Happy New Year! Auguri di Buon Anno!

(Venice, Italy) Cat wishes you all a safe, joyous and productive 2010!

Ciao from Venice,
Cat
http://venetiancat.blogspot.com

The Madonna of the Sun

THE MADONNA OF THE SUN

(from 8 dicembre 2006)

Today, December 8th, is the birthday of my protagonist, Harley Columba. It is also the day that John Lennon was assassinated. When I was creating Harley, I wanted her to have a deep connection to John Lennon, so she was born in the same hospital where John Lennon died.

December 8th is also a holiday here in Italy, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. This is the day Mary, the mother of Jesus, was conceived.

One wonders how that came about... since most Christian holidays turn out to have more ancient meanings.

It turns out that December 8th is also Bodhi Day, the day the Buddha became enlightened.

It is the Festival of Neith, the Egyptian goddess who gave birth to Ra, the Sun god; it is celebrated by the Feast of Lamps. Neith, in turn, transforms into Isis, the "woman clothed with the sun," wife and sister of Osiris and mother of Horus.

It is the day that Amaterasu, the Japanese Goddess of the Sun, was born.

On December 8, 1941, the United States declared war on Japan. The Japanese royal family is descended from the Sun Goddess.

***

On December 8, 2009, Cat Bauer woke up inside her apartment on the Grand Canal. 

Ciao from Venice,

Cat

Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog

http://venetiancat.blogspot.com

La Biennale, the Entity

Kazuyo Sejima

(Venice, Italy) The Art Sector of La Biennale concludes tomorrow, which gives me the opportunity to write about La Biennale, the Entity. 

That photo is of Kazuyo Sejima, the first female Director of the Architecture Sector, who will curate the 12^th International Architecture Exhibition on August 29 to November 21, 2010. Born in Ibaraki, Japan in 1956, Kazuyo Sejima is a leading exponent of contemporary architecture.

A quick recap: La Biennale is divided into six different sectors: Art, Architecture, Cinema, Dance, Music and Theatre. The only thing that is missing, in my view, is Literature, and then we would have a perfect seven:) I remember the first year of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. No one was sure if the public would attend a book festival, but they came in masses, standing in line for hours to catch certain events. 

The Art and Architecture Sectors of La Biennale alternate every year. This year we had Art -- from which, in all honesty, we do need an entire year to recover -- so, in 2010, we will have Architecture. I never used to attend Architecture, but after last year, I thought the architects had surpassed the artists in their offerings -- in fact, I felt the architects were becoming the artists -- so I am looking forward to 2010. 

Back in March, the theme of the Dance Sector this year was Degree Zero; that is where we started: at zero with Director Ismael Ivo. It has been like lifting off a spaceship, but I think we are finally off into outer space. One of my favorite sayings is: If the foundation is rotten, the structure will collapse. If the foundation is solid, the structure can reach to the heavens. Ismael Ivo is a real human being, and the core he is creating has a jewel at its center. Degree Zeros' focus is on the creation of a national center dedicated to contemporary dance training. So, all you dancers, get ready to move to Venice!

During the film festival, on September 9th, I had the great opportunity to attend the inaugural conference at La Biennale's newly restored headquarters, Ca' Giustinian, a magnificient palazzo on the Grand Canal. The Council of Europe re-christened the ancient rooms of the palace with their conference on domestic violence against women. This is from Wikipedia:

The Council of Europe (French: Conseil de l'Europe) is the oldest international organisation working towards European integration, having been founded in 1949. It has a particular emphasis on legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation. It has 47 member states with some 800 million citizens.

The most famous conventional bodies of the Council of Europe are the European Court of Human Rights, which enforces the European Convention on Human Rights, and the European Pharmacopoeia Commission, which sets the quality standards for pharmaceutical products in Europe. The Council of Europe's work has resulted in standards, charters and conventions to facilitate cooperation between European countries and further integration.

To read the complete article, please click here: Council of Europe

After the conference, we had cocktails and hors d'œuvre on the terrace, which has an stupendous view of the Grand Canal and the lagoon, the triangle of the Dogana far below. I even had a chance to speak with Google Folks, who were there because they were sponsoring a Domestic Violence Awareness Contest in October. Unfortunately, due to my own domestic distractions, I did not announce it in time, but you can still see the results here: I Beat You I told the Google Folks that I would not exist if it were not for Google, and that I gave them my deepest appreciation. Yay, Google! Ca' Giustinian is open to the public; you can even have lunch on the ground floor terrace between the Bauer Palazzo and the Monaco.

At the final press conference of the film festival, the President, Paolo Baratta said that the Mostra del Cinema was part of a huge stimulation plan for the island of Lido itself, and that the film festival needed to prove it was a very vibrant organization in order to exist. It is difficult for me to imagine that someone could seriously ask the question: What use are international festivals? but, after everything I've experienced lately, I am well aware that this point of view exists.

Paolo Baratta said to look at the Venice Film Festival in terms of a publishing company, and that is a concept I can understand very well. Every publishing house is different -- and that is an important word: house. A publisher feels like a house; at some places you feel warm and at home, and at others you can't wait to leave. Also, in the world of publishing, things take Time. If I finish writing a book tomorrow, you will not read it until some time in the future -- not like a blog:)

Paolo Baratta said that the Venice film festival hopes to bring films up to the surface which would otherwise sink. Publishers are remembered for this. Great publishers never look at the fashion of the time, but look at the long view. A good publishing house brings up new talent. We must build our selections so they are recognizable as a selection of the Venice Film Festival.

When he said those words, I got goosebumps. That kind of thinking is why I respect Paolo Baratta so much, and the quality of films that the Director, Marco Mueller (who is very clever) uncovers always excite me.

