Yesterday, the new movie of the Spanish film maker and intellectual Jose Luis Garci was premiered in Spain: Sherlock Holmes, Madrid Days. The title is a little bit off... And difficult, like a punishment: we tend to make the "d" of Madrid more or less mute (when not a "z"), but here Garci adds another one next to it, absolutely necessary for "day" to be "day". Talking about the letter "d", the title sounds a little bit dodgy.
The title has though the charm of a passionate person of great conversation, incapable of speaking English. Those are the most charming and sweet of all! I don't think he has improved a tiny bit since his famous speech at the Oscars in 1983, when he became the first Spanish director in winning one (best film). It seems not to be in YouTube, O wonder of wonders! But it does not matter. That is the spell of Garci's universe, a world of passion and hope that is coming to an end. In a radio station where he collaborates, surrounded by friends, someone asked him to say a few words about the movie and, out of everything that is possible to say, he chooses: "what can I say? That it has been a true miracle for this movie to be out". Somewhere else, he points out: "the days of cinema are doomed".
Garci belongs to a different place. No mobile phone, no web, no social network, no shit. However, I find a sort of comfort listening to him speak, the way he does, unfolding naturally a significant life and knowledge, no better than anybody else's, but lived with enthusiasm and in the wings of passion. Jose Luis Garci seems to be one of this guys that pass by this vale of tears lighthearted (o, wondrous word and concept!); they look innocent, gullible, old-fashion and, possibly, they are taken as losers and unfitting, but as you scratch a little the appearance, you find a different story running underneath: "life ain't be no crystal stairs" for them, like Langston Hughes sang, like ain't for anybody else. Perhaps, they just embrace faults and wrong as part of it; perhaps they just lived it generously.
**
Precisely this afternoon, Without a Clue was on the TV. The idea of a imbecile Sherlock Holmes taking all the credit from a sharp Watson is interesting. Being Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley, one and another, respectively, is even more interesting. Funny and theatrical. Great... Ben Kingsley, the great winner of the Oscars in 1983 in Ghandi, precisely. D.M. invited me to his place along with other leftist friends of his to watch it in a huge screen he got, 8 years ago, in the States. It was a Friday and I fell asleep on the couch. It was his last invitation to movies... .
**
I have only read a couple of novels of Sherlock Holmes, the first two. I think I have already commented here about it. The most interesting fact about the couple is, likely, the only aspect completely forgotten. And it is that Sherlock and Watson were two wretched individuals, without girlfriends, without women, sharing a flat. Watson had just came from the war in Afghanistan and checked in a hotel. However, he happened to be a spendthrift and had to start looking for a room to share and, therefore, cut down expenses. That's how they met each other, through a common acquaintance. On his side, Sherlock would have become a sort of Cosmo Kramer one hundred years later: the individual -the crazy individual, super smart, that almost all sometime have met- always up to something strange, moving from one blinding enthusiasm to another every other week. His addiction to drugs seems to me just something "elemental": the necessary, logical move of his nature.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
The title has though the charm of a passionate person of great conversation, incapable of speaking English. Those are the most charming and sweet of all! I don't think he has improved a tiny bit since his famous speech at the Oscars in 1983, when he became the first Spanish director in winning one (best film). It seems not to be in YouTube, O wonder of wonders! But it does not matter. That is the spell of Garci's universe, a world of passion and hope that is coming to an end. In a radio station where he collaborates, surrounded by friends, someone asked him to say a few words about the movie and, out of everything that is possible to say, he chooses: "what can I say? That it has been a true miracle for this movie to be out". Somewhere else, he points out: "the days of cinema are doomed".
Garci belongs to a different place. No mobile phone, no web, no social network, no shit. However, I find a sort of comfort listening to him speak, the way he does, unfolding naturally a significant life and knowledge, no better than anybody else's, but lived with enthusiasm and in the wings of passion. Jose Luis Garci seems to be one of this guys that pass by this vale of tears lighthearted (o, wondrous word and concept!); they look innocent, gullible, old-fashion and, possibly, they are taken as losers and unfitting, but as you scratch a little the appearance, you find a different story running underneath: "life ain't be no crystal stairs" for them, like Langston Hughes sang, like ain't for anybody else. Perhaps, they just embrace faults and wrong as part of it; perhaps they just lived it generously.
**
Precisely this afternoon, Without a Clue was on the TV. The idea of a imbecile Sherlock Holmes taking all the credit from a sharp Watson is interesting. Being Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley, one and another, respectively, is even more interesting. Funny and theatrical. Great... Ben Kingsley, the great winner of the Oscars in 1983 in Ghandi, precisely. D.M. invited me to his place along with other leftist friends of his to watch it in a huge screen he got, 8 years ago, in the States. It was a Friday and I fell asleep on the couch. It was his last invitation to movies... .
**
I have only read a couple of novels of Sherlock Holmes, the first two. I think I have already commented here about it. The most interesting fact about the couple is, likely, the only aspect completely forgotten. And it is that Sherlock and Watson were two wretched individuals, without girlfriends, without women, sharing a flat. Watson had just came from the war in Afghanistan and checked in a hotel. However, he happened to be a spendthrift and had to start looking for a room to share and, therefore, cut down expenses. That's how they met each other, through a common acquaintance. On his side, Sherlock would have become a sort of Cosmo Kramer one hundred years later: the individual -the crazy individual, super smart, that almost all sometime have met- always up to something strange, moving from one blinding enthusiasm to another every other week. His addiction to drugs seems to me just something "elemental": the necessary, logical move of his nature.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
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