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Monthly Archives: February 2012

Tears splotches on a pink T-shirt

06 Monday Feb 2012

Posted by morselsandscraps in occasional pieces

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After Romulus, Raimon Gaita, Red dog, Toomelah

Recently I came out of The Kinema at Narooma and noticed great splotches of moisture on my bright pink T-shirt. There was no hiding the fact that I’d been sobbing over Red dog. It’s rare these days that a movie does this to me, mainly because I prefer hard-edged movies, with such a dose of reality that tears are too easy a response.

What was it about Red dog that made me shed water in such copious amounts?  There was no sentimentality in the landscape. It was a landscape of intransigent beauty, filmed to show that beauty, (although it didn’t show too much of the havoc wrought by mining.)

I analysed the points in the story that provoked tears: the lonely men finding solace in the dog; the suicide attempt derailed; the depression cured; the death of John; the devotion of Red dog and his long search; the victory over the managers of the caravan park (albeit by a form of communal bullying); the new pup; the new love affair; the death of Red dog at John’s grave.

As I look at my list I begin to realise why I’m  suspicious of the truth of my tearful reponse. I’ve been tricked. These are all solutions far too easy for the problems they purport to solve, and my tears cloud this revelation. That’s why my usual movie diet doesn’t produce tears: because dream solutions are rarely offered at the end of the story. In Toomelah education isn’t really put to the test – it’s just a hopeful coda to the unremitting difficulty of Daniel’s life.

I’m never confident in my own thinking about such matters. I always want a second opinion. In this case I found a formidable one in Raimond Gaita’s After Romulus,  where he reflects on telling the story of his father and his mother. With that lovely serendipity  that often meets one’s needs, I was it reading at the same time as I saw Red dog.

As a philosopher, Gaita reflects on the nature of truthfulness, and decides that the impact of Romulus my father depends on its truthfulness. He saw the book as a “witness to the kind of goodness (Romulus) lived” and he pointed out that the integrity of truthfulness doesn’t survive invention. (p. 92) The question is “Was Romulus really like that?” I can apply that question usefully to Red dog.

A key part of Gaita’s attempt to be truthful was to resist pathos and sentimentality (p. 94). He allows that sentimentality is often sincere, but he also insists that sentimentality ” betrays our attempt to see things as they are”, which he sees as an important human undertaking. Sentimentality is in fact the form falsehood takes. (p. 103)

Can I really be adamant about judging a movie through the lens of integrity, truth and  reality? Yes, I can. After all, it’s my own responses I’m scrutinising, and I’m also trying to figure out what I value in a movie experience. I’m not really pure about this. I’m not sorry I saw Red dog. I’ve seen many enjoyable movies that wouldn’t meet anti-sentimentality standards; and read many a book of the same kind.

It was the large moist splotches on my pink T-shirt that raised all these questions. This time I didn’t slink out of the theatre leaving my tears behind me and I needed to account for them. 

My view of the world tends towards the sunny – another word for sentimental perhaps: I choose to see butterflies rather than falling rocks. However, it’s my aspiration “to see things steadily and to see them whole”.  In the effort to see things as they are, Gaita suggests, we need to rid ourselves of banality, second hand opinion, cliche, vulnerability to pathos and sentimentality.

As Red dog wins the Best Film at the AACTA Awards, I’m left with Gaita’s question: “Can we justifiably trust what moves us?” And my own gloss on this: “Are tears too precious to waste on the sentimental?”

Frugality and impulse in mortal combat

03 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by morselsandscraps in art

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buying a painting, buying two paintings, Carlos Barrios, daring, frugality and impulse, Gallery Bodalla

 Frugality and impulse. Two of my abstract goals for 2012. As soon as I surfaced from the holidays that make most of January disappear, I went out one night in pursuit of another abstract goal – daring. It wasn’t very daring. Just an exhibition opening at the Gallery Bodalla. But I hate openings, because you have to hover amidst a pile of strangers and either feel self-conscious in your silence or inane in your utterance. The paintings are low on the list of everyone’s priorities.

However, I thought I’d give openings another go, tempted partly by the promise of Latin American guitar music.  I arrived late and found that I could in fact prowl the paintings uninterrupted, provided I executed small dance steps to keep out of other people’s sight line and keep them out of mine. I found I was enjoying the atmosphere, and snickering privately at inane attempts to talk to the artist: “I really love your art” is a line I won’t emulate. I enjoyed watching Valerie thumb red dots on the wall with surprising frequency, and a thread of a thought took up residence in my brain: “Mmm. I’d like to cause a red dot.”

And then I saw the painting. It was called Arribo (Up). The head and shoulders of a figure in profile (yes. I’m sure that’s what it is) emerged from wonderful delicate black and white hashwork. It drew me back and back and back. The price helped it to settle more solidly in my brain. It was within my reach.

However, I’ve read Peter Singer on the ethics of consumption: I’ve listened to a friend who decided to buy nothing new this year.  For goodness sake, I’ve decided myself to be frugal! And how much of this urge to buy is the hysteria of the event and the moment?

So I don’t buy.

But I’m back in the gallery at the weekend for another look and Arribo still pulls me. Still I don’t dare, hoping in my cowardly way that it will be sold to someone else and I’ll be relieved of the responsibility of deciding.

No-one else buys it. Eight days after I see it, I pull out the mastercard and dress up in gear suitable for an art-buyer. I say “I’ll have that one” and watch the red dot leave Valerie’s finger and attach itself to the wall near my purchase.

But I feel none of the elation I expected. I feel flat. I look at another piece (Spirits at Bristol Point) and wish I’d bought it, with its crowd of bare bottoms and breasts, in a grey wash with a greeny-mauvy tinge and a splash of orange. There’s even a shape that could be a dog in the corner. I contemplate changing my mind, but I can’t bring myself to look completely indecisive. As I step out the door, the second impulse strikes. I’ll buy it too!

And suddenly I feel jubilant.

The artist

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