Double Indemnity (1944)
Directed by: Billy Wilder
Screenplay: James M. Cain (novel); Billy Wilder, Raymond Chandler (screenplay)
Cast: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson
(via YouTube): Double Indemnity (1944) Full Film - Part 1/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N76LY0tmV_M
Double Indemnity (Film Noir)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn-RWYZYbsY
Double Indemnity opening
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcjfAAOBQx0
Double Indemnity - Trailer (1944)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3wjJcuGsVE
A unique gem + I always enjoy Billy Wilder films + funny + compelling.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Views Of The Void
Total internal reflections of Eve M. Kahn on the World Trade Center + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=1006
The Splendor Of Venice
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
Titian’s ideal of womanhood is seen not only in this picture, which inspired Mr Arnold Bennet’s novel with the same title, but in a number of exquisite portraits and figure paintings. According to Vasari, he painted mostly from his own imagination, and only used female models in case of necessity. Titian’s types have little in common with the small, brown, black-eyed maidens we usually associate with Venice. They are nearer akin to the fair-haired Lombard women or the Dianas and Junos of his Alpine home. Further, it is the proud majesty of the mature woman that Titian paints. His beautiful ‘Flora,’ in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, does not suggest spring time but, as Dr Muther has well said, ‘high summer in its rich, mature splendor.’ Never old, but never very young, Titian’s ‘mighty women’ seem to ‘beam in an eternal, powerful beauty.’
The same mature majesty characterises ‘The Magdalen’, to which Titian’s contemporary Vasari pays the following eloquent tribute: ‘Her hair falls about her neck and shoulders, her head is raised, and the eyes are fixed on Heaven, their redness and the tears still within them giving evidence of her sorrow for the sins of her past life. This picture, which is most beautiful, moves all who behold it to compassion.’
‘He touched nothing that he did not adorn.’ So it might be written of Titian, who ennobled all his sitters with something of his own majesty. The supreme example of his powers in this direction is the magnificent ‘Equestrian Portrait of Charles V’, now in the Prado at Madrid. In 1530, when the Emperor Charles V was in Bologna, Titian, by the intervention of his friend the poet Pietro Aretino, was invited to that city and commissioned to paint His Catholic Majesty in full armour. Vasari tells us the Emperor was so delighted with this portrait that he gave the artist a thousand gold crowns, declaring that he would never have his portrait done by any other painter; and he kept his imperial word, frequently employing Titian thereafter and always paying him a thousand crowns for each portrait.
Never was money better spent. This Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and King of Spain still fires our imagination, thanks to Titian. The historical truth about Charles V is that he was a pale, scrofulous, emaciated man, a prey to melancholy, full of hesitations and superstitious fears; so world-weary that in the end he abdicated from his imperial position, and shut himself up in a monastery where, with morbid satisfaction, surrounded by coffins and ticking clocks, he constantly rehearsed his own funeral. Titian shows us nothing of this. His wonderful imagination fastens on one great moment in the Emperor’s life, the day when he was the victor at Augsburg. A Black Knight in steel armor, riding over the battlefield at daybreak, the Emperor in this painting becomes ‘the personification of the coldness of a great general in battle, and of Destiny itself approaching, silent and unavoidable.’ Charles is here Napoleonic—but Napoleon had no Titian to immortalize his grandeur. Who would not pay a thousand crowns to be so transfigured for posterity?
Still painting in his ninetieth year with unabated vigor, still able as a nonagenarian to play the host with undiminished magnificence to King Henry III of France, this grand old patriarch finally went down in 1576, like some battered but indomitable man-of-war, with his colors still proudly flying. Even then it was not of old age that he died; he was a victim to the same pestilence which, sixty six years earlier, had carried off his young fellow pupil Giorgione. All Venice went into mourning when the greatest of her sons passed away, and the Senate set aside the decree that excluded victims of the plague from burial within church walls, so that Titian might be laid to rest in the Church of the Frari, within sight of his own picture of ‘The Assumption’.
