly sterilized and later "euthanized" by the Nazis.  The doctor who ordered both these "procedures" was - unbeknownst for a long time to Richter - the father of Richter's wife.  (As always, truth is stranger than fiction...)  But the heart of the movie is the drive to be an artist, no matter the circumstances, the lies, the world, the flesh, and the devil.  My husband, Allan, who is a great artist in his own right (see his webpage HERE) said it was the best presentation he ever saw of how an artist goes from nothing (a blank canvas, a lump of clay) to a work of art.  (Netflix on DVD or Amazon Prime for $6.99)

The Painter and the Thief is an amazing documentary currently available on Amazon, which takes mystery, art, addiction, crime, prison, domestic abuse, and tattoes and mingles them all together in a story that is unbelievable but true.  Barbora Kysilkova, an artist from the former Czechoslovakia, forms a relationship with Karl Bertil-Nordland, a man who stole her artwork.  She goes to his hearing to find out why he did it - and ends up painting him. Repeatedly. This means, as Bertil admits, “She sees me very well."  Then he adds, "but she forgets that I can see her, too.” The New Yorker called it a "quaveringly dark fairy tale" - and they were right. It's worth the $3.99 rental price, that's for damn sure.  

BTW - for some really great, entertaining, stylish documentaries on art, I can recommend all of Waldemar Januszczak's on Amazon Prime:  This is an English art critic who knows his stuff and has a wicked sense of humor.  Renaissance Unchained, The Impressionists, Rococo Before Bedtime, Brushstrokes, and more.  We've enjoyed every single one of them.  We just finished his documentary on Paul Gauguin, in which I learned that Gauguin spent his childhood in Peru.  (I swear no one ever told me this before.)  I consider this as important a discovery - it explains so much about his later artwork! - as when I found out that Aaron Burr was Jonathan Edwards' grandson (which I think explains so much about Burr's rebellion against, well, everything).  Some things really need to be told clearly, and from the beginning.  

Well, that will give you all a few nights' entertainment.  

And a few quotes that may also spark a story idea or two:

• The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent - John Maynard Keynes
• Put not your trust in princes - since they don't produce, they always steal - Robert Heinlein
• Seek approval from the one person you desperately want it from, and you're guaranteed not to get it - David Sedaris

Oh, and Knives Out! is on Netflix, too.

Until next time!

Sometimes The Big Sleep Comes Too Soon

by Paul D. Marks

This post will be a little different than the normal post for me.

Anne

My friend Anne Adams died in February, from breast cancer that had metastasized and for which the treatments had become ineffective. This is what she said in one of her last e-mails to me: “I’m feeling OK, but not doing well in terms of treatment. I’ve pretty much gotten to the end of anything that works for me. My doctor is looking for some trials, but unless something like that turns up, I’m looking at about 2 to 3 months before I’ll be doing The Big Sleep.”

Unfortunately, both she and the doctors turned out to be right.

She had been fighting this for years, and had better times and worse times. So it wasn’t a total shock on the one hand, but on the other it was. She was relatively young – not old enough for Medicare. I’ve known her for decades and at one time we were very close, though not as much lately. But we still kept in touch.

We initially got together through a buddy of mine she was seeing and when they came into town (L.A.) one time I met her. Then, when she moved here on her own and wanted to get into the film biz, I was one of the few people she “knew,” so we got together and became fast friends, initially bonding over our love of movies, both classic and contemporary (at least contemporary for when we met, not so much movies today). Since our schedules were fluid we often got together to go to screenings and for the movies we missed in the screenings we’d often go see at a matinee the day they opened. We loved movies, as well as Hollywood history. But our friendship expanded to much deeper levels as we got to know each other over time.

She encouraged my writing in the dark days before I’d had any success and she brought me up short if I whined too much about the business. She didn’t have any trouble getting established in the business, working mostly in post-production or as a producer. We saw a lot of each other in those days, traveled together, and just had a very close relationship that withstood the test of time, even if it wasn’t as close as it once was. So she was very intrinsically involved in my life.

In fact, without a push from Anne I might not have gotten together with my wife, Amy. I met Amy when another friend “roped” me into helping produce a live old time radio benefit for UNICEF (that’s a whole ’nother story…). A friend of Amy’s had also volunteered her to work on it. And we met there, but I didn’t think Amy would remember me after our brief encounter that first night. And I only knew her first name and sort of where she worked. So I was a little hesitant to call her. But Anne said, “Well, what do you have to lose? All she can do is say ‘no’.” So I called Amy and the rest – to make a long story short – is history. But I might not have followed through if not for Anne giving me that little prod, so I owe her much for that.

