You might not think so, boys and girls, but you are, you ARE in film school, or you wouldn't be reading this, and you will be taking this quiz or I won't bring you your din-din.
Everyone has seen the Bette Davis/Joan Crawford classic, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? And if
you haven’t, how can you call yourself a film student? This is the movie in
which Bette Davis proves, once and for all, that she can mop the floor with
Joan Crawford and act rings around her, rings that are every bit as dizzying as
the donuts Blanche turns in her wheelchair when she discovers Jane has
served her a large rodent for dinner.
(From the production notes: the rat is actually a capybara imported from Argentina.They'll work for scale, whereas rats charge an exorbitant amount to lie still for that many takes).
This will by no means be a comprehensive exam, because that
would mean too much work for me, I saw this film for probably the twelfth time last night
and was struck once again by how it’s Jane who gets our sympathy. As in Gone With the Wind, in which we're supposed to love and admire Melanie for being so selfless and sweet, we just keep rooting for Scarlett. Want to
know why? There are reasons, brutal ones, but true nonetheless - which you will discover as you wrap your enfeebled brain around this quiz.
1. Why do we feel so much sympathy for Baby Jane the screaming
banshee/harridan/flaming bitch on wheels, who tears up the scenery, kills the maid with a hammer, and kicks
her sister in the head, and so little for Blanche, the sweet, helpless paralyzed sister
who sits upstairs in her room incessantly pressing a buzzer?
(a) Bette Davis gives a layered, nuanced performance
incorporating vulnerability and heartbreak into even her most drunken, violent, abrasive behaviour.
(b) Joan Crawford is mainly good at bulging her eyes out.
(c) We’ll never forgive or forget TROG.
d) Crawford's reaction to the dead capybara is seriously "off", failing to touch a chord of sympathy. Nobody notices her reaction anyway because they're too busy groaning with delight as Baby Jane cackles her brains out.
e) With true generosity of spirit, Jane wistfully states at the film's conclusion that the two sisters "could have been friends", if only Blanche had kept her foot off the accelerator.
2. If the Baby Jane doll could talk, what would it say?
(a) "Really? Did she like it?"
(b) "I was cleaning the cage and it flew out the window."
(c) "Isn't that how I was conceived?"
(d) "Just a few questions, ma'am."
3. Describe Edwin's role as a gay icon, taking into account the socio-psycho-sexual mores of 1962 and the damaging effects of the illegality of certain sexual acts. Speculate on Jane Hudson's true feelings for Edwin as a potential partner: is he merely a boy-toy/"walker" who could escort her to premieres and other social events as she makes her second debut? Elaborate on the socio-psycho-whatever significance of the fact he still lives with his Mommy. Essay answers to be graded on word count only.
3. Why is it our business whether Edwin is gay or not? What
possible bearing could it have on the movie’s plot? Why do you think it
matters, given the fact that the REAL issue is his inability to tear himself
away from his niggling, naggling, annoying, utterly irritating mother? Discuss in three words or less.
4. What are the chances of Baby Jane making a real comeback?
(a) Very low (her act is so completely out-of date);
(b) Very
high " " " ;
(d) Middling, if she aims for a middle-aged/middle-brow crowd;
(e) Dead-certain! Have you no knowledge of film history at all? She has already MADE an unforgettable
comeback which will live in cinematic history forever!
5. Of the two sisters, who has the really rotten deal?
(a) Blanche, who gets to watch herself on TV and get flowers from the neighbors and all sorts of fan
mail, get her meals brought to her on a tray, etc. etc., or
(b) Jane, who gets doodlysquat from anybody, has to forge signatures just to get her liquor, hauls her sister around to the bathroom, the bathtub and the bed, trundles her meals upstairs (though granted, those meals may be a little unusual), and receives no glory at all for her forgotten career, with which she supported the whole family
for years and years and kept them all in ice cream.
