CODED AGEISM 9/20/20

I am now an “upper senior” - a term that the woman who hired me to teach painting used for mature students in my class who were over 70 years of age. As I reach the top of the age pyramid I recently decided to publicly reveal how old I was on social media, which I am beginning to believe might have been an ill-considered move. Because I am very active, having often been called “hyper” because of my “bouncing around eccentric personality”- a product of thinking and expressing everything that comes into my provocatively spinning brain, some people took me to be younger than I was chronologically. NOW that they know how old I am they look at me and act differently. Many of my friends and those closest to me advise that I no longer should be spending grueling hours teaching; I momentarily agree when I get home from working and can barely walk.  Recovery time might take longer but the process is worth it:  I love to look at art; art from amateurs, art from “real” artists, art from those whose work has wonderful potential, and seeing that potential realized. I love that my eye is as sharp as ever and my critical faculties still clear and incisive.

I just started teaching again (outdoors under a tent) during the CoVid-19  pandemic and several concerned students were telling me to take a break, to rest, to sit down - being lovingly protective - wondering if I would trip or fall while teaching.  One student whispered to me that her mother-in-law had died and would I like surplus boxes of DEPENDS that she left behind. I confusedly looked at her wondering if I am obviously leaking somewhere. I responded graciously that I was fine and had all the paraphernalia that I needed to stay dry at this time.

I noticed that some students during pre- Co-Vid times attempted to take my elbow steering me about like a sheep being herded by a snapping dog not realizing that I am fine in the upper echelons of time - despite two knee replacements, some unsteadiness due to dizzy spells,  worry about the world going to shit, and admittedly moderate complaining….but working all the time on my painting, photography, and writing and basically joyful about who I am and who I have become. Time bequeaths wisdom and breathes life upon a slowly dying body.

THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO 1/25/20

I just saw a strange, beautiful, surreal film on Amazon Prime titled THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO. I am still reeling from the originality of language, and photography - images shot in fits and starts akin to the way we breathe. The depth of respect that a young man has for his lineage is conveyed through the particulars of architectural detail to the house he believes his grandfather built by hand- a gorgeous building on a hill - emblematic of a San Francisco home that once was more accessible than it is today. There are classic views of the city with its steep high-reaching hills reminding me of the artists Diebenkorn and Thiebaud - who have made the city their own through painting.

The movie stars Jimmie Fails (who wrote the screenplay) and plays a character of the same name - Jimmie Fails in the film -and his best friend Monty (Jonathan Majors) both having distinctive dreams, taking separate paths but walking together. One is a poet/artist/playwright and the other an admirer of the delicate beauty of reconditioning - working with his hands as a builder and restorer of what is now discarded and forgotten. Yes, there are psychological links to Jimmy Fails' own childhood, living in group homes, broken both mentally and physically, a key to his obsessive need to reconstruct as a form of regeneration.

A profound sadness permeates the film mixed with illuminating goodness. The tone and rhythm of THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO will not be easily forgotten. The lives of homeless people who live in cars, on the street, and in SRO's are also not buried from our sight but are seen in this film, as is gentrification and the neglect of our environment - issues conveyed with screams into the winds of change.

JUST MERCY 1/13/20

Finally saw a film that moved me emotionally.

I recommend JUST MERCY - based on the true story of idealistic Harvard-educated lawyer Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) who opts to move to Alabama rather than work as a corporate lawyer, choosing to become an advocate for prisoners on death row. The movie begins with the founding of the Equal Justice Initiative with the support of local activist Eva Ansley (Brie Larson:) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Justice_Initiative.

The film concentrates on a few of Stevenson's earliest cases focusing on Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx) and the heinous journey he undergoes - comprising false accusations, witness tampering, and manipulated evidence landing him on death row waiting to be executed.

1 out of 9 prisoners scheduled to be executed are innocent - and black inmates are the most vulnerable. In this film we see how a good lawyer can change the course of an investigation; we see how money factors in; we see how we are all a hair's breadth away from injustice particularly if you are poor and black; we see police corruption; we see blatant institutional racism and we see generosity and hope.