The Music Sector, directed by Luca Francesconi, concluded on October 3rd, with an amazing night down at the Arsenale inside Teatro alle Tese. There were stages scattered all over the inside, high on ladders and down on the ground, with wild lighting and video projection. It went on for hours, and you could wander in and out, drinking excellent red wine from the Loredan Gasparini winery -- they even gave us food! The highlight, for me, was when 94-year-old David Honeyboy Edwards played the blues. I had to run backstage like a groupie and kiss him! I could not resist! From Wikipedia:

David "Honeyboy" Edwards (born June 28, 1915, Shaw, Mississippi, United States^[1]) is a Grammy Award-winning Delta blues guitarist and singer from the American South. As of October 2009, Honeyboy Edwards, at age 94, and his close friend, Pinetop Perkins (age 96) are the oldest and arguably, the last Delta blues players still touring the United States remaining from the last century. 

To read the entire article, click here: HONEYBOY

Finally, on November 4, 5 and 6, the admirable Maurizio Scapparo, Director of the Theatre Sector, closed the theme of Mediterraneo - 40 with Polvere di Baghdad, a production inspired by 1001 Nights, and starring another one of the good guys, Massimo Ranieri.

La Biennale feels like a warm house filled with the most fascinating people on the planet. It is a place to create and experiment, where it is okay to do things differently than the norm, yet still have commercial appeal. There are some hits and some misses, some great successes and some fantastic failures. But there is freedom, and there is creativity, and there is fun and happiness and joy!

Ciao from Venezia,

Cat Bauer

Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog

Please Stand By... (Rethink Afghanistan - The Cost of War)

(Venice, Italy) Here's something to watch while you're waiting. As I said on Facebook, the war in Afghanistan was not a blip on my radar until I was illegally evicted from my apartment and dropped right down the rabbit hole.

More soon...

Ciao from Venice, Italy,
Catherine "Cat" Bauer

Venetian Cat - Venice Blog
http://venetiancat.blogspot.com

Tom Ford - A Single Man of Substance

(Venice, Italy) "Fashion design is a wonderful thing, but it is fleeting," said Tom Ford, who is credited with reviving the fashion houses of Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, during the press conference for A Single Man, his riveting directorial debut.

I always admire people who have the guts and depth of character to metamorphize after a receiving a personal shock -- in fact, I write about jumping from one stream to another in my novels -- and it appears that after a suicide in his family, Tom Ford has done exactly that and made the leap from style to substance.

From the press kit:

"Ford put an autobiographical imprint on A SINGLE MAN. The suicide that George constructs in the film is a replica of a suicide in Ford's family. More importantly, Ford went though his own difficult juncture, like George, a few years ago. "There is much of me in my version of George. A kind of spiritual crisis at mid life comes to many people. I achieved much in the material world at a very early age: financial security, fame, professional success, more material possessions than I knew what to do with. I had a full personal life, a wonderful life partner of 23 years, two great dogs, and lots of friends but somehow lost my way a bit. As a fashion designer, one spends one's life living in the future designing collections several years ahead of when they will actually be in stores. Our culture encourages a belief that all of our problems can be solved with material things. I had completely neglected the spiritual side of my life."

At the press conference, Ford spoke about the brief adrenaline rush when a model first appears on the runway -- flash, flash, flash -- and then after six months the clothes end up in the back of the closet. He said that most people come to the point in their life where they realize that maybe everything they had been working toward isn't ultimately making them happy.

Colin Firth spoke about how fortunate he was to have this role -- in fact, he later won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor (I predict he will be nominated for an Academy Award, he is so brilliant). Plus, he speaks fluent Italian! And any movie with Julianne Moore (who was my neighbor for a time on West 11th Street in New York City) will always get my attention because I respect her work so much.

Like Lebanon (see http://venetiancat.blogspot.com/2009/09/and-winner-of-66th-venice-international.html), I attended the press conference for A Single Man before I actually saw the film. In fact, I was so impressed by Tom Ford, Colin Firth and Julianne Moore that I got up early (remember I have no home and am living all over the place, lugging what little clothes I have in a backpack, together with my legal documents slung over one arm and all the press materials over the other arm -- right now I am writing this blog in the library as my computer is still locked in my apartment) and went to the last screening at 8:15 in the morning on the last day of the film festival at the farthest away theater, the PalaBiennale. So, I made a great effort to see the movie, and I was rewarded by experiencing a poignant, moving love story -- an amazing directorial debut.

Even though the characters are gay, Tom Ford insisted A Single Man was not a gay film, and I agree. It is a film about a great love, an adaptation of the novel by Christopher Isherwood. The film takes place all in one day (I can relate to that, too, as Harley's Ninth is set all in one day -- it's a difficult structure to work with), and is set in Los Angeles in 1962 during the height of the Cuban missile crisis.

From the production notes:

It is 1962, and nuclear warfare looms imminently. Fear pervades the world. Societal values are represented in over-simplistic black and white terms, but the complexities of human relationships remain just as convoluted as they are today.

Those of us who grew up during that time period will remember how obsessed everyone was with building bomb shelters and stock piling canned goods. I remember air raid drills instead of fire drills when the entire school trooped downstairs into the hallway, crouched against the wall and tucked our little heads between our legs -- as if that was going to save us from a nuclear bomb!

Harvey Weinstein has already snatched up the rights to A Single Man for 2.5 million dollars, and I think he got it cheap:) Another prediction: people who thought they would never accept that two men could love each other as deeply as a heterosexual couple (and I am one of them) might just change their minds.

Here is an excerpt from the press conference:



Ciao from Venice,
Cat

Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog
http://venetiancat.blogspot.com

And the Winner of the 66th Venice International Film Festival is: LEBANON

Samuel Maoz, Director of Lebanon (ASAC)

(Venice, Italy) "On June 6, 1982, at 6:15 AM, I killed a man..."

Thus begins Samuel Maoz's Director's Statement for the Israeli film, Lebanon, winner of the Leone d'Oro, or Golden Lion, the top prize of the Venice International Film Festival, il Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica di Venezia -- the oldest film festival in the world.

