Tangential analysis (3)

Another bumble down the scatter-brained rabbit hole...

New Testament, KJV (Matthew 14:30)
"But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me."

Old Testament, KJV (Numbers 21:9)
"And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived."

King Solomon's Mines (chp. 12; pg. 182-3)
"I shook my head and looked again at the sleeping men, and to my tired and yet excited imagination it seemed as though Death had already touched them. My mind's eye singled out those who were sealed to slaughter, and there rushed in upon my heart a great sense of the mystery of human life, and an overwhelming sorrow at its futility and sadness. To-night these thousands slept their healthy sleep, tomorrow they, and many other with them, ourselves perhaps among them, would be stiffening in the cold; their wives would be widows, their children fatherless, and their place know them no more for ever. Only the old moon would shine on serenely, the night wind would stir the grasses, and the wide earth would take its rest, even as it did eons before we were, and will do eons after we have been forgotten.

"Yet man dies not whilst the world, at once his mother and his monument, remains. His name is lost, indeed, but the breath he breathed still stirs the pine-tops on the mountains, the sound of the words he spake yet echoes on through space; the thoughts his brain gave birth to we have inherited to-day; his passions are our cause of life; the joys and sorrows that he knew are our familiar friends--the end from which he fled aghast will surely overtake us also!

"Truly the universe is full of ghosts, not sheeted churchyard spectres, but the inextinguishable elements of individual life, which having once been, can never die, though they blend and change, and change again for ever."

The Last Samurai (2003)
Katsumoto: "Perfect...They are all...perfect... "

A Tale of Two Cities (chp. 15)
"I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day."

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Part 2: chp. 2)
"Dreadful as the Dead Marshes had been, and the arid moors of the Nomanlands, more loathsome far was the country that the crawling day now slowly unveiled to his shrinking eyes. Even to the Mere of Dead Faces some haggard phantom of green spring would come; but here neither spring nor summer would ever come again. Here nothing lived, not even the leprous growths that feed on rottenness. The gasping pools were choked with ash and crawling muds, sickly white and grey, as if the mountains had vomited the filth of their entrails upon the lands about. High mounds of crushed and powdered rock, great cones of earth fire-blasted and poison-stained, stood like an obscene graveyard in endless rows, slowly revealed in the reluctant light."

Philip Marlowe, "Gilded Mountains"

What do I tell him about the gold,
When his mind already stays there
And in the stench of death he prays there?
The blood of many men and mine
Have stained that jagged mountainside,
And some have never left.
In the darkest reaches of the cold,
We lied for warmth and hugged our gold.
Fear alone outweighed our hate
And empty eyes became our faith.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Howard: "I know what gold does to men's souls."

The Big Sleep (1946)
Lash Canino: "What's the matter? Haven't you ever seen a gun before? What do you want me to do, count three like they do in the movies?"

Casino Royale (2006)
Dryden: "Made you feel it, did he?"


-- Boscoe the Bear

Tangential analysis (2)

My second venture exercising in tangential thought.

Robert Frost, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

A Tale of Two Cities (chp. 2)
"With drooping heads and tremulous tails, they mashed their way through the thick mud, floundering and stumbling between whiles, as if they were falling to pieces at the larger joints. As often as the driver rested them and brought them to a stand, with a wary "Wo-ho! so-ho-then!" the near leader violently shook his head and everything upon it—like an unusually emphatic horse, denying that the coach could be got up the hill. Whenever the leader made this rattle, the passenger started, as a nervous passenger might, and was disturbed in mind.

"There was a steaming mist in all the hollows, and it had roamed in its forlornness up the hill, like an evil spirit, seeking rest and finding none. A clammy and intensely cold mist, it made its slow way through the air in ripples that visibly followed and overspread one another, as the waves of an unwholesome sea might do. It was dense enough to shut out everything from the light of the coach-lamps but these its own workings, and a few yards of road; and the reek of the labouring horses steamed into it, as if they had made it all."

Jane Eyre (chp. 12)
"On the hill-top above me sat the rising moon; pale yet as a cloud, but brightening momentarily, she looked over Hay, which, half lost in trees, sent up a blue smoke from its few chimneys: it was yet a mile distant, but in the absolute hush I could hear plainly its thin murmurs of life. My ear, too, felt the flow of currents; in what dales and depths I could not tell: but there were many hills beyond Hay, and doubtless many becks threading their passes. That evening calm betrayed alike the tinkle of the nearest streams, the sough of the most remote."

Crime and Punishment (chp. 5)
"'Get in, all get in,' cried Mikolka, 'she will draw you all—I’ll beat her to death!' And he thrashed and thrashed at the mare, beside himself with fury.

"'Father, father,' he cried, 'father, what are they doing? Father, they are beating the poor horse!'

"'Come along, come along!' said his father. 'They are drunken and foolish, they are in fun; come away, don’t look!' and he tried to draw him away, but he tore himself away from his hand, and, beside himself with horror, ran to the horse. The poor beast was in a bad way. She was gasping, standing still, then tugging again and almost falling.

"'Beat her to death,' cried Mikolka, 'it’s come to that. I’ll do for her!'

"'What are you about, are you a Christian, you devil?' shouted an old man in the crowd.

"'Did any one ever see the like? A wretched nag like that pulling such a cartload,' said another.

"'You’ll kill her,' shouted the third.