Stevenson's faith in the power of Congress to rectify unjust laws and the belief that our Judicial System can right "wrongs" brought me to tears in the age of Trump where deceit and cowardice prevail. This is a portrait of a decent, dedicated, brilliant lawyer giving me the confidence to know that there are many more attorneys fighting for those who are helplessly ignored. On a personal note, I have two in my own family and this film showed me again how critical the fight against injustice is. I am so proud of their work.

DELUGE 1/1/20

Deluge, oil/alkyd/canvas, 60"x84", 2018

2020 will be a year of reckoning. Will separation of powers be subsumed into ONE power - that of the Executive? Will Congress and the Courts allow a Demagogue to overturn our democracy?  Most importantly will the American people re-elect a man and a Senate Majority Leader who are crushing the very institutions that they were elected to uphold? We are living at a critical moment in history. 

When President Obama came to power, the searing wound of racism tore open our society to blatantly undermine Presidential authority. Congress attempted to become all-powerful with myriad Hearings on issues that were resolved many times over and became vehicles of pure propaganda. We were subject to Senator McConnell successfully overturning the nomination of a Supreme Court nominee. Rules were flouted and flipped - a pinhole of injustice leaked out and under Donald J. Trump has become a deluge of venality - facts are now deemed “fake”; scientific data is ignored; the free press has been under constant vilification so that many Americans no longer believe the writings of dedicated journalists; women, people of color, immigrants, Muslims and Jews are denigrated and disparaged as divisiveness and hate have thrown a shadow over the country.

RICHARD JEWELL directed by Clint Eastwood 12/16/19

Clint Eastwood’s latest film RICHARD JEWELL depicts the bombing at Centennial Park during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia and proceeds to expose how justice was perverted by the media and the FBI. The film is timely in that it plays into Trump rallies’ paranoid depiction of “fake news” and a “corrupt” FBI. The derisive language of today - even the term "quid-pro-quo" is neatly shoe-horned into the script. In one of the early moments on the screen, there is a poster hanging in a lawyer’s office stating:  I Fear Government more than I Fear Terrorism.  The poster is faintly seen in the background functioning like a subliminal ad, but the words screamed out at me giving an ideological clue to Eastwood’s RICHARD JEWELL. Yes - there was injustice done to the main character, Richard Jewell who had to endure a trial by the press as we have seen myriad times historically - particularly with the Central Park Five Jogger Case where innocence was sacrificed to the altar of political ambition and hate. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution threatened to sue over the portrayal of their newspaper and journalist Kathy Scruggs, unless a disclaimer was put into the film; their request was rejected by Warner Brothers Pictures. This controversy continues.

Richard Jewell (an excellent performance by newcomer Paul Walter Hauser) is a young man living at home with his mother (Kathy Bates) who has become obsessed with “law and order” and desperately wants to be a police officer. We find out more about his zealousness in the pursuit of that goal as the movie progresses. He eventually becomes a Security Guard during the Atlanta Olympics and discovers a suspicious package under a bench and calls it in to authorities thereby saving many lives once the pipe bomb explodes. At first, Jewell, who rarely receives accolades - quite the contrary - he has often been derided and mocked for his physical appearance revels in the attention. This time he has made his mother proud. But soon the FBI becomes suspicious- feeling that he fits the profile of a savior/perpetrator and they begin to build a case against an innocent man using “dirty tricks.” 

Jewell needs a lawyer and he chooses a man we have met earlier in the film - a feisty, libertarian, go-it-alone Watson Bryant played by the great under-recognized actor, Sam Rockwell. This character and his voice, I believe is quintessential Eastwood - a man fighting the good fight for the ineffective underdog, a role he has played in movies which has osmotically permeated his being. Bryant’s job is to pull the veil of adoration from Jewell’s eyes and open them up to the reality of injustice so that he will defend himself.