I went to the press conference on September 8th before I saw the movie -- usually, it's the other way around -- and was impressed by Maoz's directness and raw honesty when answering questions.

After Roderick Conway Morris told me he thought Lebanon could win the Golden Lion (click here to read Rod's review in the New York Times), I made an effort to attend the next screening, which happened to be at the Sala Grande. That meant that I watched the film together with the filmmakers -- the director, actors, production people, etc. -- and was present at the end of the movie when the entire audience stood up and applauded Samuel Maoz and his companions.

We applauded and applauded and applauded; I was weeping a bit; it was really one of the few times I participated in a standing ovation with all my heart, not just out of politeness. We recognized courage and we applauded it. Maoz had performed an act of alchemy, transforming the trauma he had experienced into a work of art.

More from the Director's Statement, in Maoz's own words, which describes the writing process so eloquently:

Director's Statement

"Twenty-five years after that miserable morning that opened the Lebanon War, I wrote the script for the film Lebanon. I had had some previous experience with the content, but whenever I began writing, the smell of charred human flesh returned to my nostrils and I could not continue. I knew that the smell would evoke indistinct scenes that I had buried deep within my mind. After years of passive trauma and violent anger attacks, I learned to identify the ominous moment and escape it in time. Better to live in denial than not to live at all.

The year 2006 was particularly difficult. Five years had passed since my last project and I felt that I was burned out. Here and there, I produced a short commercial or promo film, but other than that, nothing. Once again, I suffered financial pressure, passivity and a maddening lack of responsibility. Once someone asked me: "What about post battle trauma? Do you experience nightmares when you remember the war?" I wish it were as simple as that, I thought to myself.

When a person feels he has nothing to lose, he takes chances. That's how I felt in early 2007 when I started to write the script for Lebanon. I had hit rock bottom and decided to go all the way. This time, I would not run away from the smell that came first, as usual, but would let it take me to the blurry scenes. I would put them in focus, dive right in and cope with it all!

Suddenly, I felt an uplift, a weird sense of euphoria. I'm not lost yet! I've still got fighting spirit. I went to bed early, got up in the morning and started to write. I was careful. I didn't tackle the topic directly but rather wrote around it. An introduction, feelers ... I waited for the smell but it did not arrive. I found myself exerting gradual efforts to restore it to my memory, but it was not there any more. The scenes were gone as well. All that remained was a dim progression of difficult, horrendous and particularly distant events.

After about a week, I realized that I had become emotionally detached. The boy of my memory was no longer myself. I felt pain for him, but it was a dull pain, the pain of a scriptwriter attached to a character he writes about. It did not matter to me whether I had been cured or was simply breaking a world record for denial. I was flooded with adrenalin and felt like a quivering missile on the launching pad a moment before liftoff. I had spit out the first draft within three weeks."

This is Cat: Lebanon is Samuel Maoz's first feature film. The technique he uses as a director is unique, submerging us in the claustrophobia of an army tank, its periscope our only view of the outside world. He is such a beautiful writer, let's listen to him describe his process, again, in his own words:

Shooting Lebanon

"I wrote Lebanon straight from my gut. No intellectual cognition charted my path. My memory of the events themselves had become dim and blurred. Scripting conventions such as introductions, character backgrounds and dramatic structure did not concern me. What remained fresh and bleeding was the emotional memory. I wrote what I felt.

I wanted to talk about emotional wounds, to tell the story of a slaughtered soul, a story that was not to be found in the body of the plot but derived from deep within it. How the hell could I put that on film? I realized I would have to shatter some basic principles and bend several rigid cinematic fixtures, creating a total experience instead of building a plot.

The decision to make an experiential movie gave rise to the cinematic concept. My basic principle called for the presentation of a personal, subjective point of view. The audience would not watch the plot unfolding before it but experience it together with the actors. Viewers would not be given any additional information, but would remain stuck with the cast inside the tank, having the same limited view of the war and hearing it only as the actors heard it. We would try to make sure that they could smell it and taste it as well, using the visuals and sound track not only to tell a story but to impart an experience. I realized that I would have to create a total experience to achieve complete emotional comprehension."

Cat again: So... we spent the entire movie inside the tank with the boys, a wrenching experience. We watched the film in Hebrew with Italian and English subtitles. Here is the trailer, which is only in Hebrew:



Ciao from Venice,
Cat
Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog

Can Sly Stallone Save Our World?

(Venice, Italy) I just came from Sylvester Stallone's press conference where a journalist from Buenos Aires asked him:

"You are a hero. Are you able to save our world?"

And I thought -- there's the answer! Where is Rambo? Where are all the real-life heroes???? All we have these days are video games and celluloid heroes. Sure, Sly and Arnold and Bruce will be together on screen for The Expendables next year, but we need real help right here right now!

Sly took a beat and then laughed after he heard the question. He said, "No, it's going to take more than someone like me to save the world." He said that a hero is someone who conquers his fear and tries to do the deed, even if he dies. That you give your life for something greater than yourself.

Sly is here because he is receiving the Jaeger-Lecoultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award, which he said is a privilege and has given him a new vitality. He's also showing a trailer of The Expendables and screening the Director's Cut of Rambo.

Someone said that Mickey Rourke (who is also in The Expendables) said last year when he was here in Venice that he "owed" Stallone, and Sly said, "Everybody owes somebody something. He doesn't owe me anything. In Hollywood, the definition of a friend is someone who stabs you in the chest, not in the back." He said he and Bruce and Arnold have known each other for twenty-five years and that they have a long history together.

A question was asked about how he felt about sequels, and he said that if it weren't for Rambo and Rocky he would not be here today. Rocky and Rambo are part of the collective image. A male journalist said he used to pretend he was Rambo when he was a boy. Sly said that he used to pretend he was Robin Hood. He said that young males need a masculine image and need to do heroic deeds.

