Going Silent

Recently I saw Asta Nielsen, Denmark’s leading silent screen star, in a 1921 version of Hamlet, in which she played the title role as a woman dressed as a man, a fiction created by her mother, the nefarious Queen Gertrude, to ensure the throne and her own position. A brilliant, perfectly apt piano score was created in the moment by Indiana University professor Larry Schanker. It all proved to be a delightful evening at the new IU Cinema.

As in most silent screen dramas, there were moments of unintended hilarity, which served as a reminder that viewers of historical film need what Northrup Frye termed, to enjoy fiction, “a willing suspension of disbelief.” This suspension is necessary to enter into the world of fiction, a world in many cases quite unlike the “real” world in which we live at this moment.

To watch a silent film from the Teens or Twenties—a century ago—we also need a willing suspension of modernity, or modern sensibilities. We must mentally turn back our internal calendars to a time before color and talking motion pictures, before television, before airplanes, before the Internet, and all that.

In short, we must put ourselves, as best we can, into the 1920s, in this case, so that we not only understand but also are immersed in the ethos of that bygone era. Otherwise, our understanding of the film—and our enjoyment of what today seems naiveté—will be utterly diminished.

It also must always be remembered that what seems hackneyed in a silent film often was brand new at the time and now is hackneyed only because it has been used subsequently over and over. To understand and appreciate fully the films of any bygone era requires that we learn anew an old vocabulary, much like learning a language no longer spoken and known only by the cognescenti.

Hamlet, in which she played the title role as a woman dressed as a man, a fiction created by her mother, the nefarious Queen Gertrude, to ensure the throne and her own position. A brilliant, perfectly apt piano score was created in the moment by Indiana University professor Larry Schanker. It all proved to be a delightful evening at the new IU Cinema.

As in most silent screen dramas, there were moments of unintended hilarity, which served as a reminder that viewers of historical film need what Northrup Frye termed, to enjoy fiction, “a willing suspension of disbelief.” This suspension is necessary to enter into the world of fiction, a world in many cases quite unlike the “real” world in which we live at this moment.

To watch a silent film from the Teens or Twenties—a century ago—we also need a willing suspension of modernity, or modern sensibilities. We must mentally turn back our internal calendars to a time before color and talking motion pictures, before television, before airplanes, before the Internet, and all that.

In short, we must put ourselves, as best we can, into the 1920s, in this case, so that we not only understand but also are immersed in the ethos of that bygone era. Otherwise, our understanding of the film—and our enjoyment of what today seems naiveté—will be utterly diminished.

It also must always be remembered that what seems hackneyed in a silent film often was brand new at the time and now is hackneyed only because it has been used subsequently over and over. To understand and appreciate fully the films of any bygone era requires that we learn anew an old vocabulary, much like learning a language no longer spoken and known only by the cognescenti.

Hamlet, in which she played the title role as a woman dressed as a man, a fiction created by her mother, the nefarious Queen Gertrude, to ensure the throne and her own position. A brilliant, perfectly apt piano score was created in the moment by Indiana University professor Larry Schanker. It all proved to be a delightful evening at the new IU Cinema.

As in most silent screen dramas, there were moments of unintended hilarity, which served as a reminder that viewers of historical film need what Northrup Frye termed, to enjoy fiction, “a willing suspension of disbelief.” This suspension is necessary to enter into the world of fiction, a world in many cases quite unlike the “real” world in which we live at this moment.

To watch a silent film from the Teens or Twenties—a century ago—we also need a willing suspension of modernity, or modern sensibilities. We must mentally turn back our internal calendars to a time before color and talking motion pictures, before television, before airplanes, before the Internet, and all that.

In short, we must put ourselves, as best we can, into the 1920s, in this case, so that we not only understand but also are immersed in the ethos of that bygone era. Otherwise, our understanding of the film—and our enjoyment of what today seems naiveté—will be utterly diminished.

It also must always be remembered that what seems hackneyed in a silent film often was brand new at the time and now is hackneyed only because it has been used subsequently over and over. To understand and appreciate fully the films of any bygone era requires that we learn anew an old vocabulary, much like learning a language no longer spoken and known only by the cognescenti.

Hamlet, in which she played the title role as a woman dressed as a man, a fiction created by her mother, the nefarious Queen Gertrude, to ensure the throne and her own position. A brilliant, perfectly apt piano score was created in the moment by Indiana University professor Larry Schanker. It all proved to be a delightful evening at the new IU Cinema.

As in most silent screen dramas, there were moments of unintended hilarity, which served as a reminder that viewers of historical film need what Northrup Frye termed, to enjoy fiction, “a willing suspension of disbelief.” This suspension is necessary to enter into the world of fiction, a world in many cases quite unlike the “real” world in which we live at this moment.

