September 24, 2003
cold
Dotty has a cold. My ears feel weird and I'm all tippy. I guess it's like being drunk, except that I'm not drinking alcohol, can't taste much, could legally drive a car, truck, or boat, and am not drunk. It's the last one that's getting in the way, you see.
Even though I'm sick, and I usually watch movies, I didn't watch this movie today (should I say "film" perhaps I should. Or "talkie". That'd be a retro-reference from the early twentieth century. 23 skiddoo!). I watched it Sunday, I think.
It's The Little Foxes. Aside from having Dorothy Parker as a contributing writer, it's crazy-intense. There were three scenes that were overwhelming. Still it was the same old story--good versus evil. At least I think it's an old story.
I suppose it sets up an argument about what it takes to win or maybe what it means to win or if winning has any merit at all.
Do not fret, my darlings, for Dotty, of course, has all the answers.
This was one of my favorite games to play in English class in college. The professor would be making a point about how a person's death emphasizes virtue. If she'd been less virtuous, she might have lived, but it would have been a dismal existance.
OK, yeah, whatever. Virtue does no good when you're dead. In class I suggested that we read it from a modern point of view so that we might see that, although our values are different, we all want to win.
He didn't really like that. He said we weren't reading it from a modern point of view. Instead, we would read it as it was meant to be read. That's what makes great literature: the enduring quality of logical fallacies and our complete inability to see ourselves reflected within it.
Why am I babbling? I'm not sure, but it probably has to do with me having a cold. But see the movie. Bette Davis is amazing. I betcha you'll recognize people from someplace in your life. (If you don't recognize anybody I'd love it if you lend me the map to Oz or where ever you came from. I must visit.)
This is the cover on the photoplay you've got to see:
