Tag Archives: 1950s

Movies in Literature Part 3: Leonard Cohen’s ‘Warning’

Posted on March 31, 2009 | 8 comments

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                                        WARNING
                                                            from Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956)

                                        If your neighbour disappears
                                        O if your neighbour disappears
                                        The quiet man who raked his lawn
                                        The girl who always took the sun

                                        Never mention it to your wife
                                        Never say at dinnertime
                                        Whatever happened to that man
                                        Who used to rake his lawn

                                        Never say to your daughter
                                        As you’re walking home from church
                                        Funny thing about that girl
                                        I haven’t seen her for a month

                                       And if your son says to you
                                       Nobody lives next door
                                       They’ve all gone away
                                       Send him to bed with no supper

                                       Because it can spread, it can spread
                                       And one fine evening coming home
                                       Your wife and daughter and son
                                       They’ll have caught the idea and will be gone

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Posted in Film and Literature, Hollywood, Movies in Literature

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Introducing …

Posted on November 18, 2008 | Leave a comment

 

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(King Vidor, 1955)

 

So let’s get started.. This site’s going to be somewhere for me to put some of my tentative musings about cinema and anything else arty etc that strikes my fancy. Nothing heavily analytical or academic, tho if you want to see some of my work of that sort try: http://www.ayearinthedark.wordpress.com .. That said, I’m not an idiot so it oughta be interesting for anyone with a brain for smart movies! 

 

The title: It refers to the fact that Kirk Douglas plays a man who isn’t a sheriff. Just a tough guy who rolls into town with a chip on his shoulder about barbed wire. But doesn’t want to get involved in violent cowboy rivalries. He reckons you should tear all the wire down and keep the land open and free..

 

Then maybe an hour in he switches. He realises that pulling down barbed wire for a wealthy landowner actually helps her to push out small farmers and he starts putting the stuff up again instead. Sure it’s a nice, healthy dose of anti-capitalist sentiment. But I particularly like the idea that a guy without a star has the right, or the mentality, to flip-flop, where another guy might not..

 

I saw this film a couple of years ago in Paris and it had an absolutely visceral effect upon me. I think it was the moment when Kirk Douglas, wrapped up in barbed wire, was thrown onto the ground- that made me think this was something a little different.. Visceral is good. Cinema isn’t about looking, any mug who tells you that needs his head checked. It’s all about the barbed wire..

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