To watch a silent film from the Teens or Twenties—a century ago—we also need a willing suspension of modernity, or modern sensibilities. We must mentally turn back our internal calendars to a time before color and talking motion pictures, before television, before airplanes, before the Internet, and all that.

In short, we must put ourselves, as best we can, into the 1920s, in this case, so that we not only understand but also are immersed in the ethos of that bygone era. Otherwise, our understanding of the film—and our enjoyment of what today seems naiveté—will be utterly diminished.

It also must always be remembered that what seems hackneyed in a silent film often was brand new at the time and now is hackneyed only because it has been used subsequently over and over. To understand and appreciate fully the films of any bygone era requires that we learn anew an old vocabulary, much like learning a language no longer spoken and known only by the cognescenti.

Hamlet, in which she played the title role as a woman dressed as a man, a fiction created by her mother, the nefarious Queen Gertrude, to ensure the throne and her own position. A brilliant, perfectly apt piano score was created in the moment by Indiana University professor Larry Schanker. It all proved to be a delightful evening at the new IU Cinema.

As in most silent screen dramas, there were moments of unintended hilarity, which served as a reminder that viewers of historical film need what Northrup Frye termed, to enjoy fiction, “a willing suspension of disbelief.” This suspension is necessary to enter into the world of fiction, a world in many cases quite unlike the “real” world in which we live at this moment.

To watch a silent film from the Teens or Twenties—a century ago—we also need a willing suspension of modernity, or modern sensibilities. We must mentally turn back our internal calendars to a time before color and talking motion pictures, before television, before airplanes, before the Internet, and all that.

In short, we must put ourselves, as best we can, into the 1920s, in this case, so that we not only understand but also are immersed in the ethos of that bygone era. Otherwise, our understanding of the film—and our enjoyment of what today seems naiveté—will be utterly diminished.

It also must always be remembered that what seems hackneyed in a silent film often was brand new at the time and now is hackneyed only because it has been used subsequently over and over. To understand and appreciate fully the films of any bygone era requires that we learn anew an old vocabulary, much like learning a language no longer spoken and known only by the cognescenti.

Hamlet, in which she played the title role as a woman dressed as a man, a fiction created by her mother, the nefarious Queen Gertrude, to ensure the throne and her own position. A brilliant, perfectly apt piano score was created in the moment by Indiana University professor Larry Schanker. It all proved to be a delightful evening at the new IU Cinema.

As in most silent screen dramas, there were moments of unintended hilarity, which served as a reminder that viewers of historical film need what Northrup Frye termed, to enjoy fiction, “a willing suspension of disbelief.” This suspension is necessary to enter into the world of fiction, a world in many cases quite unlike the “real” world in which we live at this moment.

To watch a silent film from the Teens or Twenties—a century ago—we also need a willing suspension of modernity, or modern sensibilities. We must mentally turn back our internal calendars to a time before color and talking motion pictures, before television, before airplanes, before the Internet, and all that.

In short, we must put ourselves, as best we can, into the 1920s, in this case, so that we not only understand but also are immersed in the ethos of that bygone era. Otherwise, our understanding of the film—and our enjoyment of what today seems naiveté—will be utterly diminished.

It also must always be remembered that what seems hackneyed in a silent film often was brand new at the time and now is hackneyed only because it has been used subsequently over and over. To understand and appreciate fully the films of any bygone era requires that we learn anew an old vocabulary, much like learning a language no longer spoken and known only by the cognescenti.

The Nation's Soul

Religious ceremonies—weddings, funerals, worship services—are forms of theater, whether they are bare-stage productions or lavish with pageantry. This has been understood since ancient days, though the connection perhaps is not as often explored today as in former times. However, there is scholarship in this field, as witnessed by the Journal of Religion and Theatre, published by the Religion and Theatre Focus Group of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education.

In religious ceremonies, as in theatrical performances, what touches us as witnesses may not be the central action but something incidental to it: a gesture, a word, a verse of song, a melody. They are theater of the soul. This fact was brought home to me on the Saturday preceding the Monday Martin Luther King Day, when I was attending a memorial service for my brother, who had died in December after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

He was a Navy veteran and so military honors were a concluding part of the service. I was sitting near my sister-in-law as the young seaman of the honor guard presented her with the flag, folded in the traditional triangle, “on behalf of the President of the United States….” What moved me at that utterance was not only the honor shown to my brother and the finality of this closing action but also that this honor was rendered on behalf of a President that I like and admire and who is, significantly, nonwhite. Here’s why:

The flag ceremony reminded me of a similar honor accorded to my father, an Army veteran who saw wartime service in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, when he died in 1997. But it recalled an even earlier time, when Dad had been a young serviceman.

