A documentary, a big-budget flick, an opera

I bet you think that I sit around watching every mindless, formulaic Hollywood movie-product to the exclusion of all else. Not true. I try to strike a balance between the idiotic and sublime. I’ve been watching The Ascent of Man, a 13 part 1972 documentary from the BBC. It’s pretty good, and in context of that time, it was quite far beyond other documentaries. It was kind of a prototype for the documentary/entertainment that currently runs on the Discovery and History Channels. The host is Dr. J. Bronowski, a physicist. He knew personally a large number of important European physicists of the 20th century, like Planck, Szilar and Heisenberg, and at least shook hands with others, like Einstein. I like the way that he explored each topic in depth, unlike a modern producer. A 2010 documentary would never have discussed the higher concepts of physics. Bronowski also gets didactic often, and that’s absolute kryptonite for modern day producers who can’t put together a TV show, even a documentary show, that threatens to impart actual knowledge upon its vulnerable viewer. Bronowski gets a little too edifying at times. He shows Islamic art. I’m thinking “Ok, I get it! It’s dark and light in repeating patterns. Move on to the next point!” Five minutes later… “I still get it, Doc. I am looking at the same thing you are.”

I choose documentaries partly from the Netflix descriptions and partly from PBS video ads that they mail to me. The review of every documentary uses the words “groundbreaking” and “revolutionary”. The Ascent of Man is one of the few that actually fit that bill. In fact, it even explained that the term “revolutionary” referred to Copernicus’s “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres”. There was such uproar when it was published, that it sparked a social change, heretofore referred to as “revolution”.

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I saw National Treasure 2 last night. If the original was a poor knock off of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, then this one is a poor knock off of the first National Treasure movie. I can’t wait for the third and fourth installments to this crappy franchise being developed. It could be like the “Lethal Weapon” quadrilogy where every movie introduced new, flamboyant characters but wouldn’t drop them for the next sequel. By the end, there were way too many side shows clamoring for their cameo one liners.

The Nat Treas franchise will work on the premise that there are apparently mountains of gold sprinkled throughout the United States that have been buried for centuries and somehow forgotten. But, this movie taught me some practical skills. If you want to kidnap the President, but only have one day to plan it, make sure he has a birthday party at a stately mansion with a hitherto undiscovered passage that only you know about. Very handy. Also make sure that the mansion was built by a historical figure that the President just so happens to greatly admire. If you can overcome these tiny hurdles, the rest is a cinch, because the President is going to HELP you keep him kidnapped.

Because of this movie, I learned some new historical facts. Apparently, a tribe of Indians in what is now Mexico stored all their treasure in South Dakota. Then there was some reference to Florida that I didn’t quite get. And this somehow exonerates a man named Gates who was charged in Lincoln’s assassination.

The big push is to “clear the Gates name.” Bill Gates and Robert Gates haven’t cleared it by now? Of course, if that were my name, I don’t know if I could live with the shameful legacy of “Heaven’s Gate”.

The movie will satisfy your thirst for entertainment for two hours. But unlike the first movie, no one wonders if there really is some mysterious treasure out there. Of course there is. Oh, and the “Book of Secrets” really plays a very minor role, despite being part of the title.

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I’m also watching Mozart’s The Magic Flute. I figured it would be as long as your average Broadway soundtrack, about an hour and a half. No, try 3:15. That’s a lot of German opera to take, even with subtitles. The music is great. Your average rock/pop song doesn’t require much in the way of vocal prowess. Take acts like Neil Young, and especially Lou Reed. Although they have their distinct style, its nigh impossible to argue that they were born with some golden throated oratory gift. The performers in the opera are entirely opposite. The opera divas are extremely talented and gifted, but the fame goes to the conductor and the composer. Yes, it is recorded live. No lip synching. The Magic Flute, oddly enough, is flute-synched, and also not much of a factor in the action.

They say it’s not over until the fat lady sings. But in The Magic Flute, two Rubenesque ladies give wonderful performances and it still won’t end! I thought that it was about to end. That was an hour ago, they’re still at it, and I’m on chapter 13 of 25.

Oh, what a time was the 18th century. The opera is blatantly, overtly and repeatedly racist and sexist. The only wicked guy is black. He himself refers to his “ugly black skin”. The women are traded as commodities, and the women seem to accept that they get bartered away in some deal. The non-royalty peasant is a simpleton given to temptation and running off his mouth and in the end suffers for it. Ah, the good old days, when a rich, white male aristocrat could wantonly abuse with impunity anyone below his social status. Indeed, women and the lower classes are full of self-loathing which only proves their pejorative position. What a gilded, golden age it was! Unless you were a woman, poor, minority or made the mistake of being born of the wrong lineage. But, for that esteemed 1%, oh what days of halcyon yore!

I can’t knock Mozart too much for being a product of his environment. His patrons were that upper 1%.