Welcome to my breakdown

Looking at some famous movie-breakdowns and engaging in some general acting-out on this steamy Monday in the south.

I have helpfully catalogued some of my favorite nervous breakdowns in films.

Comments welcome, and feel free to link your own personal favorite personality-disintegrations on celluloid!

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All alcoholics love this scene ... did he drink or not? Is a phantom bottle of bourbon as damaging as a real one?

Aside: I just love how Stephen King works in references to Maine in everything he does.



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I have written about Roman Polanski's Repulsion before, and how great it is, despite my various "issues" with it (see link).

Here we see that Catherine Deneuve has totally lost her shit, and is afraid of a drippy faucet. As a result, big male hands start coming out of the walls... JESUS H CHRIST! If you are a woman, do not watch this at night, alone at home. (triggers and so on)



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Unfortunately, embedding is disabled for this clip (as well as all of the others) of Charles Foster Kane's famous flip-out when Susan finally departs... but check those famous mirrors at 3:27... everybody stole from Orson Welles. I know most of the lines of the movie by heart.

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In John Ford's The Searchers, Nietzsche's idea that in hunting monsters we must take care not to become monsters ourselves, is given a very good once-over. Although most Hollywood Westerns of the day were morally righteous and fairly unambiguous, this one sure isn't, and consequently didn't make a lot of money at the time. No one wanted to see John Wayne freak out, even in his controlled, macho fashion. It was UNBECOMING. And it is therefore vindication that the movie is now a classic. John Wayne's hyper-masculine cowboys (and impersonal characterizations) have not dated as well as his heartfelt, complex and true performance in the role of Ethan... which BTW, is also the name of one of John Wayne's sons.

Things to look for: 1) Racist or not, when they zoom in on young Lucy's face (19-20 seconds in) and she looks terrified and screams? I have never seen the fear of rape communicated so clearly and realistically in a film. (I realize it is supposed to be much worse than garden-variety rape by white men, but I still think the whole scene is primal.) As a young woman, it scared me to death. 2) Natalie Wood's sister Lana plays young Natalie as a girl, which accounts for the strong resemblance. 3) Notice the first part of this clip closely matches up with Mary McDonnell's childhood trauma in "Dances With Wolves"--wherein she is instructed to run away when the house is attacked by Pawnee. 4) Also notice at 2:33, the similarity to Luke Skywalker's home being destroyed; the scene is almost exactly the same. Both #3 and #4 are deliberate homages to the film. 5) Scene @ 4:45-- me and Mr Daisy sometimes say, "Put an Amen to it!"--when the situation requires. 6) When John Wayne desecrates the Indian corpse? (7:30) Viewers suddenly realize this isn't the John Wayne we're accustomed to.

It also shows us that he is becoming (or has become) the monster Nietzsche warned us about. A strongly subversive film, for its day.



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I can't pick just one scene in The Conversation... so I hereby offer the trailer. If you have never seen this amazing movie, you need to rent it ASAP. Gene Hackman's finest hour, Coppola's mesmerizing genius; this is movie-making at its most wonderful. Hackman perfectly embodies an emotionally-repressed surveillance expert with a guilty Catholic conscience. Too great for words, and more pertinent than ever, in our cameras-everywhere age.

Stuff to look for: 1) Harrison Ford at 2:12; he has maybe 3 lines in the whole movie. 2) Teri Garr's scene was cut for first release, then put back in for DVD. As much as I love Teri Garr, the film is much stronger without her scene. Harry is a loner, and it is far more effective to think of him as not having a girlfriend, or anything approximating one. His infatuation with Cindy Williams also makes more sense if he is alone.



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And the all-time greatest: "Here is someone who stood up."

I know ALL of the lines of Taxi Driver by heart. Every one. I enjoy injecting them into various conversations without people knowing who/what I am quoting.

But every now and then, someone says, "Travis!"

Nothing much to say about Travis... you either understand him or you don't.



Today's blog post title comes courtesy of Alice Cooper.

Snow in Carolina... Ron Paul redux... Alice Cooper for president!

Left: One of the foot-bridges over the Reedy River, downtown Greenville, South Carolina. Photo from the Greenville News.

It's always a shock when we get snow here, which doesn't happen often. Panic reigns. Milk and bread disappear from local shelves, and everyone collectively freaks out.

Two years ago, we had a power-outage of FOUR DAYS, meaning no heat, no hot water, no lights, no--(this will strike terror into the hearts of BLOG READERS!!!)--no computers!!! We were living on peanut butter and bottled drinks. It was horrendous, and I wondered how people managed that a hundred years ago. Then I realized, you know, they had lanterns and stuff and WERE PREPARED.

The power-outages happen because the snow and ice usually starts to melt very quickly during the heat of the day, drip-drip-drip, making enormous puddles and streams. THEN the temperature drops at night and re-freezes the whole mess. At that point, the power lines fall under the weight of the ice. And if you happen to live close to that, you are fucked. That is also the genesis of the term Black Ice, which looks like any other large, dark puddle. You don't even realize you're on ice until your car does a 180 (or a 360, as mine memorably did some years ago).

And so, I stomped out into the already-slushy snow to buy groceries; gotta stock up on peanut butter and cat food in case it all happens again tonight. Pray the temp don't get too low!!

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Left: The GrannyWarriors tour bus, which follows Ron Paul on the road. They have a pet monkey, too!

I've been soundly taken to task in private over my last Ron Paul post, so in fairness and in the interests of TRUTH and EQUAL TIME, I offer the following links:

Anthony Kennerson: Why Ron Paul is Political Kryptonite for the Left (Or, Would You Vote for David Duke if He Opposed the War?)

Latestpolitics.com: Ron Paul's race problem

Feministe: Another safe assumption: Ron Paul knows how to rally the base and How exactly are we defining "racist" these days?

DailyKos: Ron Paul in his own words

If anyone has any more articles, feel free to post them in the comments.

Although I have to say, Anthony asks a good question. We all know that David Duke could never win a mainstream party nomination . Is it moral to vote for him if it takes votes away from, say, Mitt Romney? And we know he would never actually win? People used to ask these same questions back in the day, about voting for George Wallace (to take votes away from Nixon), so I don't find it too shocking to discuss. As Tip O'Neill liked to remind us, politics ain't beanbag.

Also, a deeper question: Which kind of racism is most damaging, the kind with power to implement actual programs, or the flaky, fringe kind? (Does one form of racism in fact feed the other?) When we organized against the kkk in the 70s, we argued endlessly over these sorts of ideological twists-and-turns. Obviously, nothing really got resolved, since we are still discussing them.

The people with the power (Dubya) are far too savvy to make comments considered overtly racist, but that doesn't necessarily mean they haven't done far more actual damage to people of color than fringe white supremacists living out on some separatist acreage in Idaho or somewhere.

I've always found this discussion interesting, so fire away!

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Do any of you kids remember when Alice Cooper ran for president? It was great fun! Enjoy!

Alice Cooper - Elected

[via FoxyTunes / Alice Cooper]