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[ by Charles Cameron — Hesse and Hitchcock, two good to pass up ]
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Hitch was discussing his movie North by Northwest.

[by Mark Safranski / “zen“]

From friend of ZP, Kanani Fong:

Opening Friday

“Company commander Claus M. Pedersen (Pilou Asbæk) and his men are stationed in an Afghan province. Meanwhile back in Denmark Claus’ wife Maria (Tuva Novotny) is trying to hold everyday life together with a husband at war and three children missing their father. During a routine mission, the soldiers are caught in heavy crossfire and in order to save his men, Claus makes a decision that has grave consequences for him – and his family back home.”

A remarkable film

[ by Charles Cameron — busy tidying away six or more posts before Spring Break delivers my college-age son to me — here’s one ]
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We observe Shakespeare gaming — staging — playing — the Battle of Agincourt:

**

A play, a game, a gamble. The odds are “fearful”..

WESTMORELAND
Of fighting men they have full three score thousand.
EXETER
There’s five to one; besides, they all are fresh.
SALISBURY
God’s arm strike with us! ’tis a fearful odds.
WESTMORELAND
O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

**

Medieval 2 Total War also games Agincourt:

Sadly, the voice over doesn’t seem to get any more rousing than this:

Henry’s longbowmen will be the key to defeating the French, striking them down as they traverse the muddy field. To protect his longbowmen from cavalry, Henry has ordered them to plant sharpened stakes in front of their positions…

An earthy voice shouts, “For Saint George!” a couple of times, but that’s about the level of inspiration offered. I haven’t played the game, I’m going by the video overview — but there’s no mention there of Crispin — though we do hear a yokel shout:

Once more unto the breach, my Lord

— a line swiped (and then tweaked) from King Henry himself, earlier in the play — at the siege of Harfleur, not at Agincourt, to be exact.

**

It seems to me that the novel (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy), film (Kagemusha, say) and television on occasion (The Honourable Woman) rise to their respective occasions — but games I think, not so much, thus far.

I look forward (on behalf of future generations, I suppose) to the Kurosawa of the game genre — and to its Jean Cocteau.

[ by Charles Cameron — conceptual echoes in a PK Dick bio-flick ]
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I have just been watching Mark Steensland’s movie, The Gospel According to PK Dick, and a couple of fine parallelisms – echoes, really – struck me.

I’m going to start with one quote from the Chuang Tzu which is so often quoted it has been dulled for me, like a few other very great very over-celebrated works, Beethoven’s Fifth, and Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565, among them. Finding its echo in the words of Robert Anton Wilson in this film breathes new life into it, at least for me, for this moment.

Chuang Tzu, then, from The Complete Works Of Chuang Tzu translated by Burton Watson:

Once Chuang Chou dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn’t know he was Chuang Chou. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Chuang Chou. But he didn’t know if he was Chuang Chou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Chou. Between Chuang Chou and a butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things.

DoubleQuote that with Robert Anton Wilson in the movie:

In 1994, I think it was, somebody put up on internet a report of my death, and no matter how much I’ve denied it, it seems most people accept that I’m still alive, but there’s a die hard minority who insists I’m dead and the CIA has replaced me with an android. And I’d be much happier if I’d never read Philip Dick, because I would just think, “Well, I know I’m not an android,” but having read Philip Dick I realized if I was an android who’s properly constructed, I’d think I am Robert Anton Wilson. So that leaves me perpetually in a predicament of not being sure that I’m Robert Anton Wilson or an android programmed to think it’s Rob– to think, talk, and write like Robert Anton Wilson. I guess I’m really grateful to Phil for that, it gives me a certain agnostic detachment, which I think is necessary for mental health.

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The echo of Chuang Tzu in the words of Robert Anton Wilson occurs towards the beginning of the movie. Towards the end of the movie, we have Paul Williams, the “father of rock criticism” also talking about his friend PK Dick, who was also the subject of his celebrated 1974 Rolling Stone article:

That particular, unique personality this is Philip K Dick arises, when you and I or the three of us, or any two or three readers of {Philip K Dick, or friends of his, or whatever, get together, then we have the opportunity, as in the ends of those stories, to actually experience his presence, and it’s uniquely him. And, uh, I appreciate that, and I appreciate that in that way, I still have him in my life. And that’s definitely quite a gift.

DoubleQuote those words of Williams with these, from Matthew 18.20:

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

**

Gospel, indeed. and Tao, too.

[ by Charles Cameron — musings on PAM Dirac and Hedy Lamarr ]
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PAM Dirac once famously said, “it is more important to have beauty in one’s equations that to have them fit experiment.” I was reminded of that quotation while musing over this DoubleQuote in the Wild celebrating the birthday yesterday of Hedy Lamarr — stunningly symmetrical movie star and frequency-hopping inventor:

To the left, the beauty herself, and to the right, the equations in the beauty — if one may take the liberty of saying that thoughts are “in” their thinker’s body — shown here in the form of the patent application Lamarr and composer George Antheil submitted fora “a system for the radio control of airborne torpedoes”.

I put that last phrase in quotes because that’s the way a New York Times piece described their joint invention. Me, I haven’t the foggiest about their inner workings, whereas the outer face of Hedy Lamarr I can see with utmost clarity.