So here we are on another Monday morning (it's an afternoon, actually, but that Daylight Savings thing always messes with my head). And I've got Dylan on my mind once again. This song sticks in my head, as so many of his songs do. This was one that was picked up and covered by such diverse and unlikely recording artists as the Turtles, Johnny Cash, and even (inexplicably) Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix. Why? Because WE can't write songs like that, even though we long to. We. Can't. That's. Why. We might as well not even try. The reason I want to dig into this sere and juicy masterpiece is not because of those covers. This is usually viewed as one of Dylan's cruellest hit-and-run songs, a nasty one because of his (as I've touched on before) naked honesty, which can be breathtaking. It's said and widely believed that this song was aimed at his first great love, Suze Rotolo, the beaming girl glommed onto his arm on the cover of his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. She was also "the creative one" in his notorious Ballad in Plain D (which, I must admit, is pretty strong in places, though I wasn't there to witness that awful midnight scene: "Beneath the bare lightbulb the plaster did pound/Her sister and I in a screaming battleground/While she in between, the victim of sound/Soon shattered as a child to the shadows.")
This one, though. Let's focus on it. The opening line immediately calls to mind one of those primal Appalachian ballads - or if it isn't Appalachian, it should be:
Go away from my window Go away from my door Go away, way, way from my bedside And bother me no more And bother me no more
My sister used to sing this in a totally inappropriate, histrionic, quasi-operatic style drenched with pretentious mannerisms. ALL her songs were self-pitying and grim, with not one celebrating life or music or anything else. I call these her "I've been wronged and I'm not going to forget it" songs. But I digress.
Dylan seems to be building on that first line, but elaborates on his need to see the back of his lover once and for all. "Go 'way from my window" hooks us emotionally with that old (how old? We don't know, we only know it hooks us) song of mourning.
"Leave at your own chosen speed" seems pretty nasty - at first. But then look at it, lift it up, turn it over. Fast or slow, high or low - just go - but go slowly, he seems to be saying. Why slowly? Because this woman DOES NOT want to leave him. Obviously, she doesn't, or he would not have to sing this song. So her "own chosen speed" wouldn't be very fast - would it? It might just leave him enough time to change his mind.
"I'm not the one you want, babe/l'm not the one you need." This isn't really a "get lost" statement at all, but an acknowledgement of his own inadequacy. He goes on at length about this ("You say you're lookin' for someone. . ."), and seems to be listing his shortcomings. This illusive/elusive ideal is "never weak, but always strong", protecting and defending his lover whether she is "right or wrong": now is that fair, realistic, or even possible? And just who is it who can "open each and every door"? Obviously he's talking about someone who is making impossible demands on him, or perhaps exposing his vulnerabilities, which is pretty much the same thing.
It goes on like that: I'm not the one you want, babe/I will only let you down. But oh boy, here comes those lines that make Dylan seem like a total bastard: "Go lightly from the ledge, babe/Go lightly on the ground." Here he seems to be telling her something unthinkable: go jump out the window! But he doesn't mean that at all. Look at the word "ledge". It's a reference to that first line, and the way his spurned love keeps hanging around his windowsill in hopeless hope (and note it's not a door - a window into his soul, perhaps? Oh boy, it must be Monday.)
Then look yet deeper. It's not "off the ledge", is it? It's "FROM the ledge", as in "go 'way FROM my window", and moreover, he admonishes her to go "lightly", which you could not exactly do if you jumped out the window! No, I now think (and I just realized this moments ago when I cracked the walnut shell of this thing) "go lightly" means "leave, but with a light heart." Don't carry baggage from this. It'll only weigh you down. So "go lightly on the ground": walk with a light step. If you committed suicide, it wouldn't exactly be "lightly", would it? (And here's another meaning peeping out: "don't take this lightly," but in this case, "DO take it lightly", perhaps to spare her the kind of heartache he is feeling.)
All, some or none of this might be true. But it points to layered poetry, even in this, one of Dylan's "simpler" songs.
The verse goes on, each line piling on the demands she is making of him, so that each one seems more impossible than the one before. Is he feeling inadequate to the task? You tell me."Someone to die for you and more" - what "more" is there for him to do? But how much of this is true? If we're angry with someone we love, we accuse them of all kinds of shit they wouldn't even think of doing.We stack the deck against them to shore up our own weakness. What more do you want from me? I see evidence of a glass house here. What exactly did he expect of her? Was he performing that classic lover's ploy: reject her before she could reject him?