The Splendor Of Venice (continued)
Titian’s ideal of womanhood is seen not only in this picture, which inspired Mr Arnold Bennet’s novel with the same title, but in a number of exquisite portraits and figure paintings. According to Vasari, he painted mostly from his own imagination, and only used female models in case of necessity. Titian’s types have little in common with the small, brown, black-eyed maidens we usually associate with Venice. They are nearer akin to the fair-haired Lombard women or the Dianas and Junos of his Alpine home. Further, it is the proud majesty of the mature woman that Titian paints. His beautiful ‘Flora,’ in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, does not suggest spring time but, as Dr Muther has well said, ‘high summer in its rich, mature splendor.’ Never old, but never very young, Titian’s ‘mighty women’ seem to ‘beam in an eternal, powerful beauty.’
The same mature majesty characterises ‘The Magdalen’, to which Titian’s contemporary Vasari pays the following eloquent tribute: ‘Her hair falls about her neck and shoulders, her head is raised, and the eyes are fixed on Heaven, their redness and the tears still within them giving evidence of her sorrow for the sins of her past life. This picture, which is most beautiful, moves all who behold it to compassion.’
‘He touched nothing that he did not adorn.’ So it might be written of Titian, who ennobled all his sitters with something of his own majesty. The supreme example of his powers in this direction is the magnificent ‘Equestrian Portrait of Charles V’, now in the Prado at Madrid. In 1530, when the Emperor Charles V was in Bologna, Titian, by the intervention of his friend the poet Pietro Aretino, was invited to that city and commissioned to paint His Catholic Majesty in full armour. Vasari tells us the Emperor was so delighted with this portrait that he gave the artist a thousand gold crowns, declaring that he would never have his portrait done by any other painter; and he kept his imperial word, frequently employing Titian thereafter and always paying him a thousand crowns for each portrait.
Never was money better spent. This Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and King of Spain still fires our imagination, thanks to Titian. The historical truth about Charles V is that he was a pale, scrofulous, emaciated man, a prey to melancholy, full of hesitations and superstitious fears; so world-weary that in the end he abdicated from his imperial position, and shut himself up in a monastery where, with morbid satisfaction, surrounded by coffins and ticking clocks, he constantly rehearsed his own funeral. Titian shows us nothing of this. His wonderful imagination fastens on one great moment in the Emperor’s life, the day when he was the victor at Augsburg. A Black Knight in steel armor, riding over the battlefield at daybreak, the Emperor in this painting becomes ‘the personification of the coldness of a great general in battle, and of Destiny itself approaching, silent and unavoidable.’ Charles is here Napoleonic—but Napoleon had no Titian to immortalize his grandeur. Who would not pay a thousand crowns to be so transfigured for posterity?
Still painting in his ninetieth year with unabated vigor, still able as a nonagenarian to play the host with undiminished magnificence to King Henry III of France, this grand old patriarch finally went down in 1576, like some battered but indomitable man-of-war, with his colors still proudly flying. Even then it was not of old age that he died; he was a victim to the same pestilence which, sixty six years earlier, had carried off his young fellow pupil Giorgione. All Venice went into mourning when the greatest of her sons passed away, and the Senate set aside the decree that excluded victims of the plague from burial within church walls, so that Titian might be laid to rest in the Church of the Frari, within sight of his own picture of ‘The Assumption’.
The Splendor Of Venice (continued)
I Sell Diamonds: Contrast In Methods
Louis Kornitzer's book, Gem Trader, is partly autobiographical and partly woven round the lore of pearls. It's educational + explains the distribution chain of gems, as they pass from hand to hand, from miner to cutter, from merchant to millionaire, from courtesan to receiver of stolen goods, shaping human lives as they go + the unique characters in the industry.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
Immediately, making me jump with surprise, the bird in the cage found its voice and echoed its mistress’s words. ‘Tanda hitam! Tanda hitam!’
I turned to Mirzah. ‘What does the lady say?’
‘She says ‘black spot’,’ he said. ‘She say the dimon’ he have a black spot.’
