Magical lint, secrets for cash – The Sanity of “All Quiet on the Western Front”

Of course I spent yesterday in bed, unable to move. But who didn’t know that would likely happen? Even I knew that would likely happen, I’m not a complete idiot. Though I must say I was hoping that I would be spared, mainly because I was the one doing all the cooking and I didn’t want to next get sick and be known as Typhoid Mary for years to come.

H.o.p. had thrown up off and on all Monday night but was feeling excellent enough by the afternoon to crow, “I’m well! I’m well! I feel good! I’m not sick!” Co-adult was feeling well enough to keep him company, H.o.p. on one living room futon and he on the other much of the day.

H.o.p. didn’t want to be anywhere around me. Whenever I stumbled into the kitchen for something to drink, and co-adult asked, “Are you sick?” I’d say, “No, don’t think so,” because I was only coughing a little and didn’t have much congestion and I wasn’t throwing up, I just wasn’t hungry and nothing sounded good. My only real complaint was I hurt so much I couldn’t move and I couldn’t stay awake and my eyes were so glazed over that I could barely see and I felt really really cold.

I didn’t pull out the sick card until it was time for H.o.p. to go to bed. He didn’t want to. He ignored me. I croaked (by now I was croaking), “H.o.p., look at me. No, H.o.p., look at me.” Reluctant, he turned from his computer game to look. I must have made an impression. He said he did love me, that I mattered to him more than the computer game he was playing, and yes he would go ahead and go to bed like mom was insisting, mom saying he needed his rest and she didn’t want him to get sick again.

This morning I woke up and turned on the television to see what Network World is serving up as News and Entertainment. This is unheard of around here, turning on the Network World television, but I was wanting a distraction from the pain and couldn’t concentrate to read. I had done the same Tuesday, watching the selection of shows on TBS with increasing dismay and sense of nausea, and finally ended up pulling out “All Quiet on the Western Front”, courtesy Netflix, and felt relatively sane for the period of time I watched it (twice). Which says something about Network television, when you watch an anti-war film that was considered, in its time, to have some pretty graphic violence, and your response is, “Ah, that’s more like it. Putting the humane back in humanity.”

As long as there are wars, people will produce anti-war art and attempt to show what it’s really like, how it’s not Paths of Glory, how fighting for the fatherland or motherland is bullshit, and there will always follow more war and more art attempting to show what it’s really like and questioning what war serves if certainly not the people dying in the thick of it. In “All Quiet on the Western Front” it is framed as fighting for the fatherland, but when the bombs start dropping then the talk is of Mother Earth and diving into her and trying to cover yourself as best as possible.

I like a lot of Bill Murray’s comedy but the boot camp training with the sadistic Sgt. in “All Quiet on the Western Front” brought to mind a wretched excuse for a film, “Stripes”, which I only saw recently. Bill Murray and Harold Ramis join the army. Murray is supposed to somehow be the rebel, even though he has joined the army, and there’s conflict with his Sgt. What happens but it all turns out to be great fun when the Sgt. is incapacitated and Bill Murray whips the troops into dress show song-and-dance shape. Because of course the anti-authoritarian rebel is actually much like the Sgt. but can do it one plus better, with good fun appetizers. Then follows some bizarre bit of plot where Bill and friend steal the test urban assault vehicle for some R&R with the female MPs (now girlfriends), the rest of the company goes looking for it behind the Iron Curtain for some reason, they get trapped, and Bill and friend and girlfriends use the urban assault vehicle to rescue all from behind the Iron Curtain. The New 1981 Military! Crazy, man, crazy!

“Stripes” was released in an era when Hollywood seemed to be churning out a lot of post draft, it’s-really-rebellious-to-be-military movies. See how much fun the guns are! And the speed! Whoo-whoo! Have you got what it takes? Partly evolved into today’s blood and guts military computer games.

The “All Quiet on the Western Front” equivalent would be the scenes of the German troops attempting to defend their trenches as they were stormed by the French, the camera taking the eye of the kid behind the machine gun, attempting to keep up with all the human asteroids coming at you but they’re real and if you don’t make it you’re really dead.

The men are all exhausted, sleepless, sick, and no one’s looking out for their best interests, they’re lucky to even get a meal.

One notable scene follows another, such as the one with actor Raymond Griffith, who had lost his voice as a child, playing the part of the French soldier mortally wouded by Paul Baumer (Lew Ayres) who is forced by circumstance to spend a night with him in a shell hole. The enemy is offered more compassion (however erratic) by Paul, than dying German soldiers are given by their own, in the trenches or in the hospital where they are thrust out of sight, out of mind, making room for the next round of invalids. Paul listens to the nameless Frenchman wheezing, dying, and must deal with him as an individual. But then Paul is a man able to empathize.

Raymond does an amazing bit bit of acting. He’s finally dead, and what’s communicated in his death mask is remarkable. A lost world. One expression. Raymond had to settle upon one expression that would in death speak to everyone’s sense of loss. One expression was the only opportunity he’d have; an expression that would work from any angle. His tragic mask. How he managed it, I don’t know.

This morning the only thing I could get on the television was “Live with Regis and Kelly!” with Raven-Symore boosting “Cheetah Girls II”. What can I say but it was very pink and giggly. Gobble, gobble corporate candied entertainment bites. Even subjects which should have had substance were instead like lint taken from a dryer, sprayed with a blow dryer for volume and given a hefty passing of sparkle.

I decided to try getting up, thinking that hey I really don’t feel that bad, maybe. “Ouch,” went my first step. Even the bottoms of my feet hurt, which was a surprise. They didn’t want anything to do with moving. But I stuck with it. Ow. Ow. Ow.

Later, doing something or other, the television still on, I heard giggle voices going on about make-up secrets of the Hollywood stars, grown adult women going on about how great it is the Rockettes use Magic Marker on their lips to boost their red staying appeal. See? Dot on Magic Marker and your lips are ravishing bold. And you too can be all this and more if you buy the little black book of Hollywood Beauty Secrets! Secrets!

There was something about the “Hollywood Beauty Secrets” sparkly lighting over the table holding the treasured Secrets! that reminded me of films and shows from the 60s recalling the 30’s, the Depression years, theaters pulling in the viewers for lint froth and some give-away cereal bowl or chance at getting full dinner set. The great escape from your small nitty-gritty life through the gods and goddesses of Hollywood, who you too can be just like! Only now more like the Rockettes. Anymore, forget being just like the Hollywood gods and goddesses whose realm is so far above and outside yours (though the products you buy put them there) that there’s no scaling that height without the platitude often tossed downwards that money really doesn’t make you happy. No, be like the Rockettes. With Magic Marker.

Magic Marker.

Magic.


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