Book vs. Movie: The Grapes of Wrath

First up on my Lit Flicks Challenge list (and my first rental from Classicflix) is The Grapes of Wrath.

This is one of those classics I can't believe I missed for so long, both in book and movie form. I had seen clips from the movie somewhere, and what I had stuck in my head was the close-up of Henry Fonda's earnest face making his "I'll be there" speech. My impression going in: this story has a Message. And so it does.

The focus is on the Joads, a family forced away from their farmland home, journeying to California to become migrant workers. While the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression are pretty heavy subjects, I was still surprised by just how raw the novel is. It's an unsanitized look at these people with all their flaws and problems. And as gritty as it is, I believe that it could have been worse, given the hardships that are hinted at which the Joads manage to avoid.

In the book, in addition to the chapters that follow the Joad family's journey, there are also shorter chapters that take a less personal, larger view of the problems of the times. Some of these were very powerful and worked quite well. I especially liked the chapters on the used car dealership and the roadside diner. As I progressed through the book, however, I began to feel that this device was wearing thin, and that Steinbeck had run out of things to talk about in these bigger-picture chapters.

Overall, it's a well-written novel about a serious subject. And it did get me wrapped up in it so that I was really feeling for these characters. I particularly liked Ma, even from her first appearance in the book. In her introduction, we are told that "her hazel eyes seemed to have experienced all possible tragedy and to have mounted pain and suffering like steps into a high calm and a superhuman understanding." The story gives her a lot more steps to climb. I preferred book Ma to movie Ma, but I liked Tom Joad in both versions very much.

Before seeing the movie, I was worried about Henry Fonda's performance, especially his ability to speak in the country dialect of the book. Maybe it's because the clearest picture I have of Fonda is as the very intelligent, articulate character in 12 Angry Men. But he handles the role of Tom Joad brilliantly, never seeming above it while still bringing out a certain sincerity with dignity that is important to the character. Fonda's performance is wonderfully restrained yet powerful, beautiful against the often over-the-top, make-your-eyes-as-wide-as-possible-for-effect acting going on in this movie. With the exception of the bit where he sings, I found Henry Fonda's performance riveting, and for that alone I would recommend watching the movie.

Would I recommend the book? Yes, although with some hesitation. The novel is really depressing. As I progressed through the book, I found myself anticipating with dread the next tragedy that would befall the family. The book has an interesting theme about sin versus holiness that is nowhere near as prominent in the movie. Both stories show that people do better helping each other, although the book drives the point home harder. Sure, we've all got to eat, but only looking out for your own is selfish and doesn't work for the greater good, we get it. The movie, while still serious, has some lighter moments to it, like Grandpa explaining what he'd like to do in California and the family's reaction to Tom's homecoming. The movie also has a much different ending.

The book's ending is a bit of a shocker; I won't spoil it here in case you haven't read it yet, although I will say that it made me feel that a certain thing was set up in the book only for the ending, which felt somewhat cheap to me. The ending does fit in with the rest of the novel and provides some hope for the future, but the whole thing is still pretty bleak. Which I suppose is the point -- the issues faced by these people could not be easily fixed. The movie's ending is more hopeful and uplifting, although it didn't ring as true to me. Also, in both versions of the story, I was disappointed that Tom's part is finished up before the end.

So, what's the final verdict, book or movie? Both. The story in either form is an interesting look at a difficult time in history. The book definitely has more meat to it and a bigger agenda; the movie is a bit more entertaining while still illuminating the subject. While I don't think I'll be coming back to either book or movie soon, I'm still glad I checked out both versions of this classic American story.

Favorite Movie Decade

If you would have asked me yesterday which decade produced most of my favorite movies, I would probably have said the 1960s. But after seeing the decade graph based on David Bishop's top movie list, I decided to put my top 50 list to the test. This is what I came up with:

It turns out that the 1950s and 90s tied as my favorite movie decades! What happened to the 60s? Well, in making my chart, I discovered that a couple of movies I would have thought of as 60s movies were actually from 1959. Oh, so close. Can I make up my own decade? If I could, 1954-1964 would have the top number of my favorites. (Although, that would be 11 years instead of 10, wouldn't it? Hmm.)

