The film begins at 8:00, however!
Posted on 05/31/2007 8:43:12 AM PDT by NYer
Kipling was a great man, in his rather muddled way. (For example, Cecil Rhodes certainly had some good qualities, but one could go way overboard with admiration ...)
It’s been many years since I read those books. Will have to check my library!
Doesn't he (Satan) always appear as a pretty, nice guy?
While certainly he supported the British Empire (or at least the folks who were out on the front lines trying to support the Empire), he was not the jingoistic cheerleader for Imperialism that the liberal cartoonists and writers of the time claimed. He perfectly understood the dark side of authority and the dangers of power . . . and many of his short stories and poems point that out in crystal clear fashion. But he also understood that the alternative to Law was Anarchy and all the horrors that that brought with it.
His late stories are incredibly layered and full of elliptical references and private jokes. They are difficult, but worth teasing the meaning out of.
The Puck stories are much more straightforward and in spots achingly beautiful . . .
The Way Through the Woods
THEY shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again;
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.
Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate.
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few)
You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods . . .
But there is no road through the woods.
You should recognize Rene as René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laënnec, inventor of the stethoscope.
I just love that. :)
Rodent! Excuse me, Mother, but I found the pot of gold and the Leprechaun demanded I give it to him or he’d change me into a squirrel. I told him where to go and you see what happened. However, life has its bright side! Talking squirrels get all the Guinness they can drink. It always starts when some bloke says, “Now watch! I’m gonna ask this squirrel what time it is!” I then go into my routine and get a few drafts for playing the game!
"See ye, this squirrel walks into a pub . . . "
Did you say Hillary hates Latin?
I think this situation requires a Kipling film. Does anyone have “The Man Who Would Be King” on DVD?
Picture isn’t showing for me, but I can see Michael Caine and Sean Connery in my mind’s eye :-).
Sean Connery (!) < swoon >
At his peak, in Middlin’ Middle Age :-).
Traditionally-trained actors from those days had such magnificant diction and resonance. So many of today’s film stars don’t enunciate as well as James.
My favorite example is the Alastair Sim version of Scrooge . . . every actor in the thing is a genius, even Tiny Tim (a wretched part, hard to do well in without being sloppy sentimental) and the little chambermaid who takes Scrooge's coat at his nephew's house on Christmas Day. Sim of course is a master of his trade . . . what an actor!
Haven’t seen that.
We have a fairly recent version with George C. Scott as Scrooge and Edward Woodward (heavy breathing ...) as Christmas Past (I think).
It's not a BAD portrait - just not the very best. (Albert Finney in the musical is another very good one, and Michael Caine in the Muppet version is a tremendous performance wasted in an awful movie.) When George C.'s being Nasty Scrooge, you can see a little twinkle back of the nastiness, as in "see how nasty I can be!" He chews the scenery a little.
Sim has noodled out a believable psychological transformation for Scrooge. Scrooge knows that he's mean and nasty, and he knows that it's wrong, he regrets his wasted life, but he's so weary and bone-tired and old that he thinks it's too late for him to change. His tired old eyes when he looks up at the two solicitors for charity are heartbreaking. And when he is transformed by the realization that it is Christmas Day and not too late after all, it's splendid and hilarious at the same time.
And when Mervyn Johns as Bob Cratchit tries to bear up and be cheerful but finally breaks down and whispers, "Oh, Tim! My little, little Tim!" it makes me cry just to think about it.
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