THE POKER GAME OF LIFE

 

1. Life is a game, to be happy is to learn how to play it, when to obey the rules and when to break them.

 

2. Natural Human Reactions are the same everywhere. People are divided in groups, each one is a type and follows a pattern. Observe and learn them. But be careful not to be too strick in your evaluation. Some people might surprise you.

 

3. Never bluff. Don't do it. If you make a threat, be ready to fulfil it when everything else fails. If you're ready to go all the way, you're always calm and confident in every situation. As most people bluff about what they don't intend to keep, you'll have an advantage over them. 

 

4. Smell the air, feel the winds. Don't try to control what's around you too much. Instead, learn to go with the flow, if you think that something ahead might be in your favor. Always trust change for it might bring the solution to your problems. 

 

5. Learn to know yourself, make yourself the subject of a scientific experiment. Study yourself and the way you react to things, not forgetting that you too might surprise yourself. But, never judge others by your own character. See tthe differences. 



6. Remenber that Life is a one time adventure, so make your game memorable and have fun, or there is no point in playing. 



7. Believe in the best of Mankind, but do not disregard the worst. 
 

8. Be yourself, always. Do not pretend to be anything different from your true nature. You're better at being yourself than at pretending to be someone else -- and happier.

 

9. Never discourage. 'Til the last second of the game, the outcome can still change and you might win.

 

 (photos from EXCALIBUR, directed by John Boorman, 1981)

OF SEX, COWARDICE AND DIPLOMACY

I know a story. It's an old story, a very old story of power, sex and influence. A man named X is a gentleman of influence. His influence, in the service of the State, allows him to nominate other indivuduals, male or female, to important posts. X is very fine, kind, polite, fairly cult, seemingly stern and firm, if the occasion calls for it. He dresses impecably, almost too classic. He's in his fifties, a man in his prime, married, children, happy about his life in general, with some occasional questioning about his first early choices, which include his wife. X is, above all, a diplomat. His position demands constant diplomacy. His thoughts are pure diplomacy, his actions are entirely diplomatic. Even the way he holds his fork, as he eats, is an act of diplomacy towards the food on his plate.

There is a woman, W. W is younger than X. She had a long hard climb, with more downs than ups. At some point in life, she understood that for a woman to evolve effectively in her career, if no other competence can be used, sex is the answer. After all, sex is the oldest trade in the world. And so easy... one loses little more than one's soul, the body can be used almost indefinetely. The gentleman X knows it too. And, when the choice is there to be made, he decides to mingle the afffairs of sex with the affairs of the State. All very diplomaticaly, of course. W gives sex to X and promises more "if....". X understands what W is asking. So, X nominates W. It's all very practical. Whenever X does business with W, he can also have sex. 

The world of diplomacy is wide. Parties, get together, cultural events. X meets other women. One of them is called Y. Y is as pretty as W with an extra. She has brains, culture, knows how to dress, knows what to say, how to behave in public, how to entertain. When X thinks of Y, he wonders 'Why not?' Sex between X and Y would be delightfully casual, no strings attached. Y is not interested in climbing, she is a rather independent woman. To winn a woman with brains, courtship is needed. X has to try harder with Y than he did with W. But, then, that is part of the challenge, isn't it? A friendship begins. Now... W is not a fool. She sees how X is trying to winn Y right in front of her nose. She hates Y for trying to take away X. She makes little scenes and soaks, if she loses her sex influence over X it was all for naught.W becomes annoying, not just with X and Y, but with other people, for her lack of skills in society affairs makes her commit numerous faux-steps. She wants to be important and respected, but doesn't know how one becomes respected and important without using sex and sex doesn't serve all occasions.

X doesn't immediately understand W's fear and frustration. He's too much excited about the perspective of having sex with Y. He introduces Y into the best circles, the cream of society. He pays her dinners, offers her little presents, talks about her favourite themes and is dazzled by the fact that Y takes it all in a very unattached way. He is confused and decides to plan the night in question very carefully, in order to create the right mood. There is a grand party all people related are invited. W watches X do his final move to winn Y and becomes furious. She pulls X on the side and makes a terrible jealous scene. She insults Y hoping to lower her in X's eyes and demands him to be at her side during the grand event, making threats concerning the gravity of their common State affairs. 

