Why do I live in Vienna? This is twenty five minutes from the centre of town. I was swimming here before I snapped the photograph.
It is the Donau, (the Danube) the cleanest major river in the world (apart perhaps from some impossible to get to rivers in the north of Canada which more than likely suffer from mercury poisoning anyway).
vienna donau insel sunset
These Austrians, in German terms, are an idle lot, more interested in sunsets and picnics than work. But damnit, they take care of their country. Green and clean. Perhaps the sanest people on our small earth.
The official report on the Danube is that you can drink the water. I don't do that and am not about to start, but from inadvertent gulps of the water while swimming, I can testify that raw Donau water tastes better than the tap water in Toronto or Paris.
Schwarzenbergplatz after Coffee and Cigarettes
Anna and Kati managed to persuade me to the cinema for the first time in a long time tonight. While editing lapinthrope I tried to keep myself as far from other people's cinema as I could but the edit is done and it is time to look at the world from others' perspective.
Normally I am boycotting American cinema as a whole both for aesthetic (damn are Hollywood films boring and risible for the most part) and political (bombing civilian cities in peacetime, supporting the prison camps of Gaza and the West Bank) but Jim Jarmusch is about as alternative as it goes. Moreover, for these young ladies Coffee and Cigarettes is definitely a step in the right direction. And both of them are charming, funny and pretty. So a definite exception to the rule.
When I headed out for the eight o'clock screening at the Stadtkino at Schwarzenbergplatz I wasn't expecting much. Just another empty rundown cinema for an alternative film.
To my astonishment above the cinema there was a huge wooden plaque advertising Coffee and Cigarettes. And an enormous queue of people to see the film. An alternative film sell out, outside of Sundance. What a pleasant surprise!
Perhaps it is the theme. Coffee and cigarettes are very dear to the Viennese. They prefer café conversation to any other activity apart from sex. No greater city on earth for pointless chatter about the vagaries of one's soul and the tremors of one's internal life. One enormous therapist's couch.
While the screen at Stadtkino is small, the seating (corduroy covered captain's chairs) is the most comfortable I have ever enjoyed. The sound system is also quite good. Definitely an experience to repeat.
So Coffee and Cigarettes?
Apparently there are eleven vignettes which make up the film. All of the vignettes are set around a coffee table. Which makes for nice continuity.
Sadly, only three of the vignettes are memorable. Two for their brilliance. One for it's incompetence.
Both of the brilliant ones are called Cousins. In Cousins 1, Cate Blanchett plays a rather prim version of herself on a publicity trip for a new film. In the café of a famous hotel, she is waiting for her wild cousin to show up for a quick coffee between interviews.
The bohemian Shelly turns up late - one already suspects to thumb her nose at her cousin. It is apparent that the two women were close once, perhaps as girls. When life took them apart, Cate's life divorced her from Shelly's reality. Shelly both despises and envies Cate's life. The dialogue between the two women is razor sharp, each nuance laden with emotional meaning. The two talk over one another, interrupt one another's sentences and stare each other down.
Particularly amazing is that Cate Blanchett actually plays both roles. And is totally convincing in both. At no point do you feel that you are watching anything other than a genuine dialogue between two separate characters. Jarmusch's editing and shooting plan are exquisite, pulling the best from the masterful performances and making the scene play as if organically shot with two actresses. A master turn.
Eventually the divide between the two women becomes insurmountable. We regret both of their positions and are powerfully reminded of the pain of past closeness and present divide. All they are able to truly share is a cigarette.
In a beautifully delivered punchline worthy of a Maupassant or Fitzgerald story, when Shelly is left on her own and Cate ascends to her interviews, the waiter swoops in on Shelly as she is about to light another cigarette. "I'm sorry," he says, "smoking is not permitted in the lounge." Shelly scowls blackly.
This vignette is almost worth the price of admission and the time lost on the movie as a whole.
Cousins 2 between Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan riffs on the same showbiz theme. Molina plays himself. In LA, he has arranged for a coffee with out-of-towner Coogan who is just coming off promoting a hit cult film 24 Hour Party People. Coogan's assistant booked the meeting reluctantly and Coogan shows up reluctantly. Molina has many kind things to say about Coogan's work. Coogan tries in a British way to hide his contempt for the little of Molina's work that he has scene. Coogan becomes more condescending with the passing of time and finally demands what it is Molina wants from him.
Molina explains that he has done some geneological research and that via a great-great grandparent the two are cousins. Coogan is discomfitted by the news, makes to leave, refuses outright to give Molina any of his private numbers. Molina's cell rings. It's Spike Jonze the director. Apparently he and Molina are close friends. Coogan has been dying to hook up with Jonze but has not been able to do so.
"Would it be shabby of me to give you my number now?" Coogan asks Molina at the end of the piece.
"Yes," Molina says and exits the frame, leaving Coogan on his own.
The scene is perfectly pitched. The entertainment business sparring for rank and seeking of personal advantage in every acquaintance is spot-on. One sees oneself and one sees others in both of these roles. At some point all of us act with vanity and self-importance to others out of turn and suffer for the hubris. At some point, we are treated cavalierly by those we would help. The piece skewers LA and the entertainment business, but tells a fundamental human truth.
The worst of the rest is a piece with two rappers and Bill Murray. For some reason Bill Murray is working as a short-order cook who drinks coffee straight from the pot he is carrying around to offer guests. I'm Bill Murray he acknowledges without blinking an eye. The explanation for his current role is never given. Hiding out is what the rappers suppose. The record is never set straight. Everyone leaves the scene finally and it comes to a merciful end.
