Friday, January 8, 2010

"Notorious"

This weekend: on Saturday night, 8 eastern time, 7 central: "Notorious" !!

Hitchcock directed.

Starring Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman.

A great classic.

Kissing scene: censors at the time (1940s) allowed an on-screen kiss to go for a limited amount of time -- maybe 3 seconds, or 5 seconds, I'm not sure.

For the story, they needed more kissing, so to get around the limit, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman kiss for the allowed amount of time and then kiss again, for that amount of time, and then again, and again...

Romantic / sexy.

Woody Allen has said that every time he watches Notorious, even though he has seen it many times before and he knows how it ends, he still gets nervous and all in-suspense during the coming-down-the-stairs scene near the end.
I feel the same way.

When I was in college, my friend Debbie Luisi who was in film school at Emerson explained some things about Hitchcock's movies to me, because it was one of her enthusiasms. (And I was a good listener, I think.) She told me about a particular shot (people in film schools are always referring to "shots" the way guitar players will tell you about "riffs" --O-k) -- where Ingrid Bergman's character holds a key in her hand and there was a difficult and unique thing where the camera was up real high, hanging from something, and it had to sort of swoop down and in, going from a wide shot of a room full of people at a party, to a tight close-up of the key in her hand.

I was told all about that shot before I ever saw the actual movie -- which is an interesting way to experience a story -- or a "shot". And I notice that Shot
every
time
I watch
the movie.

Today I wrote down "Notorious" on a piece of scratch paper, and added the date, time and channel, + Hitchcock, Cary Grant, and Ingrid Bergman, and gave it to a guy: "I want to recommend something!"
I also had a small peppermint pattie, in my other hand, which I was going to give him (Pearson's brand -- they're very good).

He read my piece of paper, handed it back to me, and said, "I don't think so," and walked away.
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Sorry I blew up.
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(I just kept the piece of candy. I can give that to somebody else.)

Maybe from now on, in my life, I should just blog and not interact with any humans.

Maybe people struggle to find a basis on which to connect. I've thought about that, before. Maybe what seems to me like civil-and-engaging conversation, about something interesting and fun, seems to someone else like an assignment. An unwelcome assignment.

And that was a person who I thought liked me - !

It's like the old joke -- my father used to say it: "With friends like that, who needs enemies ?!"

Story of my life.

-30-

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