The most haunting lines are in the last verse: "Go melt back in the night" (echoing the gentle leavetaking of that "lightly off the ledge" line), a line that bespeaks a sort of illusion or beautiful dream evaporating into mist. "Everything inside is made of stone. There's nothing in here moving" - his emotions deadened by a loss he cannot accommodate - and, the one line that really looks like a slight, "and anyway, I'm not alone".
Dylan was almost never alone. I'm re-reading the several Dylan bios I have, and if ever a Lothario existed, it was him. I am sure he was unfaithful to Suze, in spite of her deep devotion to him: and in this, he may have felt inadequate, not good enough for her, and ready to defensively strengthen his own wobbly position any way he could. And perhaps he was right: he wasn't worthy. This vibrant, intelligent woman, "the could-be dream lover of my lifetime", died of cancer in her early 60s, while Dylan still grinds along, his energy stretched thin like Bilbo's in The Hobbit because somewhere along the line, he grabbed the Ring of Power. He even told someone (was it Ed Bradley?) that early in his career, he made a deal with the devil.
So here is Joan Baez singing this hurt/hurting song so tenderly, it's heartbreaking. There's no rancour here at all, merely sadness and regret. Baez still sings Dylan's songs in her concerts, and Dylan always speaks highly of her in the rare interviews he gives. "I generally like everything she does," he said when she recorded a double album of his songs in the '70s. And to explain the casual way he ignored her on that infamous London tour, he says, "You can't be in love and wise at the same time."
For it was Baez who broke up Bobby and Suze. There's no mistaking. Whether she knew it or not, whether it was really Suze's trip to Italy that did it, whether it was Suze who told Bobby to take a hike and get out of her face, Baez stepped into the turmoil that erupted in Ballad in Plain D, and grabbed the prize. I think it was a melancholy victory, however, for she never really "had" him after all: Baez went to see him when she heard he was sick, and a strange woman answered the door, a gorgeous exotic creature who looked like a model. She was. It was his new wife, Sara Lowndes, and Joan had had no idea he was married.
In the artistic economy, the Internet has not lived up to its hype. For years, the cybergurus liked to tell us about the “long tail” – the rise of niches, “unlimited variety for unique tastes” – that would give equal opportunities to tiny indie bands and Hollywood movies. People selling products of any kind would, in the new connected world, be able to sell small amounts to lots of small groups. Implicit in the idea was the promise that since niche tastes would form online communities not limited by national boundaries, a niche product might find a large international audience without traditional kinds of promotion in its home country. People in publishing bought this, too. The end result, we were told, would be an extremely diverse cultural world in which the lesbian vampire novel would be just as widely discussed as the Prairie short story and the memoir in tweets.
In fact, the blockbuster artistic product is dominating cultural consumption as at no other time in history. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on each successive Hunger Games, and the rep cinemas have closed. A few sports stars are paid more individually than entire publishing houses or record labels earn in a year.
A couple of prominent commentators have made this argument recently about American culture at large. The musician David Byrne lamented, in a book of essays, that his recent albums would once have been considered modest successes but now no longer earn him enough to sustain his musical project. That’s David Byrne – he’s a great and famous artist. Just no Lady Gaga. The book Blockbusters: Hit-making, Risk-taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment, by business writer Anita Elberse, argues that the days of the long tail are over in the United States. It makes more sense, she claims, for entertainment giants to plow as much money as they can into guaranteed hits than to cultivate new talent. “Because people are inherently social,” she writes cheerily, “they generally find value in reading the same books and watching the same television shows and movies that others do.”
Well, the same appears to be true of publishing, even in this country. There are big winners and there are losers – the middle ground is eroding. Publishers are publishing less, not more. Everybody awaits the fall’s big literary-prize nominations with a make-us-or-break-us terror. Every second-tier author spends an hour every day in the dismal abjection of self-promotion – on Facebook, to an audience of 50 fellow authors who couldn’t care less who just got a nice review in the Raccoonville Sentinel. This practice sells absolutely no books; increases one’s “profile” by not one centimetre; and serves only to increase one’s humiliation at not being in the first tier, where one doesn’t have to do that.