By the way, I also tried my results as a bar graph, which was slightly easier to read, but I went with the line graph because it makes a big "M" for movies!

What's your favorite decade for movies? I know I need to watch more films from the 30s. Am I missing out on a lot of good stuff from the 70s?

Church Crawling and hanging out with Roman

Last weekend Roman and I did what my friends call a "church crawl". This is very similar to a pub crawl except there is no drinking (except at the end) and much of the discussion is around liturgy and history and church gossip. Rome is an excellent place for church crawling as when you are tired you can fall into an exquisite restaurant at lunchtime (when all the churches close for siesta) and review the things that you have seen.

The novelist Evelyn Waugh was a great church crawler (or church spotting as the English call it) and his diary in his teen years recounts how he and his school friends went visiting churches. His leanings to catholicism appear this early as he was interested in the Anglo Catholic churches most of all.

We first visited St Johns Cathedral to see how it now looks with the fully extended nave. We also talked about how St Johns actually has a better layout for celebrating the Roman Rite in the Extraordinary Form.

The High Altar is simple and with steps and matches the early mediaeval French style of the cathedral. I know that it is generally used for Ad orientem celebration although there is room to celebrate facing the people.

The Altar shows a good arrangement of the crucifix and two candlesticks supplemented by large candle sticks on both sides. Some of you would say that this is not catholic but it actually follows some pre-tridentine practices. However, it better demonstrates some of the configuration which could be used for a Benedictine Altar arrangement if Mass is celebrated versus populum.

Here is a view from behind the Altar down the nave.

You can see the stone vaulting of the nave - the only place you see genuine stone vaulting on any large scale in Australia. The back of the Altar is very plain pointing to its east facing orientation.

From here we saw the Marian chapel, with a medieval Sarum style arrangement, but without riddels. Roman has some pics of the other chapels with medieval riddels. Eucharistic services are celebrated here during the week.

From there it was down to Brisbane's premier Anglo Catholic Church - All Saints. it has an eastward facing High Altar with six candles and a tabernacle. However, I was very impressed with the side chapel.

Note the Altar cards (which are in English). At All Saints they seem to have two types of liturgies, one to the English Missal (which is basically a reformed blend of the Tridentine Roman Missal, with the book of Common Prayer), and occasionally a more contemporary liturgy with a modern prayer book.

The church organist, Darren, gave us a bit of an explanation of the liturgy and a Mass sheet to takeaway. It showed the simplified Tridentine Missal in English interspersed with the Cranmerian prayers of the general confession at the Offertory (instead of the Confiteor at the start) and the modern Roman lectionary. If anything this shows what a more sensible revision of the Roman Rite in the 1960s may have looked like, if liturgical extremists had not got to it.

We found a table carrying candles and a centrally located crucifix (with corpus) up against a side wall, and asked what it was for. It turned out that this is a table that is occasionally set up in fron of the sanctuary used for versus populum celebrations. However, as the congregation strongly prefer Ad orientem celebration (and remember that this was an aspect that the Tractarian Movement fought for in the 1800's) this is rarely used.

it is intersting the divergent attitudes with liturgy. In the Catholic Church we think that the Liturgy of the Eucharist HAS to be celebrated facing the people, and it is rare to find a parish which celebrates the Ordinary Form Ad orientem. (Note: In Italy this is not so rare probably more because a lot of italians could not be bothered re-ordering their sanctuaries - more about that another time). In the Anglo Catholic Church it seems to be considered someting that is less than ideal and congregations appear to perceive it as a bit of a threat to their beliefs. It would be good if the Catholic church congregations had a lot more of that attitude.

We then went onto the Albert St Uniting Church but there was nothing really of interest there so we moved onto a cafe. St Stephens we did not bother with as we are there all of the time.