X had not antecipated diplomatic complications concerning sex with W when he first made the deal. And, now, he does not know what to do. He wants to keep W because he still wants to mingle the affairs of the Sate with the affairs of the sex. Besides, he's scared about the fact that W is, in fact, a woman of some influence thanks to his nomination. To make her offence openly can cause a number of complications X is not interested in having. But, he still wants to have sex with Y and tonight is the night. X wants the best of the two worlds. 

Meanwhile, Y does not suspect that a tragedy is occuring right next to her, with W threatening X and X not knowing what to do. She's happy. X decides to take the diplomatic way out. He stays with W for a while and sends a message to Y saying that he has been detained by some boring affairs where W demanded his presence. He asks Y to meet him outside the bulding in half an hour to go and have dinner. He, then, tells W he is unwell so that he may leave with an excuse. W is suspicious. So she makes sure that X doesn't leave the building alone in order to meet Y outside. She finds someone to drive X to his Hotel. Despite it all, X is a diplomat. He accepts the lift and sends a new message to Y, asking her to meet him directly at his Hotel, there is a nice restaurant there, telling her he'll explain what is happpening later. At this point, Y begins to understand that X is hiding the fact that he's having dinner with her from W. She gets annoyed and is tempted to go home instead of meeting X at his Hotel. But she also thinks that everyone deserves the chance to explain, so she meets X at his Hotel and has dinner with him. 

Where X is concerned, nothing too serious has happened. He is used to the games of diplomacy, sex and State affairs. The whole thing becomes rather amusing, actually, and he laughs as he tells Y what happned and how jealous W was, turning the whole situation into a cat fight. He appologises about the incident, explaining Y that W's bad temper is becoming a problem and that he offen steps in when she is desagreable to important people. When important people are not the case, he just lets her do her soaking and insulting and moves on, like that evening, where she insulted Y behind her back, what can a man do when patience runs out?. He even adds a few anecdotes to illustrate the point. 

In the gaiety of dinner, wine and good food, he doesn't realise that Y is disappointed in the man he is and the way he treated her, allowing her to be insulted and making her leave in hiding to meet him in secret as if heading towards a sordid date. Where she is concerned X failed abominably in his duty as a true diplomat. In her eyes, he is nothing but a coward who wants the best of two worlds, sex with W and sex with Y, plus the affairs of the State. In order to have it, X is planning on keeping his wife at home, making W his official date at grand parties and Y his secret date after parties. X is willing to lower Y, a free, intelligent, independent woman to a backplan sex date whom he will ignore during important events so not to annoy W. 

X is happy during dinner, not noticing how disgusted by him Y is becoming. When the meal is over, he invites Y to move to a more private and comfortable atmosphere, his hotel room. He wants the night to be a big night. Before they go up, he excuses himself and goes to the bathroom to take the pill. After all, he's a man in his fifties and Y is younger. When Y refuses him sex, the pill reaches its full effect. Y notices it and she also decides to act diplomatically. She explains that she is atracted to him but he is a married man with a jealous mistress attached. She wants a life free of complications. She leaves. 

When she gets home she starts laughing. She remembers how X suddenly found it difficult to get up in order to say goodbye, walking her to the Hotel entrance. The pill effect was visible. But then, she feels low, durty, involved in a sordid web of sex, power and influence. Most of all, she feels that her own diplomacy was a form of cowardice too, when all she wanted was to defend her honour of a free human being, her dignity of a woman who should be respected and appreciated openly, publicly, not dragged secretly to a sordid date in hiding of a jealous mistress, a little woman with no manners or finesse. 

Diplomacy, Y thinks, is quite a dangerous posture. It quickly becomes the excuse for cowardice and hyprocrisy. Of sordidness. The dark side of the Earth. No more.