"'Don’t meddle! It’s my property, I’ll do what I choose. Get in, more of you! Get in, all of you! I will have her go at a gallop!…'

"All at once laughter broke into a roar and covered everything: the mare, roused by the shower of blows, began feebly kicking. Even the old man could not help smiling. To think of a wretched little beast like that trying to kick!

Two lads in the crowd snatched up whips and ran to the mare to beat her about the ribs. One ran each side.

"'Hit her in the face, in the eyes, in the eyes,' cried Mikolka.

"'Give us a song, mates,' shouted some one in the cart and every one in the cart joined in a riotous song, jingling a tambourine and whistling. The woman went on cracking nuts and laughing.

"He ran beside the mare, ran in front of her, saw her being whipped across the eyes, right in the eyes! He was crying, he felt choking, his tears were streaming. One of the men gave him a cut with the whip across the face, he did not feel it. Wringing his hands and screaming, he rushed up to the grey-headed old man with the grey beard, who was shaking his head in disapproval. One woman seized him by the hand and would have taken him away, but he tore himself from her and ran back to the mare. She was almost at the last gasp, but began kicking once more."

 

Tekkonkinkreet (2006)
Shiro: "Black, when the sky turns black why do I feel so blue?"


-- Boscoe the Bear

Tangential analysis (1)

It is my intent here to share memorable examples of writing from both film and literature and to tie these passages to the words, images, and sounds of other media. In doing so I hope to demonstrate though synaptic exercise the beauty of tangential thought.

Heart of Darkness (chp. 1; pg. 16-17)
"We felt meditative, and fit for nothing but placid staring. The day was ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex marshes was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds. Only the gloom to the west, brooding over the upper reaches, became more sombre every minute, as if angered by the approach of the sun.


"And at last, in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low, and from glowing white changed to a dull red without rays and without heat, as if about to go out suddenly stricken to death by the touch of that gloom brooding over a crowd of men.


"Forthwith a change came over the waters, and the serenity became less brilliant but more profound. The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of the day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth. We looked at the venerable stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and departs for ever, but in the august light of abiding memories. And indeed nothing is easier for a man who has, as the phrase goes, 'followed the sea' with reverence and affection, than to evoke the great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of the Thames."

Princess Mononoke (1997)

San: "No! I don't want to become a demon!"

The Golden Compass (chp. 10)
"Lonely? I don't know. They tell me this is cold. I don't know what cold is, because I don't freeze. So I don't know what lonely means either. Bears are made to be solitary."

Jane Eyre (chp. 32; pg. 452)
"I am simply, in my original state - stripped of that blood-bleached robe with which Christianity covers human deformity - a cold, hard, ambitious man. Natural affection only, of all the sentiments, has permanent power over me. Reason, and not Feeling, is my guide: my ambition is unlimited; my desire to rise higher, to do more than others, insatiable. I honour endurance, perseverance, industry, talent; because these are the means by which men achieve great ends, and mount to lofty eminence."

Gandhi (1982)
Gandhi: "Where there's injustice, I always believed in fighting. The question is, do you fight to change things or to punish?"

A Pirandellian Prison - Zimbardo 1973 (pg. 9)
"To what extent do we allow ourselves to become imprisoned by docilely accepting the roles others assign us or, indeed, choose to remain prisoners because being passive and dependent frees us from the need to act and be responsible for out actions? The prison of fear constructed in the delusions of the paranoid is no less confining or less real than the cell that every shy person erects to limit his own freedom in anxious anticipation of being ridiculed and rejected by his guards - often guards of his own making."

Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Captain, Road Prison 36: "You gonna get used to wearin' them chains after a while, Luke. Don't you never stop listenin' to them clinking. 'Cause they gonna remind you of what I been saying. For your own good."
Luke: "Wish you'd stop bein' so good to me, cap'n."

 

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

Sheriff Cooley: "Sweet, summer rain. Like God's own mercy."

-- Boscoe the Bear

For consideration: Enter the Dragon

How about a roundhouse kick to your face from my brother-man?

Three quotes:
1. Williams: "Man, you come right out of a comic book."
2. Lee: "Boards don't hit back"
3. Williams: "I'll be too busy looking gooood."

Three questions for consideration:
1. Does Bruce Lee have any body fat?
2. Which sumo wrestler finally won?
3. Why is Jim Kelly not in every kung fu movie ever made?


-- Boscoe the Bear

For consideration: Cool Hand Luke

Right between those baby blues

Three quotes:
1. Luke: "I'm just standin' in the rain talkin' to myself."
2. Luke: "Oh come on. Stop beatin' it. Get out there yourself. Stop feedin' off me! Get out of here. I can't breathe. Give me some air!"
3. Luke: "You made me like I am. Now just where am I supposed to fit in?"

Three questions for consideration:
1. What is the audience to glean from the strong paradox of likeable and unlikeable elements channeled in Luke?
2. What is the film's perspective on God?
3. How does Luke's attitude of "nothing - his "cool hand" - simultaneously inspire others and yet isolate himself?


-- Boscoe the Bear

Film Review - Tekkonkinkreet

By Dr. Johnny Fever

Also, for those who prefer written reviews - 

Tekk...............................................................................................................too hard to say... A+

Film Review - 2001: A Space Odyssey

By Dr. Johnny Fever

Also, for those who prefer written reviews -

2001: A Space Odyssey: Hal has personality traits, but he's a jerk... A++