Ah, the quiet yellow whisper of my desklamp. The dance studio across the street, visible through the window above my desk. Depot street, white streetlamps opening their mouths to the sky. Inside the nail salon, a red light blinks, probably some all-night alarm or maybe a charging hair dryer. Inside my window, papers scuffled across my desk. My Espania journal my mom gifted me from Spain. Letters, ready to be sent. Ah, my desk, you are comfort in oak.
Actually, whoever reads this, did you know this desk used to be Ezra Axelrod's? David gave it to me as a payment for helping him move.
Anyways, enough sentimentality! This is serious... Elephants with pink jump suits.
So, today will be a short blog. I spoke with Professor Knowles yesterday, as always, a wonderful melange of laughs and serious conversations. She told me I had free reign on these projects I'm working on. Oh boy.
Now, that being said, I got to peruse a book called Scorsese's Cinema by Friedman the other day at the library. A few quotes.
Actually, whoever reads this, did you know this desk used to be Ezra Axelrod's? David gave it to me as a payment for helping him move.
Anyways, enough sentimentality! This is serious... Elephants with pink jump suits.
So, today will be a short blog. I spoke with Professor Knowles yesterday, as always, a wonderful melange of laughs and serious conversations. She told me I had free reign on these projects I'm working on. Oh boy.
Now, that being said, I got to peruse a book called Scorsese's Cinema by Friedman the other day at the library. A few quotes.
Marty is fond of saying that Taxi Driver is my film and Raging Bull is De Niro's and The Last Temptation of Christ, is his." Paul Schrader (Friedman 5)
"Scorsese, for example, knows Truffault's movies as well as Truffault... Scorsese says therre are certain Truffault shots 'I will never get out of my system... There's a shot in Shoot the Piano Player... he cuts three times, coming closer every time. The shot's in every picture I make, and I do not know why.'" (Friedman 10)
"'Guilt. A major helping of guilt, like a lot of garlic' remains the strongest legacy of Scorsese's Catholic youth. and it is guilt, conceived in masturbation and prolonged in matured symptoms of sexual bad faith, that is a recurrent motif, perhaps the recurrent motif in Scorsese's life and art alike." (Friedman 11)
"God is not a torturer... He only want sus to be merciful with ourselves." Scorsese (Friedman 11)
"Little Italy, the neighborhood where he grew up, provides the geography; the Catholic Church the morality; the New Wave(s) the aesthetic to Scorsese's projected Italian-American trilogy: the aborted "Jeruslame, Jerusalem," Who's Knocking at my Door?, and Mean Streets." (Friedman 21)
Overall the picture of Scorsese's youth painted by this writer is one of guilt, shame, and spiritual longing: a position I can completely understand; though, I'm moving away from that part of my life. The church, beautiful as it can be, carries with it a legacy of shame and guilt which it freely hands to its youth concurrent with the gospel of forgiveness. I suppose in order to be forgiven one must be guilty of something, no? Problem is, the gospel is something so deep-seated and mystic and enigmatic in regards to how one truly discovers it, often the guilt sticks while the gospel blows away in the breeze, leaving a passel of shamed kids who carry that into their adult lives.
Anyways, I get Scorsese to a point. He doesn't hate the church; however, he has distanced his mind from it, and because of this he has been labeled a heretic. What else could he do?
Anyways, I need to go. I will write more tomorrow.
Anyways, I get Scorsese to a point. He doesn't hate the church; however, he has distanced his mind from it, and because of this he has been labeled a heretic. What else could he do?
Anyways, I need to go. I will write more tomorrow.