         GOD BLESS US ALL, EVERY ONE!

         ...And so, as Tiny Tim said, 'A Merry Christmas to us all; God bless us all, every one!'

       It is the season of Christmas. To me, it is bliss. I should say that Christmas is the season of forgiveness and charity and togetherness. Only, I believe those are the feelings that should, must remain throughout the year.
         I love the sight of a big table, with relatives and friends taking their place around it, for the feast. A table finely decorated, full of delicacies. I like the smell of Christmas sweets, as I cook them, and the night before Christmas Eve, the 23rd, when I take my time, organizing the last details. I like the evening of the 25th, after everyone leave: I take most of the food, it will get spoiled before eaten, and leave it outside the house, carefully packed, for anyone who cannot afford a baquet, in our imperfect world. The package always disappears whinin a few minutes. And I like presents' time, the unrapping, the cries of excitement, the surprises. I like the first moment of silence, when everyone is served their share, and the tasting of the food, the pleasure of it, makes everyone quiet. I like the old family anecdotes, repeated every year, together wth new ones. I like the bling of the china, the crystal glasses.

            I like the small charming Christmas traditions I share with friends, during the weeks that precede it. The movies too, epics, Christmas Carol in several versions, etc. I like the fact that Christmas lives on, lives through, despite how many seats around the table are taken, how many skies have fallen. I lost someone, this year, right before Christmas. We lose people at all times, during the year. But for me, it is the third Christmas, in several decades, we, in our family, count minus one, since I was born. Their presence, the presence of those who parted, will remain silent, in all our hearts. Christmas will be for those who remain in this world. For as sad as it might be -- it is sad indeed -- Christmas lives on, lives through, for time goes on, life goes through tragedies and joys. It continues despite it all, until the moment when we will be the ones to no longer take a place around the table, only in the hearts of our beloved ones. Life will continue for them.

                   Above all, Christmas is a party, a celebration, Pagan and Christian together. Human beings, well... living beings in general, like parties and celebrations. And so they should! So, Merry Christmas!

DEATH ON THE SCREEN

             Death has always been someting of a puzzle, for me. It is the thing I fear the most. I fear it because, the way I see it, it is the end of all things: of life, first of all, of physical sensations, of consciousness and thought. The end of a living being as a whole. Unlike many people, I do not believe that we move on to a better world and we continue our lives free from our mortal coil. I believe, though, that science will be able to explain the entire mistery of Life and Death, eventually... Meanwhile, I have a rather romantic approach on the subject, where my personal experiences are concerned. I see Death as a character.
For that reason, perhaps, I always found it fascinating how Art in general, and Cinema in particular, portrays Death. 

       If one pictures Death as the end of all things, a realistic portray, one immediatly thinks of movies from a certain period. Actually, such periods come in clcles. In 1939, Bette Davis portrays an hedonistic woman who ends up suffering from brain cancer, in Edmond Goulding's Dark Victory. Then, in 1983, James L. Brooks directs Terms of Endearment about a married woman, played by Debra Winger, with three children who is disapointed in her unfaithful husband and finds out she has breast cancer. Then, in 1993 Jonathan Demme overwhelmes the audiences with Philadelphia, a drama about a homosexual man, a oscar winner performance by Tom Hanks, who contracts AIDS. 

Debra Winger starring in James L. Brooks, Terms of Endearment

         In these movies, Death is not offered the role of a character. It is a mere condition. People know they will die from the disease they suffer from. They will die and they will be no more. The world will go on without them. These plots were meant for tears and suffering of the audiences who will not be rewarded, in the end, with a miracle cure. 