Novelists have been complaining, privately at least, about the new castes in the literary hierarchy. This happens every year now, in the fall, the uneasiness – after the brief spurt of media attention that goes to the nominees and winners of the three major Canadian literary prizes, the Scotiabank Giller, the Governor-General’s, and the Rogers Writers’ Trust. The argument is that the prizes enable the media to single out a few books for promotion, and no other books get to cross the divide into public consciousness. And, say the spurned writers, this fact guides the publishers in their acquisitions. Editors stand accused of seeking out possible prize-winners (i.e. “big books”) rather than indulging their own tastes. This leads, it is said, to a homogenized literary landscape and no place at all for the weird and uncategorizable.
But even if this is true, what can one possibly do about it? Abolish the prizes? No one would suggest this – and even the critics of prize culture understand that the prizes were created by genuine lovers of literature with nothing but the best intentions, and that rewarding good writers financially is good, even necessary, in a small country without a huge market. It’s not, I think, the fault of the literary prizes that the caste system exists. Nor of the vilified “media” who must cover these major events. It’s the lack of other venues for the discussion and promotion of books that closes down the options. There were, in the nineties, several Canadian television programs on the arts. There were even whole TV shows about books alone. Not one of these remains. There were radio shows that novel-readers listened to. There were budgets for book tours; there were hotel rooms in Waterloo and Moncton. In every year that I myself have published a book there have been fewer invitations and less travel. Now, winning a prize is really one’s only shot at reaching a national level of awareness.
So again, what is to be done? What does any artist do in the age of the blockbuster? Nothing, absolutely nothing, except keep on doing what you like to do. Global economic changes are not your problem (and are nothing you can change with a despairing tweet). Think instead, as you always have, about whether or not you like semicolons and how to describe the black winter sky. There is something romantic about being underground, no? Look on the bright side: Poverty can be good for art. At least it won’t inspire you to write Fifty Shades of Grey.
BLOGGER'S NOTE. I re-ran this article strictly to make myself feel better. I was surprised to see how old it is, but in three years, things have only gotten worse. Strangely enough, it helps. It helps me feel that maybe-just-maybe I'm not the only one, though talking about failure is the greatest taboo and career-sinker there is. I don't remember seeing a single article about it on the internet, except for "oh, I was such a failure" followed by "but here is what I did to overcome this failure and find soaring success." Failure is something that really doesn't happen unless you go on to succeed, right? This is reflected by all those chirpy little Facebook memes about failure being a wonderful thing that you should "embrace", not be afraid of, and see as a stepping-stone to greater and greater victories. But what if it doesn't happen that way? When this article first came out, I felt a tremendous amount of comfort in these words, but it's the only piece I've ever found that dares to criticize the industry. Or something. The whole system? In no way, shape or form do I blame individual publishers for this state of affairs, because they're just trying to survive. It's a juggernaut, and if "numbers" are any indication (and sheer numbers of "likes" and "stars" are now the ONLY measure of a writer's worth), I've failed.
I've seen fellow writers strive and strive and hurl their work at the wall, and once in a while it cracks. I'm not so sure I am willing to do that. The system was always hard, but it wasn't impossible. I didn't sell a huge number of copies of my first two novels, but I guess you could say they were critically well-received. "Fiction at its finest" from the Edmonton Journal now seems particularly heartbreaking. The Montreal Gazette books section gave me an entire page, with (mysteriously) a huge picture of me in colour, and said this book deserved to be on the bestseller list but never would be, because it was published and publicized on such a small scale. So the praise was sort of backhanded, after all, and only set up false hopes. I thought I had a shot. I didn't, and I know now that it would've been better, if I wanted TGC to see the light of day, to just set up a blog for it and hope for the 10 - 25 views I usually get. But it's 10 - 25 more views than I'd get if I did nothing. I can't lie in wait any more. I have to "move on", wherever "on" is. "Let go", and not "let God" because there isn't one, though I was a lay minister and taught Bible classes for fifteen years. Now THERE is a story of heartbreak, but I didn't just make it up out of my own head.