I agree. Men are different than women, and, by nature, men need to do heroic deeds. So, here is a question for the guys: WHY AREN'T MEN, AS A GROUP, RISKING THEIR LIVES TO STOP THE FORCES OF EVIL FROM TAKING OVER OUR PLANET? Why does this sweet journalist from Buenes Aires ask in all earnestness if Sylvester Stallone can save our world? Right now, the only male I see who is risking his life to get a message across is Michael Moore, and, to me, he gets away with it because he is overweight. What has happened to all the men? I see women becoming more aggressive to make up for this imbalance, and I think it is not the right way to go.

Anyway, Sly believes that the days of the big budget blockbusters are numbered, and that young independent filmmakers like Scorsese, de Palma, Lucas, Coppola, etc. will make a comeback. He said that if a movie costs 200-300 million dollars to make and it doesn't work, the studio is gone.

Like me, Sly believes that it is the Divine Comedy, NOT the Divine Tragedy, only he quoted Shakespeare, not Dante, but I didn't write down the quote. Then he said, "If I didn't have a sense of humor, I would have jumped off a building long ago."

So, Dear Men, we beg you to please find your sense of humor once again, gather up your Jedi swords and save our Dear World from the forces of Darkness and Evil before it's too late!!!


Ciao from the 66th International Venice Film Festival,
Cat

Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog
http://venetiancat.blogspot.com

Capitalism at Lincoln Center and Sony's Grand Equinox

(Venice, Italy) As I get my thoughts together for the next blog, here's some good news from Variety:

Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story" will screen at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall on Sept. 21. Distrib Overture will roll out the pic nationwide Oct. 2.
Following the screening, Moore will hold an aud Q&A moderated by Daily Beast editor-in-chief Tina Brown.

Michael Moore goes from the Venice Film Festival to Lincoln Center! How cool is that!

Also, since I am very fond of celebrating solstices and equinoxes, I am very pleased to learn there are contemporary companies who support such ancient, ongoing rituals. Yay, Sony! Here's some info sent over by the UK PR agency, immediate future, about what Sony is doing for the autumn equinox on September 22nd:

I thought your readers might be interested to hear about Sony’s latest campaign, which will be taking place on the date of the equinox: September 22nd

The campaign is called ‘Twilight Football’ and will see seven games of football played, and captured on camera, in seven stunning locations across the globe as the hour of twilight settles over each country. Each location has been chosen for its unique character and includes remote places such as Argentina’s Iguazu Falls and the Australian Pinnacle Desert, and the timeless locations of Venice and Antequera in Spain. We’re expecting some truly stunning photography from the events.

Photography enthusiasts from across the globe have won places to photograph the locations and footballing action. In addition, world renowned photographer, Delly Carr, who has written a guide to twilight photography, will also be photographing the football.

The campaign is designed to demonstrate the low light shooting capability of Sony’s new EXMOR CMOS Sensor, found in its new range of Alpha, CyberShot and HandyCam cameras.

Here is a link to some recent coverage of the campaign which also includes an example of the stunning photography we expect to see from each game. I have also included some pre-existing twilight photography. http://www.ephotozine.com/article/Sony-Twilight-competition-winners-announced-12061

So, all you soccer/Sony/equinox/photography fans, check that out.

Finally, I just caught the last sentence of Peter Greenaway's press conference, which was:

"Most people are visually illiterate. We need to put that right."

Ciao from the 66th International Venice Film Festival,

Cat

Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog

http://venetiancat.blogspot.com/

Attention all Jedis! Call to Action! George Clooney in THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS

(Venice, Italy) I've always suspected that George Clooney was a Jedi. Now I am sure that he is. If you are a Jedi, too, you will understand.

Based on a true story by Jon Ronson, who was here at the press conference, The Men Who Stare at Goats is about the American military's top-secret program to harnass pyschic powers to create a New Earth Army. Originally formed with the best of intentions to prevent wars, like many things on this planet, something beautiful was perverted by the darkness.
From the synopsis:

In this quirky dark comedy inspired by a real life story you will hardly believe is actually true, astonishing revelations about a top-secret wing of the U.S. military come to light when a reporter encounters an enigmatic Special Forces operator on a mind-boggling mission. ...A legion of "Warrior Monks" with unparalleled psychic powers can read the enemy's thoughts, pass through solid walls, and even kill a goat simply by staring at it.

In real life, journalist Jon Ronson tumbled down the rabbit hole into this bizarre military world, which feels a lot like the rabbit hole I find myself in. If you think I am relating too much on a personal level to the films we are screening, you have to understand the genius of the people in charge -- Marco Mueller, the Artistic Director of the Venice Film Festival (and another Jedi:), in particular. We are screening these particular films because the Venice Film Festival THINKS THEY STAND OUT, WANTS YOU TO KNOW ABOUT THEM AND THINKS YOU SHOULD MAKE AN EFFORT TO SEE THEM. Going to the festival is like an intensive catch-up on current world events from a Jedi point-of-view.

Venice has always been a kind of Jedi Headquarters, with all sorts of magical people practicing their arts throughout the centuries. (That image is the Palazzo Ducale, the most fanciful palace in the world.) On Sunday, George Lucas (Emperor of the Jedis:) himself was here to present the Golden Lion to John Lasseter and the directors from Disney-Pixar (nothing but Jedis over there). In addition, I had the good fortune to participate in the Pixar's Master Class on Monday morning where they revealed their secrets. At Pixar, the artists have the most power, and the producers have the least. There are no politics. They say they live in fairyland, which, as you know if you are a regular reader of this blog, is exactly where I want to live, and was living before the military and other dark forces decided to try to take over our sweet town and force me out on the street with an illegal eviction.

I have always been very vocal about expressing my belief that Venice has the real possibility of becoming the Magic Kingdom, and now that I have seen The Men Who Stare at Goats, I understand better the dark force that keeps trying to prevent this.

What is a Jedi? This from Wikipedia:


The Jedi are an ancient monastic peacekeeping organization in the fictional Star Wars universe. They are connected with the Force.[1] They specifically use the "light side" of the force and reject the "dark side" of the Force, as well as the Dark Side's adherents, the Sith.