        Then, there is a variation on the same theme. People will die, the world will continue without them but their spirit will go on and, in some cases, it interferes with the people they leave behind, for the better or for the worse, In 1945, David Lean presents Blithe Spirit, a delightful comedy about a happily married widower, Rex Harrison, who finds himself haunted by the wicked spirit of his dead first wife. As the story progresses, his second wife suffers the same fate as his first, dying in a car accident. The two wives, now, haunt him and will not rest until he joins them, as a ghost himself, after a fatal crash. Later, in 1989, Steven Spielberg directs Always, a loving romantic drama about a firefighter pilot, Richard Dreyfuss, who dies in the line of duty, leaving behind an unconsolable girlfriend. Realizing that he is dead and a spirit, he is explained by a deity that he must, now, use his energy for the good of others, which means inspiring a young pilot and finding a new love for his girlfriend. Finally, in 2001, Alexandro Aménabar releases The Others, a horror movie about a woman, NIcole Kidman, living alone in an old victorian house with her two children, who suffer from a rare disease. When a group of servants ask her for a job, she starts to suspect that the house is haunted and the servants keep it a secret. The climax is reached when she discovers that she is, in fact, haunted by the living, being herself, her children and the servants dead as the result of a horrible tragic event. As she discovers that her dead children are no longer sick, for their spirits are free from earthly sufferings, she finds the happiness she had long lost. 

Constance Cummings, Kay Hammond and Rex Harrison in David Lean's Blithe Spirit

         Again, Death still does not appear as a character, in these movies, but a condition from which no living being can escape. In fact, in neither of these three movies Death comes as something fearful, terrible. There is a continuation of the individual in a dimention where thought and freewill still exist. 

           

           As a character, Death comes in several forms. Traditional or less traditional, it has haunted the screen for many decades. It even comes in imaginary forms, for actual characters, a product of their fears or group histeria. An ordinary indivudual can be seen by the rest of a group as the encarnation of Death, as Manuel Guimarães portrayed in Crime da Aldeia Velha (1964, Murder in the Old Village): a young beautiful woman, played by Barbara Laage, is coveted by all the men in a small village. At first, she is welcomed by the other women in their everyday lives. But, then, men become violent fighting over her and strange tragic deaths begin to occur to people she relates to, including a small baby she holds for a moment. The people from the small village now believe she encarnates Death and is a danger to any person who comes near her. Another similar approach, though Death comes as something good, appears in the French mini-series Les Misérables (2000), directed by Josée Dayan, based on Victor Hugo's novel.  As Jean Valjean, played by Gerard Depardieu, lies dying in his bed, an old man, he perceives his adopted daughter, Virginie Ledoyen, in her white night gown and long dark hair, lighting candles. When she turns to smile at him, Jean Valjean mistakes her for Death and comments on her beauty. 

Barbara Laage (on the right) in Manuel Guimarães' Crime da Aldeia Velha

                Martin Brest presents a slightly different view on the theme, in 1998, with Meet Joe Black. Death, played by Brad Pit, comes in a Human form and turns into an actually flesh and blood person, for a while. He uses the body of a young man, whom he kills in a runover, to be able to interact with the living. Death is the taker of life but also the giver of life. By realizing the dead young man was to become the love of a girl's life, he releases the body and brings it back. In Lubitsch's Heaven can wait, 1943, Death comes in the humanoid figure of the Devil himself, played by Laird Cregar, a rather nice and understading character, with no tolerance, nevertheless, where ugly women were concerned. Ingmar Bergman also uses a Human shape to represent Death, perfomed by Benkt Ekerot, in The Seventh Seal, 1957. The entire movie builds around a chessgame, during which, the life or death of a knight is decided.

Brad Pit in Martin Brest's Meet Joe Black

         In 1948, Orson Welles's Cinema version of William Shakespeare's Macbeth show the Morai -- the three witches from Greek Mithology who controlled the mother thread of life of every mortal from birth to death -- appearing in the opening scene. They represent Death, in fact, since Death and Murder are the theme of the drama. Half Human, half strange creatures, they are frightening for they hold the power of life and death and their terrible physical aspect is a reminder of the fact. John Carpenter also prefered the terrible aspect of Death's impersonation in 1980's Fog, a horror movie that pictures a small village haunted by the ghosts of dead sailors who rise from the sea to revenge their doom, taking the lives of the villagers. Like Death itself, they do not take lives by chance. In a way, they kill those who are meant to die, knocking on every door and only attacking people who opened it. By opening the door, the character is answering the call of Death and Fate. The symbolism of Death as a character is there by the use of the scythe that one can guess by the silluette of the killer veiled by the fog. And last, but not least, Woody Allen's Death and Love, 1975 shows Death as the conventional character covered in a whote sheet, carrying a scythe, in a non-conventional comedy inpired by Tolstoy's War and Peace masterpiece. Death appears not as something evil, nor good, nor compassionate, nor resentless, but simply indiferent to the living to whom he simply leads the way -- the closest impersonation of my own image of... Death.

