Wednesday 28 February 2018
Sunday 25 February 2018
The Shape of Water and the politics of cinema
Guillermo del Toro, quoted in Playback: Guillermo del Toro on ‘The Shape of Water’ and Taking a Political Stance in Art, by Kristopher Tapley, Variety
We told a story not through the agents and the scientists, but through the janitors, the cleaning women who had to wipe the toilets, emptying the trash bins, and from that moment, you are already taking a political stance.
Guillermo del Toro, quoted in Guillermo del Toro Explains How The Shape of Water Is About ‘The Beauty of the Other’, by Scott Huver, Vulture
[The amphibious creature] represents ‘the other.’ We’re living in a time where we demonize the Other. We are told we’ve got to fear. [We’re being told] everywhere, constantly, why we have to divide the world between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ whether race, religion, government [,] sexual preference, gender — anything that creates this fake division between us and them, and there’s only us. [...]
The movie tries to embody the beauty of the Other [...] What makes us different is what makes us great. It’s sort of Beauty and the Beast in a way that shows you that Beauty doesn’t have to be the perfect princess, she doesn’t have to look like a perfume-commercial model … and the Beast doesn’t have to be transformed to be loved, and he doesn’t have to turn into a boring fucking prince and renounce the essence of who he is. [...] Because, to me, love is not transformation. [...] Love is acceptance and understanding.
Excerpt from Guillermo del Toro's speech at the 2018 Golden Globes
Since childhood, I’ve been faithful to monsters. I have been saved and absolved by them, because monsters, I believe, are patron saints of our blissful imperfection, and they allow and embody the possibility of failing.
Friday 23 February 2018
Wednesday 21 February 2018
The keys to my half-lit fractured heart
Photograph by Geert Braekers [Geert Braekers Photography | Facebook]
Oathbreaker
How I envision this time with you
In a half-lit hospital room
I'm scared to lose
The candle is about to be blown
And I'll be left here alone
With your words so strong in pools of gone
I'm reaching out but you fall
How I see a talk with you
In a faint crumbling night
I'm afraid to understand
What we had last time
When you pulled out of this life
When your hopes were up high
I'm reaching out by now you're gone
Where will I find the nerves to ask
In this clouded confused head
I feel your doubts alone
When it grasped you by the head
All you could do was stare
Your gaze so strong
I'm still reaching out
When will I retrieve the keys
To my half-lit fractured heart
I'd love nothing more
Than to hear your withering voice
How could you go without me
I reached out but it left you cold
How I envision this time with you
In a half-lit hospital room
I'm scared to lose
The candle is about to be blown
And I'll be left here alone
With your words so strong in pools of gone
I'm reaching out but you fall
How I see a talk with you
In a faint crumbling night
I'm afraid to understand
What we had last time
When you pulled out of this life
When your hopes were up high
I'm reaching out by now you're gone
Where will I find the nerves to ask
In this clouded confused head
I feel your doubts alone
When it grasped you by the head
All you could do was stare
Your gaze so strong
I'm still reaching out
When will I retrieve the keys
To my half-lit fractured heart
I'd love nothing more
Than to hear your withering voice
How could you go without me
I reached out but it left you cold
Sunday 18 February 2018
Wednesday 14 February 2018
Sunday 11 February 2018
Thursday 8 February 2018
Tuesday 6 February 2018
Thursday 1 February 2018
Against fascism: Primo Levi
Excerpt from 'Preface to L. Poliakov's Auschwitz', in Primo Levi, The Black Hole of Auschwitz (Cambridge: Polity, 2005)
[E]very civilised man needs to know that Auschwitz existed, and what was done there. [...] Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is all around us, in the air. The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it. In this book the signs of the infection are described: rejection of human solidarity, obtuse and cynical indifference to the suffering of others, abdication of the intellect and of moral sense to the principle of authority, and above all, at the root of everything, a sweeping tide of cowardice, a colossal cowardice which masks itself as warring virtue, love of country and faith in an idea.
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