2 posts tagged “culture”

I don't know if it's because I'm a masochist or a hopeless idealist, or if I just wanted to make JP happy, but as of last Sunday, I've seen 2001 five times, each time thinking this will be when I learn to love it, or understand it, or care about it, or at least appreciate it. I left the theater kind of being able to appreciate it. I told JP I can understand why people love it. He took that as a victory. So there's that.
I understand that it wasn't really Keir Dullea who was dying in 2001, it was mankind. So I can accept that there wouldn't be a fast deathbed scene. But holy crap, Greta Garbo never took that long to die.
Or maybe it's not about the death of mankind, in which case it really did take Dullea too long to die. Maybe it's about reincarnation, and the soul, and God, and how you only see him at birth and death. But is God really just a cold block of stone? Shouldn't s/he be more cuddly during the two most traumatic times of your life?
I can't deconstruct this movie. Symbolism and metaphor are usually lost on me. I'm not Pauline Kael, who could have turned The Wedding Singer into something profound and meaningful.
I suppose someone could counter that the fact that I'm still thinking about it means Kubrick did his job. But I don't want to think about it anymore.
Because I just hate that fucking movie. It's overrated and it bores me almost to tears. I fell asleep at least three times on Sunday. The set-up, after the opening monkey/birth of man scene, is too long and full of scenes that don't matter or  have much of anything to do with the rest of the story. JP says Kubrick was trying to show that everything involves a certain amount of banality and tedium. I know that. There is no such thing as a glamorous job. But showing it on screen shouldn't be tediously torturous for the audience. I get it. The movie covers millions of years. But did the entire movie have to feel like it lasted millions of years?

There's a part of me that still thinks, after 35 years, that this was Kubrick's goof on the public. "Let's see if I can get them to take this seriously".
Its reputation as a stoner movie doesn't help. Like Fantasia (the movie, not the singer), 2001 has a cadre of fans who are always compelled to say "2001 is better if you're stoned." I doubt that was Kubrick's goal. At any rate, dude, it gives me a damned headache.

This is what happens when you start lists of your most loved and hates things. I forgot to add Chinatown to "Some of my favorite movies". This has been corrected.

JP and I went to the Monet exhibit today at the NC Museum of Art. After the last supershow at NCMA, the Rodin exhibit, I swore I would never go to another one. The Rodin show was a mess - not the pieces themselves, but the crowd made me crazy. If the woman in back of me with the SUV stroller banged into me one more time, I was going to smack her. People were complaining about attendees going in the wrong direction. WTF? It wasn't a bank line, it was an art exhibit. It was hot and crowded and irritating. I had been to the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia a few months before, so I had already seen most of the work, and left the NCMA feeling I had wasted my time.

The museum learned its lesson, and it showed with the Monet exhibit. They prohibited strollers, which was a blessing. After a slight jam up at the beginning of the show, things flowed nicely.  The art was hung chronologically to show the evolution of Monet's worked, and the paintings were beautifully lit. There were a few bottlenecks here and there, but we were able to wander around as we wanted, and managed to see everything eventually. As for the art itself, well it was Monet. I'm not an art critic, and I can't say anything about it that hasn't been said a million times. Some pieces didn't do much for me, most were beautiful and a few were spectacular. I love standing in front of a painting that first appears to be simple, but becomes more complicated as you stare at it. The colors and textures emerge, and it turns into something else. Stand to one side, and you see one thing. Stand on the other side, and you see another. I always thought of paintings as static, that they are exactly what they appear to be at first glance. I left that show with a new understanding. And I was thrilled to have seen the work.
JP did get a polite reprimand from a staff member for pointing a little too closely at a painting he was explaining to me. That man has to learn to keep his hands to himself.
He reminded that I touched a Picasso at the National Museum once, just because I wasn't supposed to. I have no recollection of this behavior, and will deny it until the day I die. But I do remember the first time he took me to the National Museum, I stood in front of a Picasso and thought "I'm standing in front of a fucking Picasso. So this is where they keep them".

To anyone who had a chance to go to the Monet show, I say I hope you had the same experience I did. To anyone who didn't get there, I hope you're soon some place where you can stand and stare at Monet's paintings. You'll be a happier person.