A short church crawl you might say but - it is Australia after all.

My Top 50 Favorite Films

Probably every movie lover makes a favorite film list at one time or another. Fletch over at Blog Cabins just posted a list of his top 50 films, encouraging others to do the same. That was all it took to get me going. (Yeah, I'm also one of those people that feels the need to respond to every email survey I receive from friends. Sharing opinions is fun!)

Top 10 is one thing, top 50 might be even trickier. I've grouped my choices into a few different categories, leaving my favorites for last on each list. It should be noted that these are my personal favorites, which is pretty subjective and basically comes down to the movies I have watched and enjoyed repeatedly, films which get quoted the most in my little world. These are not all necessarily the same movies I would put on a list of the best films ever made. But what good is a movie best list if it's not films you actually enjoy watching, anyway? And so, without further ado, my favorites:

Alfred Hitchcock movies:

Rear Window
Dial M for Murder
North by Northwest
Notorious

Billy Wilder:
The Major and the Minor
Some Like it Hot
The Apartment

Orson Welles:
Citizen Kane
The Magnificent Ambersons
The Third Man

Musicals:
That Thing You Do!
Singin' in the Rain
Oklahoma!
A Hard Day's Night
The Wizard of Oz
Guys and Dolls
West Side Story
An American in Paris

Noir:
Out of the Past
Laura
The Maltese Falcon

Chick Flicks:
Sense and Sensibility
Out of Africa
You've Got Mail

Sci-fi:
Gattaca
Tron
Back to the Future
The Empire Strikes Back
Star Wars IV: A New Hope

Newer Favorites:
The Princess Bride
Catch Me If You Can
A River Runs Through It
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Clueless
Sneakers
Much Ado About Nothing
Joe Versus the Volcano
Quiz Show
Moonstruck
The Hunt for Red October

Older Favorites:
Dr. Strangelove
Born Yesterday (the William Holden version, of course)
Father of the Bride (the Spencer Tracy version, of course)
Seven Days in May
12 Angry Men
Gone With the Wind

Casablanca
The Hustler

The Philadelphia Story

If I could only choose one out of all of my favorites as my top pick ever, it would probably be The Maltese Falcon.

By the way, I know there are only actually 49 here. I didn't count wrong, I was just afraid of missing some great movie and feeling bad about it later. So I'm leaving a spot open for floating favorites -- when I think of one that didn't make the list, it will become my current 50th.

Now it's your turn. What's on your list?

All I am saying is give classic movies a chance

In case I haven't made it clear here yet: I like movies. I especially like old movies. And while I'm sure the argument can be made that what is old is not always classic and what is classic doesn't always have to be so old, I tend to use old and classic interchangeably when it comes to certain movies. Please bear with me on that.

I think more people should watch classic movies. I like to introduce people to my old favorites. And so I've decided to start a series of posts on what I'm calling Overlooked Oldies. Here I'll highlight some lesser-known titles which, despite having been skipped on AFI's top movie lists, still deserve some attention.

(By the way, I don't claim that my classic movie knowledge is exhaustive. If you have an old favorite worthy of some more movie love, let me know; I'm always happy to see an old classic I've missed. Along those lines, I am making ClassicFlix my new best (movie) friend. It's a rental site devoted to classic (pre-1970) films and tv shows, including many hard to find titles. What a great idea!)

First Up: The Major and the Minor

This 1942 movie marks the Hollywood directorial debut of the great writer/director Billy Wilder (Some Like it Hot, The Apartment, Sunset Boulevard).

The premise: Susan Applegate (Ginger Rogers) has decided, after one year and 25 jobs in New York, that she's ready to return to her sleepy Iowa hometown. Unable to afford the train ticket home, she poses as a 12-year-old so she only has to pay half-fare. On the train she meets Philip Kirby, (Ray Milland) a Major returning from a trip to Washington where he was attempting to get into more active service.