‘So it has,’ I admitted readily. ‘I was going to tell her so, but she was too quick for me.’
‘I tell her,’ said Mirzah.
‘Do so,’ I said. ‘and say also that the spot is so very, very small that even I, an expert trained to detect blemishes, can barely see it with my strong glass.’
Mirzah translated, and my compliment brought a smile to her lips, a sure indication that she was not too ancient to be impervious to flattery. When you have a young woman, flatter her about her beauty, when the lady’s age is doubtful flatter her about her charm, her intelligence, her wit, but when she is old compliment her on her eyesight. These are very useful rules.
None the less, I had not entirely succeeded in placating my shrewd client, for she raised her voice to a somewhat higher pitch and spoke volubly. Mirzah translated: ‘Why does the Englishman show a dimon’ good for beggarmen. Have you not told the merchant who I am, and that I can buy the best there is?’
‘So that’s it,’ I thought. ‘Then why was the fellow so emphatic about the price limit?’ But there was no time for speculation of that kind. The lady had to be answered.
‘Tell the lady,’ I commanded, ‘that I beg for her gracious pardon. My mistake arose from the facet that I am not familiar with the customs of this country. In my own land merchants show their meanest goods first and by degrees work up to their finest.’
He translated. She came back with: ‘Why is that?’
‘It is good showmanship,’ said I, ‘and frequently it saves the client’s face.’
‘How may that be?’
I replied that if we merchants were to begin by displaying our best, some customers on learning the price might not care to admit that it was good for their purse and then might not ask to see the inferior goods. But by using the other method the customer remained master of the situation, for he could say as long as he pleased: ‘Show me better—better—better.’
I saw that she was pleased with this explanation, and Mirzah said that she agreed there might be some little wisdom in my argument. But I also noticed that like the very old she was soon tired of talk and distraction, for she picked unceasingly at the folds of the tablecloth. It was clear to me that I must display at once the best that I had in stock, and make no more ado, and this I did. But she looked at each gem in perfunctory fashion, and at last burst forth: ‘It is true that I have been used to buying only the best. But this was for my own use and now I have given up bedecking myself in such finery. Let the merchant bear in mind that one may buy to give away. But black-spotted stones are omen of ill luck. One cannot give them, for the wearer might sicken or meet with misfortune. It is better to make no gifts at all than such stones.’
Finally I had brought out everything I had. But she remained petulant. If one stone was too thick another was too flat, a third had not sufficient fire to warm her into buying, and yet others must be rejected on the score of shape of tint. Nothing seemed to be right. Patience? Yes, I had plenty of that commodity and displayed stone after stone with the best of grace. But no! she knew what she wanted—that she would have or nothing at all.
Well, I dearly love clients who know what they want. It relieves me of great responsibility and much work. Obviously, I had nothing in my collection that was in the least desirable in her eyes. So I packed up in readiness to take my departure and would perhaps have been allowed to go forthwith but that I happened to look up and found her gaze riveted upon one particular wallet of the four—the very one into which I had thrust the paper containing the offending black-spotted stone which had earned her little lecture.
Was I right in suspecting that she might want that stone, after all, and that she was only restrained from asking to see it again by the remarks she had made? She could not lose face, and I, for my part, could not presume to exhibit the stone again. I would thus lose a sale and she would have to go without the very piece she wanted. What was to be done?
At that moment the unexpected happened. The old lady rose from her chair and turned her back upon us, in order to pick up from a table behind her the dish of sectioned fruit of which we were to partake by way of enjoying the traditional hospitality. I seized my chance, extracted from the wallet the slightly flawed stone, and slipped it into my trousers pocket. When she came back to the table, dish in hand, the four wallets had gone back into my attache-case.
Turning to Mirzah I said: ‘Tell the lady that I am sorry that so large a selection as I have shown should have contained nothing to please her; nevertheless I have yet one more diamond in my pocket which I should like to show with her kind permission before I go.’
‘It could do no harm,’ she said graciously.
So I brought the black-spotted stone out of my pocket, and she examined it most critically.