While various sources and ideas have been brought forth as the initial inspiration for the idea of a fictional "Jedi" order, the most apparent are the current and past chivalric orders that exist in Europe.

To read the entire article, please click here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi

Andrew Stanton, who directed Finding Nemo, shared a Walt Disney (one of the greatest Jedis ever born:) quote during Pixar's Master Class:

"Fun and wonder are the important elements, in addition to quality in production and performance, which are most responsible for the success of Disney productions. Fun in the sense of cheerful reaction - the appeal to love of laughter. Wonder in that we appeal to the constant wonder in men's minds, which is stimulated by imagination."

I had planned on making this blog much longer, but they have managed to find a way to block me, even here at the Film Festival; thanks to the help of a techie, we just hacked our way back in. One quick note: I just came from a conference here entitled Cinema and Human Rights. One of the speakers, Mohsen Namjoo, the "Iranian Bob Dylan," made a comment that struck home. He said, "Even if you are not concerned about politics, it is politics that becomes concerned with you." I feel the same way. The real irony is that I am a citizen of the United States of America, the country that is supposed to be setting the example for democracy and freedom of speech. How can we condemn other countries if I can't write about the movies?

To read more about Namjoo, please click here (or cut & paste):

http://www.twentyfourbit.com/post/141841224/leaked-song-causes-conviction-of-iranian-bob-dylan

JEFF BRIDGES HAS NEVER BEEN BETTER!!!!!!!!!!!

Ciao from the 66th International Venice Film Festival,
Cat

Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog
http://venetiancat.blogspot.com

PEASANTS UNITE! Michael Moore's Newest Film CAPITALISM - A LOVE STORY

(Venice, Italy) Apparently Michael Moore has arrived at the same conclusion that I have: right in front of our eyes, the United States of America has become the victim of a coup d'etat.

From Wikipedia:

Typically, a coup d’état uses the extant government’s power to assume political control of the country.

In Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook, military historian Edward Luttwak says: “A coup consists of the infiltration of a small, but critical, segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder.”

After you see CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY, you will realize the dramatic personal experiences I have been describing to you are really happening to me. (Right now I am covered with bruises inflicted by my landlady and some strange woman who attacked me outside my apartment after the police said I could sleep on my doorstep to make a protest.) You will see families being forcibly evicted from homes they have owned for generations. You will see a for-profit, private juvenile center with crooked judges and teens being convicted simply for behaving like teens. You will see airline pilots who now earn so little money that they donate blood just to get by.

More shockingly, you will learn that major corporations like Bank of America, Winn Dixie, Nestles and Wal-Mart, etc. are taking out life insurance policies on ordinary employees for profit -- not CEOs, but average workers -- called "dead peasant" policies without the employees' knowledge or approval. (That is an image of Peasant Family in an Interior by Louis Le Nain.) 

The companies are gambling that, statistically, a certain amount of their employees will die, and the profit they will make on a few deaths is greater than the cost of buying a bunch of life insurance policies. In other words, the companies want their employees to die. I gasped out loud.

"Dead Peasant" policies. Such arrogance!

This small group, which consists of 1% of the population, actually considers itself the "new aristocracy" simply because they have accumulated masses of material objects and money. The methods they use are barbaric and sadistic, not aristocratic: cruelty, lies, intimidation, blocks, manipulation, violence, force, etc. They lust for creativity and talent, but are lacking. Their value system is warped. Century after century this artificial aristocracy cannot seem to learn a simple lesson, which is:

True nobility comes from the heart.

This is from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to John Adams dated October 28, 1813 about what to do with the "artificial aristocracy" (I am adding the emphasis):

"For I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of
this are virtue and talents. Formerly bodily powers gave place among
the aristoi. 

But since the invention of gunpowder has armed the weak as well as the strong with missile death, bodily strength, like beauty, good humor, politeness and other accomplishments, has become but an auxiliary ground of distinction.

There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class.

The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society.

May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most effectually for pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government?

The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent it's ascendancy."

Jefferson then outlines what he thinks is the best solution to the problem, which differs from Adams, and then he says:

"These laws, drawn by myself, laid the axe tothe root of Pseudo-aristocracy. And had another which I prepared been adopted by the legislature, our work would have been compleat.

It was a Bill for the more general diffusion of learning. This proposed to divide every county into wards of 5. or 6. miles square, like your townships; to establish in each ward a free school for reading, writing and common arithmetic; to provide for the annual selection of the best subjects from these schools who might receive at the public expence a higher degree of education at a district school; and from these district schools to select a certain number of the most promising subjects to be compleated at an University, where
all the useful sciences should be taught.

Worth and genius would thus have been sought out from every condition of life, and compleatly prepared by education for defeating the competition of wealth and birth for public trusts."

To read the letter in its entirety, please go to the Library of Congress, as the original link posted below no longer works.

http://www.tncrimlaw.com/civil_bible/natural_aristocracy.htm

I'm not fond of the title, Capitalism: A Love Story because I don't think capitalism is to blame. And I am much more center and less of a socialist than Michael Moore. All those political labels exist to push your emotional buttons. For example, Venice is a town run by Communists, but they are the most funky Communists you will ever meet. It is surrounded by Fascists, but they, too, are distinct.

When they asked me about the title, I told German television that I am a humanist -- I believe human beings are entitled to certain rights just by the fact that they are on the planet, and are more productive, healthier and happier when you treat them with dignity instead of abuse. I believe in compassion, creativity, hope and imagination. I believe in independent thinking. If your product is really better than mine, then let the people buy your product, but don't go around bad-mouthing mine. I believe in winning by playing fair, and this game ain't fair.