Because of bad weather and a misunderstanding, little "Su-Su" agrees to go with her "Uncle" Philip to the military academy where he is currently teaching. There she will have to continue her masquerade while dealing with 300 eager cadets and her growing attraction to the engaged Major Kirby.

There's some great moments in the movie, like Su-Su being invited to stay for the school dance. When Fred Astaire's most famous dancing partner is asked if she can dance, what is her modest reply? "A little."

Ray Milland is at his most charming here as Philip Kirby. Watch him squirm during his talk with Su-Su as he tries to protect his "niece" from the cadets who have been applying their lessons on military tactics to putting the moves on Susan. Philip's concern is touching and funny: "You don't want to be a light bulb, do you?" "It's never been a particular ambition of mine." Ray Milland manages to portray Philip's growing affection for Susan without it ever feeling creepy.

It also helps that the 31-year-old Ginger Rogers is not really believable as a 12-year-old. While she does a nice job softening her voice and expressions when she is being Su-Su as opposed to Susan, it's still pretty ridiculous that anyone would buy it. This is not a fault of the movie, instead it makes for some interesting twists on ideas of innocence. Who's the first to see through Susan's act at the academy? The 12-year-old sister of Kirby's fiancee. "You may bluff the grown-ups; you can't bluff me." The cadets ("junior wolves") are just as predatory as the crumbs Susan was always fighting off in the city. Those who should be innocent aren't, and those who should know better don't, or pretend not to. It all works in the framework of the story, making for some delightfully funny situations.

If you haven't seen it yet, check out this cute comedy, just one of many Billy Wilder gems.

Ukrianian hierarchical liturgy

Last week the Ukrainian Ordinary visited the Local Ukrainian rite Church, for the occasion of it's 50th anniversary of attaining the canonical status of a parish.

The Vocations crisis

I find the idea of there being no difference between a cleric and a lay person absurd. If such was true, then a priest would merely be an underpaid and celibate social worker. If a priest were really that, then perhaps I could do his job as a married lay person, enjoying both a higher salary and a wife and kids. This would be the thinking of most Catholic young men, that is the root cause of our vocations problem, no young Catholic, especially teenage boys sees a priest being any different from a lay, single, social worker (Okay, perhaps a few do).

That's what it is, it's an image problem, there's nothing to draw young men in. Young men theses days are attracted by bling, fast cars and scantly clad women. I'm surprised some bishops haven't decided to use those things to attract more vocations.... perhaps it's better then didn't. But what did they do? Well they decided to lumber up hills in shorts, paint, go for a jog and other hobbies, stick it on a poster and hope for the best. Fair enough, but seeing relatively dated men do these things, is not going to attract me to the priesthood.

To most high school students, a priest is merely cranky old men (probably because he hasn’t been laid, as they say), who comes into their school a few times a year, talks at them for 10minutes, wears a bathrobe and plays around with girls crockery, as well as giving them a snack and a bit of alcohol. Yep that gets the guys coming in by the truck load.

The youth are not attracted by wishy washy wanna , gonna bes. They want something radical, something out there, something different, something that’s going to rock their world. I know what that is, a matrix robe wearing young gun with a pair of black shades. A youthful priest, who is aware of the dignity of his priesthood, who’ll come on in an engage the youth are where they are at, not jamming a judgmental and sentimental watered down religion at them. A priest who will not give them a religious wanna be rock, rap or pop song, but who will give them a transcendent experience, something appealing to the soul (yes young people do have them) and not just merely to their animalistic urges.

If young men are informed about the faith, the real faith, supported by millennium of tradition and then given a different and dynamic priest, then you will have an inbox full of inquires, not only about the priesthood, but also about the faith.

A priest is supposed to be a person in the world, but not of it, a living icon of Christ. He needs to be counter cultural. He needs to be priestly, to administer the sacraments and to preach the Gospels (with out bits missing). If we present a spent pensioner who plays around with crockery in his bathrobe, then of coarse the youth will think that a priest is just a guy who couldn’t get a girlfriend in High school. Perhaps if we try a different approach, then we might be on to something…….