‘Why, this is just what I want!’ she exclaimed. ‘See how these European merchants will insist on showing their poor goods first, and will only bring out what is good when the customer refuses to be fooled.’ For I had this time put a fairly stiff price on the diamond.
She clapped her hands. A Chinese amah appeared. She handed her a bunch of keys and when the woman returned with the money she counted out to me the price I had asked. We had taken our refreshment and now paid our final respects. As I made my final bows to the old lady, she raised her forefinger admonishingly.
It was only then that I realized that the tell-tale mirror she had faced, when I took the opportunity of slipping the stone into my pocket, had betrayed me. As I turned and skated warily in my clumsy shoes over the crystal floor I heard behind me the beating of wings and accusing falsetto screech: ‘Tanda hitam! Tanda hitam!’ The cockatoo had had the last word.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
Immediately, making me jump with surprise, the bird in the cage found its voice and echoed its mistress’s words. ‘Tanda hitam! Tanda hitam!’
I turned to Mirzah. ‘What does the lady say?’
‘She says ‘black spot’,’ he said. ‘She say the dimon’ he have a black spot.’
‘So it has,’ I admitted readily. ‘I was going to tell her so, but she was too quick for me.’
‘I tell her,’ said Mirzah.
‘Do so,’ I said. ‘and say also that the spot is so very, very small that even I, an expert trained to detect blemishes, can barely see it with my strong glass.’
Mirzah translated, and my compliment brought a smile to her lips, a sure indication that she was not too ancient to be impervious to flattery. When you have a young woman, flatter her about her beauty, when the lady’s age is doubtful flatter her about her charm, her intelligence, her wit, but when she is old compliment her on her eyesight. These are very useful rules.
None the less, I had not entirely succeeded in placating my shrewd client, for she raised her voice to a somewhat higher pitch and spoke volubly. Mirzah translated: ‘Why does the Englishman show a dimon’ good for beggarmen. Have you not told the merchant who I am, and that I can buy the best there is?’
‘So that’s it,’ I thought. ‘Then why was the fellow so emphatic about the price limit?’ But there was no time for speculation of that kind. The lady had to be answered.
‘Tell the lady,’ I commanded, ‘that I beg for her gracious pardon. My mistake arose from the facet that I am not familiar with the customs of this country. In my own land merchants show their meanest goods first and by degrees work up to their finest.’
He translated. She came back with: ‘Why is that?’
‘It is good showmanship,’ said I, ‘and frequently it saves the client’s face.’
‘How may that be?’
I replied that if we merchants were to begin by displaying our best, some customers on learning the price might not care to admit that it was good for their purse and then might not ask to see the inferior goods. But by using the other method the customer remained master of the situation, for he could say as long as he pleased: ‘Show me better—better—better.’
I saw that she was pleased with this explanation, and Mirzah said that she agreed there might be some little wisdom in my argument. But I also noticed that like the very old she was soon tired of talk and distraction, for she picked unceasingly at the folds of the tablecloth. It was clear to me that I must display at once the best that I had in stock, and make no more ado, and this I did. But she looked at each gem in perfunctory fashion, and at last burst forth: ‘It is true that I have been used to buying only the best. But this was for my own use and now I have given up bedecking myself in such finery. Let the merchant bear in mind that one may buy to give away. But black-spotted stones are omen of ill luck. One cannot give them, for the wearer might sicken or meet with misfortune. It is better to make no gifts at all than such stones.’
Finally I had brought out everything I had. But she remained petulant. If one stone was too thick another was too flat, a third had not sufficient fire to warm her into buying, and yet others must be rejected on the score of shape of tint. Nothing seemed to be right. Patience? Yes, I had plenty of that commodity and displayed stone after stone with the best of grace. But no! she knew what she wanted—that she would have or nothing at all.
Well, I dearly love clients who know what they want. It relieves me of great responsibility and much work. Obviously, I had nothing in my collection that was in the least desirable in her eyes. So I packed up in readiness to take my departure and would perhaps have been allowed to go forthwith but that I happened to look up and found her gaze riveted upon one particular wallet of the four—the very one into which I had thrust the paper containing the offending black-spotted stone which had earned her little lecture.
