melancholy, escapism

The work I've been balancing this semester has been isolating and stressful (not an emotion I often feel); the result is a deep, surreal melancholy. Further into my shell I retract, my energy fading, my expressions lost. This is pure intellect. I have lost connection with the world.

Nostalgic longing arises. I am impulsively drawn to Love Me Tonight, to Under the Roofs of Paris, to Manhattan -- my definition of comfort movies. But why? With which bittersweet moods do we cathartically align? What is this harmony of joy and sorrow in which our identities sing?

This is undoubtedly escapism. The intellect dies where the spirit is born. The bond I forge with these films is irrational, insane, almost immoral. But necessary. Nostalgia is redemptive. I awoke last night to find Top Hat playing on TCM -- Astaire's voice, arriving 70 years passed, violently stirred the spirit in me. However severe the intellect's alienation, I find it combated by this boundless, nostalgic spirit.

Escapism. The intellect suppressed by pure emotion. Critics are wrong to dismiss it. We are not animals of intellect, but of emotive cycles. Emotive spirals. Our moods change, our spirits seek changing nourishment. Even within ourselves we demand diversity.

Watching Ginger and Fred dancing, my intellect is dumbstruck; thought-paralysis -- painfully, poetically liberating. No critical study of this moment would be worth it. The intellect can only survive with intermissions of the wonderfully, gleefully, irresponsibly irrational.

I am on my way to escapism. I hope this bout of awesome melancholy lasts.

some screengrabs

My computer is getting loaded with screenshots, so I thought I'd share some of my favorites.

The Man with a Movie Camera.


Puzzling pistol.

9413.




Love of Zero.




A Canterbury Tale.



Shadows.

Under the Roofs of Paris.



La Chinoise.

Preface to Celine and Julie.

Daybreak Express.


DG should see this.

Speedy.

My all-time favorite Lloyd moment.

top 50, Feb. 09

Made for the TLC 1000.
I don't plan to do it again for a long time. A copy for my archives:

1. The Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov, 1929)
2. Sullivan's Travels (Sturges, 1942)
3. A Canterbury Tale (Powell and Pressburger, 1944)
4. The Shop Around the Corner (Lubitsch, 1940)
5. Sherlock Jr. (Keaton, 1924)
6. Love Me Tonight (Mamoulian, 1932)
7. Under the Roofs of Paris (Clair, 1930)
8. Little Man, What Now? (Borzage, 1934)
9. Marie, a Hungarian Legend (Fejos, 1932)
10. Major Barbara (Pascal, 1941)
11. Manhattan (Allen, 1979)
12. The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra (Florey and Vorkapich, 1927)
13. Night at the Crossroads (Renoir, 1932)
14. Mr. Arkadin (Welles, 1955)
15. The Palm Beach Story (Sturges, 1942)
16. 14 Juillet (Clair, 1933)
17. Lonesome (Fejos, 1928)
18. The Gay Divorcee (Sandrich, 1934)
19. A propos de Nice (Vigo, 1930)
20. His Girl Friday (Hawks, 1940)
21. Salt for Svanetia (Kalatozov, 1930)
22. Diary of a Chambermaid (Renoir, 1946)
23. The Love of Zero (Florey, 1927)
24. Easy Living (Leisen, 1937)
25. Cluny Brown (Lubitsch, 1946)
26. F for Fake (Welles, 1974)
27. City Girl (Murnau, 1930)
28. In Spring (Kaufman, 1929)
29. The River (Borzage, 1929)
30. The Scarlet Empress (von Sternberg, 1934)
31. Ecstasy (Machaty, 1933)
32. Le Million (Clair, 1931)
33. Two for the Road (Donen, 1967)
34. Brand Upon the Brain! (Maddin, 2006)
35. Man's Castle (Borzage, 1933)
36. The Good Fairy (Wyler, 1935)
37. One Hour with You (Lubitsch, 1932)
38. Listen to Britain (Jennings and McAllister, 1942)
39. The Docks of New York (von Sternberg, 1928)
40. True Heart Susie (Griffith, 1919)
41. The Cameraman (Sedgwick, 1928)
42. One of Our Aircraft is Missing (Powell and Pressburger, 1942)
43. Swing Time (Stevens, 1936)
44. The Cranes are Flying (Kalatozov, 1957)
45. The Moon is Blue (Preminger, 1953)
46. Exit Smiling (Taylor, 1926)
47. The Crime of M. Lange (Renoir, 1936)
48. Borderline (MacPherson, 1930)
49. The Devil and Miss Jones (Wood, 1941)
50. L'Atalante (Vigo, 1934)