Whatever.
I would recommend getting ahold of Coffee and Cigarettes on DVD and watching the two Cousins pieces a couple of times each with a quick glance at whichever celebrities particularly interest you (Tom Waits, Iggy Pop, Roberto Benigni).
My friend Anna is a tragic and beautiful figure. Her passion for sushi is notorious. A last beautiful autumn day of dining outside in Vienna.
Many call her the Lady Di of Vienna. Her English good looks come naturally from her father, an English actor transplanted to Austrian soil.
Heldenplatz in Vienna in the late afternoon is one of the last places to go dark at sunset. And one of the most beautiful. People come to relax and just sit on the very green grass.
Austrians are very keen on public displays of affection. Often one sees young women stopping their boyfriends on the street and insisting on minute long smooches. The boyfriend's posture usually hints of slight impatience, but he is well-advised to mask that. Part of the deal of having a girlfriend in Austria is a lot of public touching and kissing. Anything less and the girl feels short-changed. The public displays of affection have their private rewards however.
Capoeira is quite popular here in Vienna as all over the world. Better feigned fighting than the real thing. And anything that makes dance more popular.
As everyone enjoys him and herself, the tourists come and go, many lured for a carriage ride. The pleasure does not come cheaply. At forty euros for 20 minutes, they may outdo the gondoliers of Venice.
The scope of Heldenplatz is vast. Truly an imperial square.
On German etiquette.
After I had dined by myself, I dressed and went to the opera provided gratis by the duke in the fine theatre he had built. The prince was in the front of the orchestra, surrounded by his brilliant Court. I sat in a box on the first tier, delighted to be able to hear so well the music of the famous Jumella, who was in the duke’s service. In my ignorance of the etiquette of small German Courts I happened to applaud a solo, which had been exquisitely sung by a castrato whose name I have forgotten, and directly afterwards an individual came into my box and addressed me in a rude manner. However, I knew no German, and could only answer by ‘nich verstand’—“I don’t understand.”
He went out, and soon after an official came in, who told me, in good French, that when the sovereign was present all applause was forbidden.
“Very good, sir. Then I will go away and come again when the sovereign is not here, as when an air pleases me I always applaud.”
On delicacy of sentiment. Ascribing motivation.
A moment after, coming out of one of the casemates, her head-dress got slightly out of order, and she begged that I would remedy the accident, but, having to bend her head down, the state in which I was could no longer remain a secret for her. In order to avoid greater confusion to both of us, she enquired who had made my watch ribbon; I told her it was a present from my sister, and she desired to examine it, but when I answered her that it was fastened to the fob-pocket, and found that she disbelieved me, I added that she could see for herself. She put her hand to it, and a natural but involuntary excitement caused me to be very indiscreet. She must have felt vexed, for she saw that she had made a mistake in her estimate of my character; she became more timid, she would not laugh any more, and we joined her mother and the major who was shewing her, in a sentry- box, the body of Marshal de Schulenburg which had been deposited there until the mausoleum erected for him was completed. As for myself, I felt deeply ashamed. I thought myself the first man who had alarmed her innocence, and I felt ready to do anything to atone for the insult.
Such was my delicacy of feeling in those days. I used to credit people with exalted sentiments, which often existed only in my imagination. I must confess that time has entirely destroyed that delicacy; yet I do not believe myself worse than other men, my equals in age and inexperience.
On the nature of love and on a woman's appearance. A very superficial assessement.
love is only a feeling of curiosity more or less intense, grafted upon the inclination placed in us by nature that the species may be preserved. And truly, woman is like a book, which, good or bad, must at first please us by the frontispiece. If this is not interesting, we do not feel any wish to read the book, and our wish is in direct proportion to the interest we feel. The frontispiece of woman runs from top to bottom like that of a book, and her feet, which are most important to every man who shares my taste, offer the same interest as the edition of the work. If it is true that most amateurs bestow little or no attention upon the feet of a woman, it is likewise a fact that most readers care little or nothing whether a book is of the first edition or the tenth. At all events, women are quite right to take the greatest care of their face, of their dress, of their general appearance; for it is only by that part of the frontispiece that they can call forth a wish to read them in those men who have not been endowed by nature with the privilege of blindness. And just in the same manner that men, who have read a great many books, are certain to feel at last a desire for perusing new works even if they are bad, a man who has known many women, and all handsome women, feels at last a curiosity for ugly specimens when he meets with entirely new ones. It is all very well for his eye to discover the paint which conceals the reality, but his passion has become a vice, and suggests some argument in favour of the lying frontispiece. It is possible, at least he thinks so, that the work may prove better than the title-page, and the reality more acceptable than the paint which hides it. He then tries to peruse the book, but the leaves have not been opened; he meets with some resistance, the living book must be read according to established rules, and the book-worm falls a victim to a coquetry, the monster which persecutes all those who make a business of love. As for thee, intelligent man, who hast read the few preceding lines, let me tell thee that, if they do not assist in opening thy eyes, thou art lost; I mean that thou art certain of being a victim to the fair sex to the very last moment of thy life. If my candour does not displease thee, accept my congratulations
From the memoirs of Casanova:
although I ought to have been well satisfied as far as physical beauty was concerned, my enjoyment was very limited, as the nymphs I wooed only spoke Swiss dialect—a rugged corruption of German. I have always found that love without speech gives little enjoyment, and I cannot imagine a more unsatisfactory mistress than a mute, were she as lovely as Venus herself.
I could not agree more.