Was I right in suspecting that she might want that stone, after all, and that she was only restrained from asking to see it again by the remarks she had made? She could not lose face, and I, for my part, could not presume to exhibit the stone again. I would thus lose a sale and she would have to go without the very piece she wanted. What was to be done?
At that moment the unexpected happened. The old lady rose from her chair and turned her back upon us, in order to pick up from a table behind her the dish of sectioned fruit of which we were to partake by way of enjoying the traditional hospitality. I seized my chance, extracted from the wallet the slightly flawed stone, and slipped it into my trousers pocket. When she came back to the table, dish in hand, the four wallets had gone back into my attache-case.
Turning to Mirzah I said: ‘Tell the lady that I am sorry that so large a selection as I have shown should have contained nothing to please her; nevertheless I have yet one more diamond in my pocket which I should like to show with her kind permission before I go.’
‘It could do no harm,’ she said graciously.
So I brought the black-spotted stone out of my pocket, and she examined it most critically.
‘Why, this is just what I want!’ she exclaimed. ‘See how these European merchants will insist on showing their poor goods first, and will only bring out what is good when the customer refuses to be fooled.’ For I had this time put a fairly stiff price on the diamond.
She clapped her hands. A Chinese amah appeared. She handed her a bunch of keys and when the woman returned with the money she counted out to me the price I had asked. We had taken our refreshment and now paid our final respects. As I made my final bows to the old lady, she raised her forefinger admonishingly.
It was only then that I realized that the tell-tale mirror she had faced, when I took the opportunity of slipping the stone into my pocket, had betrayed me. As I turned and skated warily in my clumsy shoes over the crystal floor I heard behind me the beating of wings and accusing falsetto screech: ‘Tanda hitam! Tanda hitam!’ The cockatoo had had the last word.
New Emerald Treatment
The gem industry reports that the gem chefs (gem treaters) are treating highly fractured rough Colombian emeralds with polymers that act as a glue to hold stones together. The level of treatment can vary considerably and impact the durability + price. If in doubt, always consult a reputed gem testing laboratory.
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor + he was regarded as one of the most influential + finest pianists of the 20th century. Rachmaninoff's style was distinctively Russian.
I love his music.
Useful links:
www.rachmaninoff.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Rachmaninoff
I love his music.
Useful links:
www.rachmaninoff.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Rachmaninoff
Monday, December 10, 2007
Generosity May Be In The Genes
(via BBC): A study by The Hebrew University of Jerusalem reveals that those who had certain variants of a gene called AVPR1a were on average nearly 50% more likely to give money away + the experts see an interesting relationship between DNA variability and real human altruism. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7133079.stm
Useful link:
www.ibngs.org
Useful link:
www.ibngs.org
Drunken Master II
Drunken Master II (1994)
Directed by: Chia-Liang Liu, Jackie Chan
Screenplay: Edward Tang, Man-Ming Tong, Kai-Chi Yun
Cast: Jackie Chan, Felix Wong
(via YouTube): Drunken Master II (1) 醉拳
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyExHRoIAjU
The Legend of Drunken Master (Jui kuen II)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffQGz3DMoyQ
Drunken Master II (3) 醉拳
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypPSnUcLJNA
I enjoy watching Jackie Chan's beautifully choreographed action films + those death-defying stunts are stunning
Directed by: Chia-Liang Liu, Jackie Chan
Screenplay: Edward Tang, Man-Ming Tong, Kai-Chi Yun
Cast: Jackie Chan, Felix Wong
(via YouTube): Drunken Master II (1) 醉拳
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyExHRoIAjU
The Legend of Drunken Master (Jui kuen II)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffQGz3DMoyQ
Drunken Master II (3) 醉拳
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypPSnUcLJNA
I enjoy watching Jackie Chan's beautifully choreographed action films + those death-defying stunts are stunning
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