We don't want to believe the things Michael Moore speaks about are really happening. I most certainly do not want to believe it is really happening, but reality is that all my earthly possessions -- my clothes, my computer, my desk, my paintings, my jewelery, my rugs, my shoes, my documents, my silverware, my linens, my 300 library editions of Harley, Like a Person and Harley's Ninth, my American passport, etc., etc., etc. are locked inside my apartment and I do not have the key -- actually, now, they are claiming everything is thrown inside the storage area on the ground floor. 

The eviction is not legal. It is based on lies and deceipt. When the landlord was here I got him to admit that I paid the rent. I called him a liar to his face outside in the calle so everyone could hear, and told him to denounce me for slander so I could go to court and prove he was liar.

On top of that, the United States of America has an antagonistic attitude toward me for no reason whatsoever -- except, perhaps, that I keep pointing these things out -- and that, my friends, is outrageous, and that is reality. It is a very dark energy. It feels evil and it is not going to stop unless we all get off our butts and do something about it. There really was/is a financial crisis.

At a press conference over at the Excelsior Hotel helmed by Peter Bart, the editor of Variety -- which, by the way, is providing our daily news for the first time -- a journalist asked Michael Moore if he felt isolated, and if it was taking a toll. He said, yes, he did feel isolated, and that yes, it was taking its toll. I feel the same way.

Go see the movie. Here's a review from Xan Brooks of the Guardian in the UK:

"America, enthuses a leaked Citibank report, is now a modern-day "plutonomy" where the top 1% of the population control 95% of the wealth. Does Barack Obama's election spell an end to all this? The director has his doubts, pointing out that Goldman Sachs – depicted here as the principal agent of wickedness – was the largest private contributor to the Obama campaign."

Here is the trailer:



 https://youtu.be/JeROnVUADj0

Ciao from the 66th International Venice Film Festival,

Cat

Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog

Live! From the 66th International Venice Film Festival! MY SON MY SON WHAT HAVE YE DONE

(Venice, Italy) It is a bit difficult to work when 99.9% of one's earthly possessions -- including one's computer -- have been locked inside one's apartment since June 10th by unknown entities who keep changing the locks, but let's give it a go, starting with the world premiere of Werner Herzog's film MY SON MY SON WHAT HAVE YE DONE, inspired by a true story. That was the Surprise Movie yesterday -- we had no idea what we were seeing until the film started, and as soon as "David Lynch Presents a Werner Herzog Film" rolled up on the screen, the industry audience burst into applause. This is the second film by Werner Herzog at the festival, the other being Bad Lieutenant, Port of Call New Orleans (which I really wanted to see but missed with all these apartment shenanigans) so Herzog is competing against himself.

At the press conference Herzog said that when Marco Mueller, the Artistic Director of the Venice Film Festival, insisted he had to have My Son My Son at the film festival as well as Bad Lieutenant, Herzog said, "If you are going to go so wild, then go ahead and take them both." Herzog said that film festivals get to be so bureaucratic after time, and then here, in Venice, you realize "all of a sudden there is this wild life out there."

So, if you are wondering why I, personally, stay and suffer through all this absolute insanity it is because despite the many and repeated efforts to impose a rigid structure upon Venice, it is not possible. They can use force, manipulation, intimidation, violence and obstruction, but Venice will never fit into a mold -- nor will she reveal her core to the undeserving. With like-minded people like Marco Mueller and Werner Herzog wandering around Venice on a regular basis, as well as the enlightened phantoms of the past, to me, it really feels like home.

From the production notes:

Inspired by true events, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is a story of ancient myth and modern madness. An aspiring actor performing in a Greek tragedy, Brad Macallam commits in reality the crime he is to enact in the play: he kills his mother.

I won't get into details about the film except to say that I thought it was wacky, wonderful and weird. I don't know Werner Herzog's work, so it reminded me a lot of David Lynch, whom I adore. According to Herzog, Lynch did not have much to do with the film except that he read the script and loved it, saying it was "really tight," and that if he were executive producer "you can probably sell the film more easily to France."

To read what is up on Wikipedia, please click here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Son,_My_Son,_What_Have_Ye_Done

FROM THE PRESS CONFERENCE

When asked if he were afraid of being typecast for playing characters with mental disorders, Michael Shannon, who stars in the film, said he was talking about the notion of sanity at dinner last night. He said you cannot prove what is sane or insane, but that we need to make a construction that allows us to share the world together. He likes to play characters that exist outside of normalcy because "normalcy is a prison." (I can relate to that:) Werner Herzog paid Shannon a huge compliment and said he has a phenomenal gift.

Herzog made a surprise announcement that he was starting his own film school starting today called, "Rogue Film School," and that he loved the name so much he was in the process of patenting it; I love it, too, being a great fan of rogues myself:)

When a journalist said that Herzog was the only one who had been able to work with Klaus Kinski, Herzog said that he did not consider Kinski a madman. Then Herzog said: "I am the only one in Venice right now who is clinically sane."

After the press conference I went up to Herzog and said, "I have lived in Venice for eleven years, and I have a medical document that states that I am clinically sane. That makes two of us:)"

More about that in the future.

Ciao from the 66th International Venice Film Festival,
Cat

Venetian Cat - Venice Blog
http://venetiancat.blogspot.com

PLEASE STAND BY!

China and Venice -- The Eternal Tango

(Venice, Italy) On May 26, the night before I went to a conference at the Giorgio Cini Foundation entitled, China and the West Today: Lessons From Matteo Ricci, I read an amazing news report on ANSA, which is a bit like an Italian Associated Press. The headline that caught my eye was:
Vatican Radio to go commercial

Pope's station will run advertising jingles for first time

The report went on to say that Vatican Radio had decided to take on advertisers, and the first sponsor was going to be ENEL, our electrical company here in Italy. To read the report, please click here:

http://www.ansa.it/site/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2009-05-26_126360364.html

(As of today, October 6, 2009, that link no longer seems to function:) Let's try the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8135753.stm)

Intrigued, I went to the Enel Wikipedia site and discovered another astonishing piece of information:

In the first week of March 2008, Enel has begun building the world's first hydrogen-powered thermal powerplant near Venice. The hydrogen will be harnessed from the byproducts of the nearby oil refinery of Porto Marghera. The projected output is in the megawatt range.

