Well, it has been a month of "firsts" for me, and here is another new trick from an old dog and new blogger.
Courtesy of "gogonet", I am writing this post to you from Flight 34, American Airlines in mid-air somewhere up here over the rainbow.
Now I realize that just because I am writing from an airplane does not make what I have to say inherently interesting. "It's a gimmick, Horberg, get over it!" I can hear you shouting even from up here.
And it is true that I don't have anything startling or special to report. But I couldn't pass up the novelty of the post.
I am watching my old boss and dearly departed Sydney Pollack acting in "Made of Honor" on the in-flight movie. Even with the sound off, it's clearly not my cup of tea. He was such a great actor and elevated almost everything he was in. But despite my own elevation, this one seems stuck at ground level. Now "Husbands and Wives", that was an amazing performance.
Sydney often used to talk about watching movies with the sound off as a way of testing the truth of the performances and the strength and clarity of the visual storytelling. Who wants what? What is the basic situation of the scene? Character is Action. What are you doing in the moment? He used to teach acting, and often used the old "Candid Camera" tv show starring Allen Funt as a teaching tool. For him, there was no greater example of "behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances".
Tom Tykwer told me once about a hi-tech contemporary version of the "Candid Camera" idea that was produced for German television. I can't remember the name of the show, but the basic idea of staging an event for a real person who was an unwitting participant in the drama being secretly filmed was now pumped up on steroids in quite elaborate productions.
I'm sure I am mis-quoting some aspect of it, but the one I remember him describing was a kind of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" scenario where a pedestrian in a phone booth on the street was suddenly hoisted into the air by a huge construction crane, booth and all, and levered on to the back of a flatbed truck; he was then transported while trapped inside the booth to a large warehouse, where he was again lifted and placed into a long row of exactly the same booths, each containing a victim similarly situated, some alive and screaming, some having clearly been there for a long time, and now deceased, while the guy freaked out. What a gag!
Well, time to stretch out in the ample leg room here (NOT), and enjoy the delicious in-flight meal and service (NOT), drinking for this thermos of delicious tea my wife made for me to take on the plane (NOT)!!!
What's happened to air travel? While stripping away any semblance of ease, comfort, and amenities, at least we have this newfangled technology to be thankful for: wireless Wi-Fi.
Go. Go. Net!
william