For a short time my father had been assigned to work with a black Army officer. They traveled together in the United States at a time before desegregation was widespread, and so part my father’s duties was to go into hotels and restaurants ahead of the military detail and ask whether they would serve this officer. My father, who told me of this episode in his life only in later years, never did so without tears welling in his eyes at the injustice done to this officer—a man who served his country with honor and distinction and yet could not walk into just any establishment and be served a meal or given a room and a bed.

The religious theatricality of celebrations of Martin Luther King Day sometimes obscures the small and large realities that ride just behind the stirring language of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Full civil rights may not yet have been achieved for all individuals. But our country has made progress on this front. When my brother’s widow was presented the flag on behalf of this President, my soul was stirred because so much more lay behind those words for our family.

Congress: The Musical

You must, of course, imagine the music. Perhaps ruffles and flourishes to precede the actors: the statesmen, or “the lovers, liars and clowns!” as the opening chorus from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum put it.

Indeed, hand-wringing, wrist-to-forehead angst over gays in the military has been one of the longest running shows in Washington—a tragicomedy of epic proportions—ever since Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) was passed seventeen years ago. Ultimately, the stars in the cast most recently are the Republican senators who crossed party lines to do the right thing—for a change, literally. Senators Collins, Murkowski, Kirk, Brown, Snowe, Voinovich, and reluctantly Ensign and Burr are the glitterati of the moment.

Obama has proven to be a disappointment in the role of President. Unlike Truman, who integrated the military by Executive Order 9981 in 1948, thus summarily ending decades of racial segregation and second-class soldiering by African Americans, Obama chose to push for congressional repeal to end decades of anti-gay discrimination that stretch back in time long before Congress enshrined it in law with DADT. But, then, Obama’s been playing Stepin Fetchit to the Republicans for two years, a bit part when he should have been playing the lead.

The real stars of DADT haven't seen much limelight. They are the men and women who “told” and so got quietly robbed of their service careers, and the nation has been the poorer for the all-too-easy dismissal of their talents and dedication for nearly two decades.

Finale: Ta-da! Like magicians collectively whipping open the cabinet (or closet) door, Congress—applause, cheers, whistles!—at last has decided to allow gay men and lesbians to serve their country—as they always have, often with honor and distinction—now openly, without congressionally mandated lying about who they are and who they might or might not love or at least have sex with.

You have to admit that this show has had something for everyone: something familiar, something peculiar; something appealing, something appalling! Certainly appalling.

The Art of Being: A Memory

In 2010, when the entire world seems to be represented virtually on the Internet, one would think that everything and everyone can be googled. Occasionally I google my name, partly as ego affirmation, partly to find out where my work is available or has been reviewed. Because I write, I turn up on several pages and literally hundreds of sites. Doesn’t everyone?

Apparently not.

On Sunday, December 12, my brother, Michael Allen Walling, succumbed to pancreatic cancer at the age of 56. He’d been a good kid brother; a good big brother to our sister, Carolyn; a good husband. He’d served in the Navy and gone on to a useful post-military career. (The photo inset shows him in his lab aboard the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier in 1976-77.) So out of curiosity I googled his name.

Nothing.

Not a single hit.

I suppose at some point there might be an obituary that google could find. But that seems such paltry recognition for a life well lived.

Many people—famous, infamous, ordinary—can be googled. Not finding my brother on the Internet, however, reminded me that far more people practice the sometimes not-so-simple art of simply being. They live on, then, not virtually in the electronic ether, but in the memories of those they loved and by whom they were loved.

And that’s art enough.

Sitcom Politics

Back in the day when media guru Marshall McLuhan said, “The medium is the message,” he wasn’t kidding. The medium not only is the message, it also shapes the mind. Our expectations have been molded so thoroughly by the solve-it-in-thirty-minutes sitcom storyline (or an hour if you’re into TV dramas) that we’ve translated that mentality into real life.

Fact is, life isn’t a sitcom or an hour-long drama. Families with kids aren’t nearly as funny as those on “The Middle” or “Modern Family,” show choirs never look like the ones on “Glee,” and modern crime-fighters—no matter how high-tech—have nothing remotely as cool as the scientific and technological gadgetry on “Bones” and “NCIS.”

Yet here we are, coming up on midterm elections, with many voters expecting the multiple crises that took years to create during the two-term presidency of George W. Bush to have been solved within the first two years of the Obama presidency. The Bush presidency took the economic surplus that was the Clinton legacy and converted it into massive debt and an American-led global recession, helped along by two ill-conceived wars and lack of proper oversight of the financial and housing markets—and a lot of other things that ought to have be been seen to.

The fiction of wishful thinking so glibly purveyed by rightwing pundits and their puppets won’t change reality. But with sitcom mentality firmly in place, it doesn’t have to. Conservative politicians who have sat on their hands for two years, parroting Nancy Reagan’s “just say no” to any collaborative strategies to solve the nation’s problems, are now waving their hands in the air and, like Chicken Little, squawking that the sky is falling. Their solution: Elect politicians from the party that made the mess in the first place.