I know I don't make myself popular by getting into this stuff, as it's seen as "being negative", which is a big no-no no matter how dire things are. Just paste a smile on and keep turning that facet of yourself towards the world/social media (though turning and turning and turning it like that can be completely exhausting). People who are seriously interested in writing (or becoming writers, which is another thing entirely) want to believe that I am an anomaly. I suspect I'm not. The difference is, I talk about it, openly admit I have failed, and no one else does. If somebody tells me not to do something, I will immediately want to do it. And usually I do, fuck the consequences, because as a writer, it is all I have. Shouldn't I be able to write about anything I want or need to? I will continue to, whether it is popular or not. It does not matter, in the long run. In the world's terms, success will never come to me, even though I have been told over and over again that I have the "right stuff". So I will write whatever comes into my head. No law against it. And I can guarantee it will always be honest and tell my truth, whether it would fit on a Facebook meme or not.
Though we kissed through the wild blazing nighttime
She said she would never forget
But now morning is clear
It's like ain't here
She just acts like we never have met.
It's all new to me
Like some mystery
It could even be like a myth
But it's hard to think on
That she's the same one
That last night I was with
From darkness, dreams are deserted
Am I still dreamin' yet ?
I wish she'd unlock
Her voice once and talk
'Stead of acting like we never met.
If she ain't feelin' well
Then why don't she tell
'Stead of turnin' her back to my face
Without any doubt
She seems too far out
For me to return to her chase
Though the night ran swirling and whirling
I remember her whispering yet
But evidently she don't
And evidently she won't
She just acts like we never have met.
If I didn't have to guess
I'd gladly confess
To anything I might've tried
If I was with her too long
Or have done something wrong
I wish she'd tell me what it is, I'll run and hide
Her skirt it swayed as a guitar played
Her mouth was watery and wet
But now something has changed
For she ain't the same
She just acts like we never have met.
I'm leavin' today
I'll be on my way
Of this I can't say very much
But if you want me to
I can be just like you
And pretend that we never have touched
And if anybody asks me, "Is it easy to forget ?"
I'll say, "It's easily done
You just pick anyone
And pretend that you never have met".
This came into my head today – it’s one of my favourite
songs from one of my favourite albums, Another
Side of Bob Dylan – because as with most of his stuff, it hits it right on
the head. No obfuscation, no bullshitting, no fxxing around. One of the best
things, the most unusual and powerful things about Dylan is his breathtaking
honesty, though it is seldom mentioned by anyone, maybe not even consciously
noticed.
Thus, if you analyze the words to Positively 4th Street, Dylan’s notorious diatribe of vengeance–
well, guess what? It isn’t. A diatribe.
At. All. The song is merely a series of statements, true statements by the
sound of them, strung together in the plainest English you ever heard:
You got a lot of nerve to say you are my friend
When I was down, you just stood there grinnin’
You got a lot of nerve to say you have a helping hand to
lend
You just want to be on the side that’s winnin’
When Dylan became impossibly famous in his early 20s,
everybody really did want a piece of him, and it eventually became obscene. At
heart he is introverted and hypersensitive, has few real friends, and mostly
cleaves to his highly-protected family (who, by the way, have been seriously
threatened by flaming psychotics like "Dylanologist" A. J. Weberman). If you get past its sardonic
hipness and really listen to the song, you get the feeling that this all
happened: he really was used and abused this way, and with his usual who-gives-a-shit honesty
he’s going to tell the world exactly what they did to him in those terse,
compressed lines that are so characteristic of the most powerful poetry.
Like every other form of writing, poetry is reporting. And Dylan might just be the best reporter who ever lived.
People have argued over who is the “target” of Positively 4th Street since
the song came out in 1965. He recorded it right after his legendary gig at the
Newport Folk Festival: you know, the one where he “went electric”, singing two
of his ten or so songs with an amplified guitar and a rhythm section. They
didn’t just boo him then: they booed him through an entire tour, every time he pulled out that electric guitar. And he kept on
singing.
