The lost, the found, and the mentally unwound

I’m so sad to hear that Max von Sydow passed away last year. I’m just watching The Seventh Seal now, and thought I might check how he was getting on. Alas! 90 years old. Golly, they don’t make them like they used to. I have so many Sydow films in my video collection. He probably rivals Liam Neeson for how often he turns up in my disc carry cases. I admired Sydow in particular, as he seemed to be a down-to-earth working actor, who clearly had no pretensions about what he starred in. He seemed to have the Peter Cushing approach which, as far as I can tell, was “be the best thing in a bad movie”. Although, to be fair, Sydow did actually feature in some amazing works of cinema. It just didn’t seem to go to his head. Well, wherever he is now, I know he’ll be bringing some gravitas to the place.

I just felt like I needed to say something about that. I can’t believe I hadn’t heard about his passing. Perhaps I just didn’t want to check, as I hoped he’d be alive forever. I’ll have to watch more of his films over the weekend.

There’s an interview with him somewhere about the alleged curse that surrounded the production of The Exorcist. Whoever was interviewing him was clearly trying to get him to spill some superstitious gossip about the shoot but, to my enduring respect, he just said something along the lines of “Films take a long time to make, and life doesn’t stop happening as they are, so tragedies will naturally occur during a production”. However he actually said it, it was well said.

Right, in other news…

I crashed around mid-afternoon yesterday, after initially getting up at 3 am. I crashed from about 2 pm until 5 pm, then got up for some dinner. I even had a cup of coffee but, for whatever reason, my body had just had enough. I ate half my meal, then went back to bed around 8-ish, finally getting up this morning just after 6 am. It’s not the longest I’ve spent in bed, but the sudden wave of tiredness was very intense. I feel fine now though.

I’ve got a grocery order coming tomorrow, so I may have a takeaway tonight. I think the Easter break has gotten people panic buying, as I found it more difficult than usual booking a delivery slot. Sigh. As if there isn’t enough food to go around!

The cold weather persists, so I’m wrapping up warm. I don’t know how much credit I have left on my gas meter, so I’m prioritising hot water to do dishes with. I don’t mind snuggling up under cheap blankets etc.

I watched Andrei Tarkovsky’s first post-film school work Ivan’s Childhood this morning. It’s quite amazing, and a very confident debut, all things considered. It’s perfect for when you’re in the mood for a dour, stark, bleak, haunting, black and white Russian-language film about the horrors and futility of war. I mean, who isn’t?! The titular main character is played by a fabulous young (well, he was young back in 1962) actor called Nikolay Burlyaev, who plays traumatised and beyond-his-years astonishingly well. I can’t believe he’s not, like, the most famous actor in the world. Anyway, do watch it, as it’s fantastic. The visual style is somewhere between Orson Welles and Stanley Kubrick, so perfect for film nerds! I’ve got two other Tarkovsky films, Solaris and Mirror, on video as well, which are also classics. I shall be hunting down more, that’s for sure.

I watched a short and rather unfocussed documentary the other day about Pompeii, featuring (although I’m not sure whether she actually wrote it) Mary Beard, who did the audiobooks on Pompeii and Ancient Rome that I’ve been listening to recently. I found the documentary a good companion piece to the Pompeii book (obviously), as I did get to see a lot of the sites I’d hitherto only read about. While it sets out to tell us about the digital scanning of Pompeii’s still-buried buildings, it often goes off on more general tangents. Considering the documentary is under an hour in length, I’m guessing they didn’t have much to talk about in relation to the main scanning subject. Beard is a very fun guide, although there are a few cringe-worthy moments. I think she may very well be a little eccentric, or just passionate. I don’t think she got on well with one of the scientists she talks to in a few segments, as there’s definitely a strange vibe going on between the two women. It’s perhaps worth watching for that oddness alone. The awkwardness reminded me of that mad woman in the documentary about finding the bones of Richard III. I think it was called “The King Under the Car Park”. I wonder if the latter has become an unintentional comedy classic now. I hope so. But, yes, while it is pop archaeology, along with anything to do with Tutankhamun or the Titanic, the story of Pompeii is so fascinating that, well, I doubt anyone wouldn’t be drawn into even the briefest, confused and awkward of factual programming about it. This only cost me a couple of quid on Prime Video.

We all have our guilty pleasures.

It’s only been a few days since my last post, so I don’t think I have much else to report. I’ve just needed to air a few items relating to the arts. Hopefully I’ll have a more melodrama-filled rant in a few days. We shall see.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!