To read that article, please click here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enel_(energy)

(Whoops! As of today, October 6, 2009, it seems like that page no longer exists. A similar story does, however, exist here in Italian on Finanza LIVE: http://www.finanzalive.com/notizie/enel-inaugura-il-cantiere-per-la-prima-centrale-a-idrogeno-mondiale/)

The world's first hydrogen power plant? In Marghera? How did I miss that incredible news? Many people in Venice complain about Marghera, which is an industrial zone on the lagoon, causing the types of havoc that industrial zones are notorious for. If a hydrogen plant could harness the by-products, it would be a quantum leap forward. I asked a few select people if they had heard about this information, and no one had.

What does a hydrogen power plant have to do with the conference at the Cini Foundation about China and Matteo Ricci? In true Venetian synchronicity, by the end of the conference, I found myself speaking to Corrado Clini, who is the President of the Global BioEnergy Partnership - G8+5 and Vice President of the International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy, as well as a cornucopia of other impressive titles. I told him what I had read, and asked him if it was true. He said, yes, that the hydrogen plant should be ready within a month or two. He said to search "Hydrogen Park Marghera," and I suggest that anyone who is interested in more information to follow those instructions. I am certainly no expert on hydrogen, but my gut reaction was: a hydrogen power plant is thrilling, heroic; we are on the dawn of a new level of experience.

You regular readers will remember that I have written about the Giorgio Cini Foundation on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore before. It is a great honor and privilege to be invited to attend a conference there, and I always come away with a feeling of humility and respect. From Wikipedia: The San Giorgio Monastery is a Benedictine monastery in Venice, lying on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. It stands next to the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, and is now the seat of Cini Foundation.

The conference, China and the West Today: Lessons from Matteo Ricci was orchestrated by Michela Fontana, who is a scientific journalist, mathematician and writer. It was like a concerto, starting with historians and scholars, and ending with businessmen, with the same melody recurring throughout.

I know as much about China as I knew about the Middle East when I wrote about the Eurogolfe Forum I attended at the Cini Foundation last October -- which is, basically nothing. (Click here to read Men Like Gods http://venetiancat.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-world-order.html) I was pleased, however, to be told during a private conversation with one of the few attendants from China, "You are Chinese!" Now, of course, I am about as Chinese as I am Venetian:) The source of my information comes from the I Ching, or The Book of Changes, which I have attempted to understand for many years. This is from Richard Wilhelm's introduction:

The Book of Changes -- I Ching in Chinese -- is unquestionably one of the most important books in the world's literature. Its origin goes back to mythical antiquity, and it has occupied the attention of the most eminent scholars of China down to the present day. Nearly all that is greatest and most significant in the three thousand years of Chinese cultural history has either taken its inspiration from this book, or has exerted an influence on the interpretation of its text. Therefore it may safely be said that the seasoned wisdom of thousands of years has gone into the making of the I Ching. Small wonder then that both of the two branches of Chinese philosophy, Confucianism and Taoism, have their common roots here. ...

...Indeed, not only the philosophy of China but its science and statecraft as well have never ceased to draw from the spring of wisdom in the I Ching ...

Matteo Ricci was a Jesuit priest who traveled to China in 1583, about three hundred years after the Venetian merchant and explorer, Marco Polo, arrived in 1274. Ricci brought with him new ideas from Italy about science, astronomy and mathematics, and assimilated into the Chinese culture. Professor Timothy Brook, the Chair of the afternoon session of Day 1 of the conference asked this question: "Is it pure coincidence that the Europeans best remembered for their early travels to China, Marco Polo and Matteo Ricci, were both Italian?" Professor Brook points out that one similarity was that each journey took place in the immediate wake of the formation of trade networks.

Some years ago, I wrote a piece about the Ospedaletto Santa Maria dei Derelitti that might also shed some light on the question.

The Ospedaletto originated back in the winter of 1528 when famine struck the Venetian countryside and destitute mobs flooded into the city. Unlike hospitals today, caring for the sick was only one dimension of the ospedali. They also provided emergency food and shelter for men, women and children, particularly orphans. By 1542, the original wooden buildings of the Ospedaletto had been replaced by permanent structures. In 1575, they began to erect a church called Santa Maria dei Derelitti, the centerpiece of the compound. It is believed that the Ospedaletto rose due to the efforts of staunch Catholics involved in reformation, and was sustained entirely by voluntary donations and bequests from private citizens. Influential reformists such as Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, and the powerful Contarini family were associated with the Ospedaletto. Venetian nobleman Girolamo Miani (later to become St. Jerome Emilini after being canonized in 1767 by the Venetian Pope Clement XIII), was appointed the director and responsible for the orphan's education. A former soldier, Miani is credited with originating catechetical teaching by question and answer. The religious instruction also included the singing of sacred music. The boys sang in the streets, spreading the word of God and soliciting funds from the nobility, and learned simple trades such as rope making for the Arsenale. The girls, however, were completely cloistered in the hospital, and required to follow a strict regime of prayer, domestic work and assistance in the wards. Their singing was confined to vespers and masses on Sundays and feast days.

[That image you see is Il Corpus Domini by Giorgio Giacobbi and from a photograph exhibit here in Venice called Donne! (Women!) by Il Circolo Fotografico La Gondola in the lobby of the bank, Cassa di Risparmio di Venezia, in Campo San Luca, which runs through June 10th.]

When I was six-years-old, I made my First Holy Communion and I remember very well those questions and answers! "Where is God?" "God is everywhere." The nun clicked some device and we stood, knelt and sat, just like little soldiers. Ha! Now I know who to blame:)

It may be surprising to learn that the Jesuits were ordained in Venice in 1537, about the same period of time discussed in my blog about Titian, Tintoretto & Veronese: http://venetiancat.blogspot.com/2009/03/ides-of-march-titian-tintoretto.html.