So there were plenty of potential targets for the varnish-stripping Dylan honesty, among them
numerous folkie has-beens and never-weres, parasites trying to suck away his
vital force as he struggled to be reborn. Some even think it’s about Joan Baez,
but frankly, given the way he coat-tailed on her fame in the early ‘60s, she
had even more reason to sing that song to HIM. No, I think it’s aimed at that nauseating sycophant and self-styled hipster/flamboyant creep, Richard Farina, a
Dylan wanna-be who married Baez’s
17-year-old sister Mimi strictly to get a piece of the action with Joan.
So let’s get into this one. It has one of those twisty Dylan
titles: I Don’t Believe You. But what
is it really about? It’s about being cut so dead by someone you like or love
that they won’t even acknowledge you’ve met.
Hey, who is this guy.
Are you talking to me?
What? . . . Do I know you?
It’s easily done, you
just pick anyone. Let’s pick someone
you HAVE known for years, even had a close relationship with, whether
professional or personal.
At some point – well, sometimes it’s just totally baffling.
No discernible reason at all, or perhaps things just get a little “thick”, a
little less than jolly and easy.
A scum or a fog or a – something
– something toxic begins to form.
And you try to clear the air - and you try – and –
It isn’t so much being “ignored” or even having the other
person pretend you never have met, which is devastating enough. It’s that sense
of – uhh, is there another person in the
room? Somebody over there, maybe? Ah, no – nobody there – (whew).
The opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s indifference. The opposite
of acknowledgement is obliviousness. It’s easily done: you just do nothing! Try to call them on it, and all sorts of
generic excuses pop up that are meant to be blandly accepted: “Oh! NOW I know
why you didn’t answer my email/phone message, you know the one, that message that
laid my guts open and made me vulnerable enough to risk everything I had. You
didn’t answer me because you were Busy That Day. You were away from your desk.”
No. You were not. Away.
From. Your Desk. You made this up on the spot to make it easier for YOU, and if
I don’t accept it or if I try to call you on it, I will get some version of
“how can you be so cruel? How can you even think
of such a thing?”
I can be so cruel as to think, because it is TRUE.
But though it may look like you suddenly shunned me for no
reason, it will eventually come to light that there was a reason. You didn’t answer me because I embarrassed you. I
embarrassed you because I cared so intensely, and you didn’t. I wanted to know
what made things go so wrong between us, to try to understand it or at least
get some sort of dialogue going. But you can’t have a dialogue if the other
person won’t even acknowledge your existence.
As I get older, I see the real dynamics between people, the
way the endless games are played, and it sickens me. I open myself, show my
belly, roll all over the floor, longing for someone/anyone to hear me, understand me, or at least live on the same
planet as me, and it all echoes back at me as if nobody is there. At. All.
The opposite of love. Dylan almost makes light of this,
though not quite. It’s not nice not to be acknowledged. Especially it’s not
nice if you’ve gutted yourself in order to be understood, and gotten an indifferent silence in
reply. Silence isn’t nice when it’s malignant like that. Nature abhors a
vacuum, and the human brain has a tendency to fill it in. And not with the
sweetest thoughts.
When people don’t return your phone calls/emails, and it’s happened to
me a lot since I decided to fall on my sword by being a novelist, it’s like
being stood up on a date. It doesn’t feel nice. The person doing the standing-up should
be feeling guilty and bad for letting you down. They don’t. They don’t feel
anything. Or they’re busy doing something else, probably having much more fun
than they would have had with you. YOU feel bad. YOU feel embarrassed,
unacknowledged, dumped. You’re
sitting there in a bar or a coffee shop alone, being glanced at, and you feel
embarrassed, shamed. You went out of your way. You put your pretty dress on.
You told the guy you liked him. Loved him? If you say anything to anyone – but
no. THAT truly exposes you as a loser. All you’ll get is pity, or “oh, come on,
don’t be so sensitive”.
We must hold our Winner mask in front of our faces at all
times. If it drops, we’ll be under attack. Or underacknowledged. Or, perhaps,
not even acknowledged at all.
