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The Wrestler

I have just watched this film by Darren Aronofsky. As I have never been shy about saying, I am a big fan of Aronofsky’s work, which include Pi, Requiem for a Dream, and The Fountain, the last of which is perhaps one of the finest movies I have ever seen. The Wrestler is a more conventional film for Aronfsky (by that I mean more of a traditional narrative), but it is still very much feels like an Aronofsky film. The Wrestler is a whoppingly good film.

Where to begin? First, let’s begin with Mickey Rourke, who plays Randy “The Ram,” an aging wrestler whose famous days are two decades in his past. Still, he slogs through life wrestling at Legions and schools to a small crowd of thrill seekers. One of the ways this film works its magic is that it plays to stereotypes but makes them real and human. The Ram has put his body through pain year after year and it is wearing on him. He scripts the match (not in depth, but in the general outlines). As one follows Ram through the movie and as becomes explicitly clear later on, the crowd (no matter how small) provides as much life to Ram as he knows it’s his job to provide entertainment to the crowd. Why would he suffer through a match as he gets stapled with a staple gun and thrown into barb-wire fencing? One may be tempted to view Rourke’s performance through the prism of his wrestling moves and stunts and willingness to express pain, but where I find Rourke’s performance mesmerizing is in the quiet moments. Ram home alone or playing a Nintendo (very old version) with a local boy, or the emotion he launches through his eyes. The Ram is also a tragic character, and I mean that in the classical sense: The Ram comes to recognize his flaws and that they will bring about his doom and that they are caused by his own actions. We watch this unfold, we watch the Ram come to this understanding and we too understand that what happens must happen.

Marisa Tomei plays Pam “Cassidy,” an aging stripper. She too slogs through life continuing to dance for men who dismiss her because she is older. Only the Ram seems a willing paying customer. Cassidy too is a stereotype that has a human core. She cannot and will not cross the line of interacting with customers outside the strip joint. But (this is one a piece of magic in the movie that I cannot figure out how it is accomplished) Cassidy and the Ram clearly feel more for each other than a straight customer/stripper relationship.

OK, I’m leaving out a ton…the relationship between the Ram and his estranged daughter, the parallels and symbols, etc., because as with any Aronofsky film, it is too rich, too full to adequately discuss. His films make me want to discuss them, to interact with people to spend hours on the construction, script, etc. The thing I want to mention the most, however, is what makes this movie so real, so amazing is that the characters have a life onscreen, they extend beyond the celluloid. All have a past and a future unknown to the viewer but that informs their actions and motivations and thoughts, and we as the viewer understand that.

It’s really sad to know that Aronofsky had such a difficult time funding a film of this quality.

Tone and Color

Two of my favorite pop songs are by U2: “One” and “Kite.” Both of these songs have melancholic tones (as I would call them) to them, but they are substantially different in what they conjure to my mind. When I hear “One,” I often seen a rain in an urban landscape. With “Kite,” I see an almost monochrome…or “two-chrome”…image, usually on the beach with the ocean. A strong wind with striking blue seas and skies and a nearly impossibly bright sandy beach.

Pop music, of course, uses both text and sound to create these moods, but I find the difference between the two striking. I think poetry can create these elements as well. The rhythm, the theme, the sounds contribute to this tone or mood. Poems can have color without relying on explicit color imagery, but of course, they can use that imagery. Wallace Stevens “Of Mere Being” uses images and colors to create a tone while retaining an element of abstraction, which is perhaps what I admire most about Stevens’s poetry: His ability to reside comfortably in the abstract imagination while providing a sense of concreteness to the poem.

The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor,

A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird’s fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

Remembering Poets

I just recently finished Donald Hall’s Remembering Poets: Reminiscences and Opinions. I have not been a fan of Hall’s poetry. I do not find it bad. Just boring — which means bad by another name I guess. So I was surprised to find myself so drawn into this book of prose. Hall has had the fortune of going on a road trip with Dylan Thomas, having Robert Frost chase him down, witness T. S. Eliot’s courteous cutting insults, and encounter the ups and downs of Ezra Pound. The book is full of delightful insights (Thomas screaming for a particular tie, Eliot dissing Oscar Williams, etc.), but interestingly some of the more valuable aspects of the book are the reflections on the writing of poetry and poets.

Several of these quotes found real resonance with me, seemed to speak a truth. Here are a few quotes from the book that I found interesting:

But the great poets as they turn older look past the Muse…to pursue vision.

If we devote our lives to poetry, and take our lives seriously, we must praise and denounce with equal ferocity. People who follow the notion that praise is requisite…should sell cars.

For me, poetry is first of all sounds.

Poetry exists to extend human consciousness, to bring materials and insights from the unconscious dark into the light of language.

Gina’s Birthday

For me, it is easy to often to easily to dismiss some things as unimportant. But one of the things I’ve learned from Gina, whose birthday is today and, no, I will not say how young she is — another thing I’ve learned from her — is that what seems so easy, so unworthy of attention is actually a great and under appreciated art. Gina found knitting several years ago. She learned crochet to make several blankets as wedding gifts for some of our wedding party. She then moved on to knitting. I’m now the proud possessor of several fine articles: sweaters, vests, hats, gloves, etc. But what I’ve learned is that knitting and crochet are not nearly so easy as one might think they are, and they are valuable artistic expressions, which because they are so “everyday” are not really seen as such. Greek pottery, which we value so much these days, was just as everyday as knitted and woven garments are today. Perhaps the mass creation of so many “knitted” garments diminishes the artistic side we see in knitting, but watching yarn become these magnificent objects is a sight to behold.

Beyond that, of course, Gina has taught me much about life, so much so that I treasure my time with her. My favorite part of my work day is the time I take from work to have lunch with her. We don’t necessarily do anything special. We have a sandwich or some pasta or some leftovers. What’s special about it is the time together.

Happy birthday awesome!