Eastwood’s film is about the manipulation of the justice system by powerful government agents and the press; where any means justifies the proscribed end; familiar to many people who have been caught in a  Kafkaesque web. It is a nightmare that leaves one helpless. My problem with Eastwood’s movie is that there is a thin line between advocating for personal freedom and tainting with a broad brush institutions that protect those very freedoms specifically the press. The portrayal of Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper reporter Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde) and the methods she uses to procure classified information from an FBI agent (Jon Hamm) made me literally groan with disbelief and annoyance;  Eastwood debases her journalistic skills in favor of a cliched image of a beautiful, sexy bitch with no morals whose story detonates lives. In the process, he degrades the “free press” in a way that catapults us into the “fake news” Trump era. It is frightening.

DARK WATERS 12/9/19

It took almost 20 years for Dupont to reimburse victims of TEFLON production in their chemical plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. Dupont was the largest employer in this town furtively contaminating the waters and farmlands of Parkersburg West Virginia causing thousands of people to get kidney, testicular, and other cancers as well as birth deformities in pregnant women.

The film "Dark Waters" is a story of one man's resolution and courage in fighting and bringing to light what he found in an investigation which began in 1998 in order to get much-needed justice for the community over a product which had a toxic polluting chemical: Perfluorooctanoic acid —also known as C8—is a "...perfluorinated carboxylic acid produced and used worldwide as an industrial surfactant in chemical processes and as a material feedstock, and is a health concern..."(Wikipedia.) This man is Robert Bilott, an environmental attorney who previously had defended Chemical companies. Mark Ruffalo gives a stolid - understated performance depicting a person whose conscience countermands his job security, health, and his marriage.

C-8 ended up being used in products that most Americans are familiar with: Teflon as well as stain-resistant fabrics and food packaging among others. This film chronicles how Dupont KNEW this chemical was poisonous and still placed it in their products for profit. According to words on the screen at the very end of the film - almost 99% of the population have traces of C-8 in their blood. "This prolific contamination is not because C8 exists in the environment naturally (it doesn't), but solely because of widespread industrial use..." (US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.) We experience the lengthy process of judicial "discovery", the myriad ways investigations can be impeded and after 19 years, some restitution.

http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/magazine/entry/teflons_toxic_legacy/

DARK WATERS directed by Todd Haynes is a timely film; we witness the abuse of power by our government as well as large corporations. The stealthy methods used to cover-up criminality are clearly articulated and methodically laid out. Sound familiar?

THE IRISHMAN 11/28/19

Martin Scorcese's THE IRISHMAN is not one of his greatest films, but it is his longest one. It begins with the camera weaving in and out of rooms in a nursing home - a lovely ballet gliding from one space to another which announces that here is a movie about the movement of time --smooth and beautiful.

And then I experienced the "DE - AGING" technology that the Director has been touting, and I was so distracted by too large heads bobbing on shoulders with no necks on bodies that did not gel with the smoother faces - bodies that no longer had the fluidity of youth; legs that no longer were able to dash upstairs. It actually ruined the movie for me - my eyes could not reconcile what I was seeing and still remain in the movie's moment.

Kudos to Joe Pesci's powerfully quiet performance as Russell Bufalino - a Pennsylvania crime family "capo" who is terrific - a highlight of THE IRISHMAN. Robert De Niro as mob/union enforcer Frank Sheeran feels mundane - giving a mannered performance - the all too familiar grimaces as we witness a man who is "loyal" till he is not; a man who follows orders and is straddling the two worlds of the Mafia and the corrupt Teamster's Union President - Jimmy Hoffa played by Al Pacino - too loud loud loud. We follow Sheeran's relationship and friendship to these two powerful bosses against the backdrop of the history of the 1960s and '70s including the influence of organized crime on the manipulation of political elections. The TV is often running in the background replaying for us the 1960 Presidential election between Nixon and John Kennedy, The Cuban Missile Crisis, the Kennedy assassination in Dallas, etc.

If this movie is a reflection of real-life it ignores the role of women who are relegated to being mere scenery and we witness no acknowledgment of population diversity in the cities. As with many of Scorcese's movies, the focus is on the Italian immigrant gangster subculture thereby giving THE IRISHMAN a feeling of predictability.