Anne was at my wedding and my bachelor party (which was not limited to guys, though Amy wasn’t there). In fact, she also sort of MC’d and “produced” our wedding.

Anne also did something else for me/us that I will always be grateful for – besides pushing me to call Amy – though it might seem superficial on the surface. Once she got established here she knew a lot of people. And one of them is one of the band members in Paul McCartney’s band. I am and forever will be the Ultimate Beatles Fan. And Anne got Amy and me backstage to see him. It was an amazing moment.

Amy, Anne, Paul

We had recently talked about getting together but it never happened as the disease progressed rapidly.

In one of our last correspondences, she said, “I’m getting tons of emails (but nobody wanting the stove, [an antique stove she was trying to place before she died] of course), so this text will be short. Let’s plan to talk after the holidays.” Well, we never did talk after the holidays. We never saw each other again. Her disease progressed and she passed on on 2/16/19. Here’s a link to her obit on Legacy . com: https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/anne-adams-obituary?pid=191640884

Anne, McCartney drummer Abe Laboriel, Jr., Paul,
former Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda in blue shirt in background 

I’ll just finish that off by saying I miss her and will continue to do so.

~~~

Clyde

Clyde Williams is another friend who died of cancer recently. I met him when I was looking for someone to do a voiceover for a promotional video. He had a great voice, very expressive. After we met on that project we became friends.in b

Clyde led an adventurous and exciting life. He served in Viet Nam. And said he had once been on a security detail or honor guard for JFK. He was even scouted by the Dodgers. But his true love was art and painting.

You would have thought we didn’t have all that much in common, but we really did. He was from Loosiana. A cowboy. An artist

I am none of those things. And if I could draw a decent stick figure it would be a major feat. Though I do live in cowboy country now, so we had that in common. And Clyde liked it up here, kept saying how much he’d like to move here.

In an article from the LA Times (“Black Cowboys Honored for Reel Contributions, 8/1/2000-LA Times: http://articles.latimes.com/2000/aug/01/news/cl-62235 ), he said, “‘My grandfather had me herding cattle as a kid,’ Williams said. ‘I understand the cowboy and the body of the horse. I started sketching them when I was 6. It's a passion. That's why I'll always be a cowboy in my heart.’”

He painted western and cowboy art, black cowboys and Buffalo soldiers, African-Americans in the military, as well as Indians and other western scenes. His work was exhibited at the Autry Museum of the American West. He loved the whole cowboy culture and he loved to read western novels, particularly Louis L’Amour. He had almost every if not every one of his books in hardback and was very proud of that. I helped to fill out his collection and that made us both happy. He also liked all stripe of western/cowboy movies.

Clyde and I could and would talk for hours, about anything and everything. He liked to talk about the changing nature of his neighbored. About wanting to do more acting or voiceovers. And he’d always ask about my wife Amy, whom he was very fond of.

He’d also talk about the red tape and hassles at the VA. And in the last year or two that kind of talk and talk of his disease featured more and more in our conversations. And there’s certain things I’d like to add here but feel that I can’t for personal reasons.

I also hadn’t talked to him for a while. No particular reasons. That’s just how things go, as I’m sure you know. I found out he’d died when I sent him a Christmas card and it came back marked “Deceased.” That was quite a shock.

I didn’t know him as well nor as long as I’d known Anne, but we bonded quickly and became friends. Sometimes you just click with someone. He gave me several prints of his works and I treasure them, both for what they are and as a symbol of our friendship.

And I miss him, too.

~~~

As writers, I think a lot of us strive for some kind of immortality through our writing. We hope to be remembered after we’re gone. Some achieve that, most do not. The way most people remain “alive” is in our memories, as we think about them, reminisce, deal with our regrets. Anne and Clyde will remain alive as long as I’m living – I know I’ll think of them often.

So the moral of this piece is – if I can get a little preachy – every time something like this happens I vow to not let things go so long, vow to get together, go to dinner, etc. But they often don’t get acted on, because we’re human. So don’t put things off. You’ll regret it as I do now. And I’m telling that to myself again now – don’t put things off. And I know I’ll do it again as others will do it with me. That said, I have a date next week to see a friend I haven’t seen in ages, but someone I’ve known since forever, a friend and former writing partner. And I hope that nothing happens to get in the way of our connecting so I won’t have anymore regrets, at least not for a while.

~.~.~

And now for the usual BSP:

The third story in my Ghosts of Bunker Hill series, Fade Out on Bunker Hill, appears in the March/April 2019 issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. If you like the movie Sunset Boulevard, I think you'll enjoy this story. In bookstores and on newstands now:

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