From Wikipedia:

They were ordained at Venice by the bishop of Arbe (June 24). They devoted themselves to preaching and charitable work in Italy, as the renewed Italian War of 1535-1538 between Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, Venice, the pope and the Ottoman Empire rendered any journey to Jerusalem impossible.

Echoing the past even more, the Jesuits have a new Superior General, Adolfo Nicolás, elected on January 19, 2008, and who has spent much time in Japan and the East. From Wikipedia:

[Nicolás] once stated, "Asia has a lot yet to offer the Church, to the whole Church, but we haven't done it yet. Maybe we have not been courageous enough, or we haven't taken the risks we should"[10]. In an article on Nicolás, Michael McVeigh said that Nicolás has also expressed his wariness of missionaries who are more concerned with teaching and imposing orthodoxy than in having a cultural experience with the local people, saying, "Those who enter into the lives of the people, they begin to question their own positions very radically."[10]

I learned a tremendous amount of new information in a compacted period of time. What sums it up, to me, is this passage from the theatrical performance held the last night, Matteo Ricci. A Jesuit Scientist at the Ming Court, written by the organizer, Michela Fontana:

"Proof of the great prestige he eventually won at the Imperial court was the fact that the Emperor Wanli would grant him the right to be buried in the capital of the empire, Peking, in the cemetery now in the courtyard of the Administrative College, once the Chinese Communist Party school.

According to the chronicles, a few days after Ricci's burial in 1611, a eunuch asked the Grand Secretary Ye Xiango, the supreme official in the Imperial bureaucracy, why Ricci had been granted this privilege never previously enjoyed by a Westerner. The Mandarin replied that the translation into Chinese of Euclid's Elements alone was enough to justify honouring the man who had come from the Far West."

The non-Asian speaker who impressed me the most was Professor François Jullien, who spoke in French, which was translated. The long and winding road that Professor Jullien had traveled to understand life in general and the Chinese culture in particular was inspiring. He spoke about using silent transformation, not harsh breaks and ruptures to change. That if you force a situation, you are not effective. He said that one must undergo a personal transformation to understand Chinese thought, and that patience and humility are required. This struck a chord with me, for I had to undergo a long personal transformation myself, together with a healthy dose of patience and humility, in order to catch a glimpse into the way Venetians think.

Professor Yongjin Zhang from the University of Bristol was denied a visa, so could not attend; his text was read, but had been edited. His recent publications include "The English School" in China: A Travelogue of Ideas and Their Diffusion, and System, Empire and State in Chinese International Relations. From the conference book: "I argue that in an increasingly globalised world, Matteo Ricci's ideas and practices remain valuable in informing the search by both China and Europe for a richer and more meaningful relationship both at present and in the future."

I felt that Luo Xiaopeng, a Professor of Economics at the China Academy of Rural Development at Zhejiang University was an informative and enlightened individual, as was one of the few female speakers, Professor Luo Hongbo, a specialist in European/Italian enterprises and Sino-European relations. She said she was going to recommend holding a similar conference in China next year, and that she had been trying to get to the Giorgio Cini Foundation for thirty years!

After the scholars came the Italian businessmen, and I will confess that I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by their attitude and demeanor, which was, honestly, very different from the Anglo-American point of view. Cesare Romiti, the former President of Fiat SpA (among other awe-inspiring titles) was refreshing. In 2003, he founded and became chairman of the Italia Cina Foundation, which brings together many entrepreneurs and firms interested in the Chinese market -- and, personally, I feel more optimistic about the future knowing that nugget of information! He is also the President of the Rome Academy of Fine Arts, and wants to greatly enlarge an exchange program with Chinese students. He said something that struck me: "China is a school." I feel the same way about Venice -- that Venice is a school, filled with exceptional knowledge. The privilege of living in Venice is like living inside a breathing institution, alive with precious, exclusive gems of wisdom. An exchange of knowledge between China and Italy in general, Venice in particular, is something thrilling to imagine!

OTHER ATTENDEES:

Boris Biancheri, was the Chairman of ANSA, the news agency mentioned earlier, until just a short while ago, as well as being a former diplomat -- he was the Italian Ambassador in Tokyo, London and Washington.

Federico Rampini is a columnist and Chinese correspondent for La Repubblica, as well as many other publications that might ring a bell or two:)

Davide Cucino graduated from Venice's own Ca' Foscari, and has lived and worked in China since the late 1980s. He suggested that Italy concentrate more on promoting its technology and mechanical equipment, and less on the products that already sell themselves, such as wine and fashion, etc.

Renzo Cavalieri, a law professor also at Ca' Foscari, spoke about the legal difficulties between Italy and China, and felt some laws were there simply to create an obstacle.

Space does not allow me to mention all the excellent speakers, but it was generally agreed that Italy has a rich cultural history to offer China. I also agree -- the information that Italy holds in its treasure chest should be exchanged with enlightened thinkers all over the world, not just for the good of Italy and China, but for the good of the entire planet. I did, however, make my eternal comment: that one of Italy's greatest natural resources are its women, and there is still a dire lack of female mindpower up on the podium. To put things into perspective: the conference itself was conceived by a woman and I applaud Michela Fontana for her brilliant effort. Some of the men spoke to me afterwards, and assured me they were aware of the situation and were making efforts to improve it. And once Venice gets her hydrogen power plant up and running, well, the possibilities are tremendously exciting!

I want to thank the Giorgio Cini Foundation for allowing me to attend the conference. It is deeply appreciated, and I came away with a much wider perspective than before I arrived. By the way -- the conference was open to everyone until seating was full, so if you had been in Venice on May 27, 28 and 29, and were hooked into the right network, you could have been there and blogged about it, too. Plus, it was free!

Ciao from Venice,

Cat

Venetian Cat - Venice Blog

http://venetiancat.blogspot.com/