Woody Allen, on the left, in Woody Allen's Love and Death

TWELVE PROPOSALS FOR THE FUTURE OF ART

As a new year is about to enter and, with it, the formal questioning about the Future to come usually takes place, I'll leave you, as I see it, twelve proposals for the future of art:

1. Art must be, first of all, the search for the Beautiful. Even representing the grotesque and the ugly, art can be beautiful. Art must be the expression of the Beautiful.

Goya, drawing from Los Caprichos collection

2. Art must aim for Excelence, both technically and conceptually. Being the expression of the aesthetics and of Human Thought, it cannot be feeble our pale when representing a concept. The exageration that is needed to enhance the concept must be obtained through excelence.

Michelangelo, detail from Dawn and Dusk.

 3. Art must be Symbolic. Reproduction should be no more than a tool to reach representation. The detail of representation must be used for no other purpose than that of creating a symbol.

Norman Rockwell, detail.

4. Art must be Daring. Art should not seek refuge in whatever is commonly accepted. Like science, art should travel to the extreme of Human Thought, beyond its bonderies and symbolize it with no restraint.

Scene from Amarcord, Fellini

5. Art must be Free. Art should not be restrained by the convencional techniques of representation. All techniques of representaion, both conventional and unconventional, can be used for the purpose of creating a work of art. Also, art must operate freely within a political or a social context.

Scene from The Strange Affair of Angelica, Manoel de Oliveira

6. Art must be Timeless. Even using as tools the available techniques of its time, an artist should create a work that can be understood, without the need of translation or adaptation, by a public from another Age.

Scene from Brief Encounter, David Lean

7. Art must be Uncorrupted. When tepresenting corruption, the artist cannot be, himself, the object of the representation unless in knowledge of his own fault, recognizing it as a fault. The public must sense the uncorrupted artist behind the fault that is represented. If not, the work becomes not a symbol, nor a representation, but the reproduction of a model.

Patricia Highsmith

8. Art must be Manipulative. The purpose of art is to create an aesthetic and conceptual effect on the public. Therefore, all tools of representation serve the purpose of manipulating the aesthetics emotions of the public. In this case, again, the artist must be an outsider to the emotions he intends to provique in others, while creating the work, even if those emotions can be used as tools in the creative process. Only by manipulation of technique and of concept can the artist create an effect.

Nikolai Gogol

9. Art must be Equillibrium. Even in exhageration of the representation, every element in a work of art must be in perfect balance.

Leon Tolstoy

10. Art must be Dichotomus. Both in concept and aesthetics, art plays in oposition, creating contarst in the composition. Every flash of light must accentuate darkness, every virtue must be opposed to a fault, no happiness should be felt without a share of unhappiness. Good and evil, light and darkness form a contrast that will give shape to the object that is represented.

Ludwig van Beethoven

11. Art must be Interdisciplinary. An artist can make use of subjects and thechniques of other artists in order to create a new one. Reality feeds art and art feeds a newborn work of art. No art should seek isolation from other arts or from reality, for imagination grows through knowledge of variety.

Piotr Ilitch Tchaikovsky

12. Finally, Art must be Original. Even if a subject or a technique has been used prior to the creation of a work of art, each individual -- similar in species to their fellow individuals -- is unique and each action will not be repeated. Therefore, each approach carries its own originality. Repetition or imitation must never be the purpose of art.

George Gershwin