Mess? What mess? Oh, that’s right. The Bush presidency was over half an hour ago. All has been forgotten now—never mind the men and women still out of work and still dying in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 1967 Marshall McLuhan published The Medium is the Massage, a word play on his famous saying. But it was a well-considered pun. McLuhan used the word massage to describe the effects media have on human senses. He wrote:

All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. (p. 26)

In some ways the media have positively reshaped human awareness, but in other ways we have been diminished. If we expect the impossible because we have seen the impossible realized so often in fiction that we now confuse it with real life, then we have arrived at a truly sorry state.

Forgive Me, Hector Berlioz…

My mind was elsewhere at times during the Symphonie fantastique. You see, I have been giving thought to writing about teaching religious freedom in an era of extremism. So rather than being focused on the music with the intensity of the four harpists who sat rapt during the entire piece, even though they played only briefly, my thoughts wandered about like the free-range percussionists who roamed on and off stage, playing occasionally and at other times presumably pitching pennies against a backstage wall.

Recent controversy about the building of Cordoba House, a mosque and Islamic center, not far from the site of the former World Trade Center in New York City set me thinking about religious extremism, which so often shapes a national conversation about religion that invariably is interwoven with politics. “Freedom” of religion is never a tenet of extremism; indeed, free exercise of religion, free thought of any kind, is anathema to religious extremists of every stripe. Our domestic Christian extremists—whom some have labeled “Christianists” to distinguish those who wield Christ like a club rather than actually believe in and attempt to live the teachings of Jesus—are every bit as rabid as the Muslim extremists who destroyed the Twin Towers.

As yet, thankfully, most of our homegrown religious extremists are verbal terrorists, and most haven’t resorted to bombs. But they are equally destructive in other ways, perhaps most notably in the classroom. Limiting learning and dumbing down curricula have become extremist tools of choice that will have a profound and lasting effect. Extremists know that the real way to change the world is to pervert the teaching of the young. Inculcate extreme beliefs early and they can produce an army of children that will believe anything, such is the malleability of the unformed mind. It’s how our nation gets four-year-olds carrying anti-Islam signs they can’t yet read and how our world gets ten-year-old, gun-toting soldiers in places like Burma and Sierra Leone. Extremists don’t think of any of this as child abuse, but that’s what it is.

So Leonard Slatkin masterfully conducted the Indiana University Philharmonic, and the Symphonie fantastique soared beautifully last evening, bringing the audience to its feet for the final ovation. But I was mentally present only part of the time. I wonder what Berlioz would have thought. A French Catholic by birth in a more generally religious period than our own (he lived from 1803 to 1869), Berlioz was claimed by the faith in the Catholic Encyclopedia, though the reference admits that he did not remain faithful. The composer himself often wrote in letters that he was an atheist. He declared shortly before his death, “I believe nothing.”

Freedom from religion is implicit in our American democratic tenet of freedom of religion. Not that it applied to Berlioz, but we should also remember that atheism can be taken to extremes. But there I go again, wandering offstage away from the music. Forgive me, Hector Berlioz.

Rediscovering Norman McLaren

Recently I ran across a copy of Canadian filmmaker Norman McLaren’s 1971 short film, Synchromy, which took me back to my early career when I was teaching art and English to middle school and high school students. Film study, in my mind, always exists in the dual worlds of images and words—and color, sound, movement, and all the rest. But McLaren’s film animations, most entirely wordless, are firmly anchored in the visual, kinesthetic, and musical arts.

We owe a debt of gratitude to the National Film Board of Canada, which supported McLaren’s work for many years and allowed him to give us a wealth of stunning films that are, by turns, lively, thought-provoking, celebratory, and meditative. McLaren’s animation techniques are perhaps as intriguing as his images. At various times he used animations that included a mixture of moving and still photographs, as in the Oscar-winning 1952 allegorical film, Neighbors. Other films, such as Synchromy, are Modern artworks in motion. The visuals of this particular film evoke the paintings of Piet Mondrian and Barnett Newman, both contemporaries of McLaren. And McLaren also drew directly on film (see photo).

As innovative as the visuals are McLaren’s soundtracks, many of which he composed. Particularly haunting is the music of his 1968 Pas de deux, which stands in contrast to the jazzy electronic beeps and blips of Synchromy.

Scottish-born McLaren (b. 1914) emigrated from Britain to the United States in 1939 and then moved to Canada in 1941. He was most active from the mid-1930s until his death in 1987 at age 72. In McLaren’s view, “Animation is not the art of drawings that move but the art of movements that are drawn.”

Introducing students to McLaren’s studies in movement and music in the 1970s and 1980s was like opening the curtains on a wonderful art world for the first time, a delight as much for me as a teacher as for my students. I suspect that for many students that would be just as true today, more than twenty years after McLaren’s death.