Sleep for Noir

(How's that for a nice snappy headline?) It was Black Tuesday once more yestereve, and our movie of choice was The Big Sleep. This one deserved its reputation. So what if the plot was terribly convoluted! (someone reported a rumour that even Howard Hawks couldn't keep track of what was going on). The fun was getting ... wherever it was we got, well, apparently with Bogie and Bacall going off into the sunset together, which is how it should be. The chemistry between them was not as palpable in this as it is in To Have and Have Not but was nonetheless quite zingy. But, as lidocafe remarked, the film was also filled with every attractive brunette in Hollywood, all exuding sex appeal and thrusting themselves at Philip Marlowe. There was even a female taxi driver (a first?) who had obviously been round the block more than a few times. The dialogue was snappy and amusing, the action tense and exciting. All in all, a most satisfactory movie-watching experience. Next week? Chinatown, which I've seen before, but look forward to enjoying again.

When Love Speaks

I'm spending some enjoyable time sampling the pleasures of this CD, which arrived from Amazon yesterday. It's some of Shakespeare's sonnets, read by wonderful British Actors. Some of them are put to music, too, but I haven't tried any of those yet. There are some treats: Ralph Fiennes, reading "Th'expense of spirit in a waste of shame" as if in the middle of love-making, complete with orgasm and post-coital relaxation. John Gielgud, Diana Rigg, Richard Briers, Jonathan Pryce, Timothy Spall, and many many more.

For a taste (and a marvellous one - you may be hooked) try a version of Sonnet 130 read by Alan Rickman. I have to send you to a link in someone else's blog - and I'm sorry that I don't remember who or what led me there, but am grateful to aslowhite for the post. Alan Rickman reads Sonnet 130 as a seduction - you'll swoon. One of my colleagues, to whom I sent the link, pointed out that he falls victim to the common misreading of "any she belied," reading "she" as a pronoun, subject of "belied," rather than, as it should be, noun, object in the phrase "as any she." Thus he promotes the interpretation "she's hideous, but I love her anyway." I tell my students I will beat them, or throw them out the window, if any of them interpret the sonnet that way, but lots do anyway, and now they have Alan Rickman supporting them. But, oh, you'll swoon, and it's worth it.

PS: lidocafe: I have already ordered a copy for the library.