In the Mood for a Moonlight Serenade

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What a week! New term, I have a few classes in common with Anna Popplewell (who played Susan in both The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian) and I went to a concert for the first time! But first things first:

You absolutely have to go see An Education (2009). I was eagerly waiting for this movie for it stars none other than Carey Mulligan who has been one of my favourite actresses for four years. I believe I've seen practically everything she's done and yet she managed to completely blow me away in this extremely well-crafted piece. She deserved a Golden Globe for Best Actress so much, I'm really shocked she lost to Sandra Bullock of all people. I fell head over heels for this film - the story is simple. In 1961, a young woman, Jenny (Carey) who lives in a dull suburb of London and who dreams of going to Oxford to read English meets meets a charming older man, David. He'll show her everything she ever dreamt of seeing: Oxford, Paris, jazz clubs, nice restaurants. Jenny is greatly intelligent, she's not clueless at all (her approach to sex is actually quite refreshing for the era) and shows that intelligence isn't only book-smarts. I don't want to spoil anybody as to the plot of the whole movie but let's just say it's a reflection on education, on privileges and on happiness - all themes very dear to me. The movie is impeccable from beginning to end, the last sentence being so practically perfect in every way. There's also a moment, a tiny moment when Jenny has an important conversation with her headmistress (Emma Thompson, brilliant) about the point of education that is so clearly going to be the clip shown at the Academy Awards that it left me completely speechless. Oh sorry I really have to spoil you to express my feelings accurately, don't read if you haven't seen the movie or don't want to know the end:

Ms Walters: Nobody does anything worth doing without a degree.
Jenny: Nobody does anything worth doing with a degree. No woman anyway.
Ms Walters: So what I do isn't worth doing? Or Ms Stubbs does, or Mrs Wilson, or any of us here? Because none of us would be here without a degree. You do realise that, don't you? And yes, of course, studying is hard and boring...
Jenny: Boring!
Ms Walters: I'm sorry?
Jenny: Studying is hard and boring. Teaching is hard and boring. So what you're telling me is to be bored, and then bored, and finally bored again and this time for the rest of my life? This whole stupid country is bored! There's no life in it, or colour, or fun. It's probably just as well the Russians are going to drop a nuclear bomb on us any day so... My choice is to do something hard and boring or to marry my Jew and go to Paris and Rome and listen to jazz and read and eat good food in nice restaurants and have fun. It's not enough to educate us anymore Ms Walters, you've got to tell us why you're doing it.
(Ms Walters fails to give an answer)
Jenny: I don't want to be impertinent, Ms Walters. But it is an argument worth rehearsing. You never know, someone else might want to know the point of it all one day.

And on that note, she quits school. But after finding out David isn't who he is (and this part is handled so subtly) she realises she can't give up on her dream, she applies to Oxford and after a lot of hard work, she gets in (it's so eerie seeing Oxford on the big screen it's like seeing one's bedroom on the big screen, feels so personal). It made me question a lot of things. (I want to teach but at the time Jenny, because she's a woman had a choice between teaching and being a civil servant, a choice she resented. Did I chose this profession because I too felt it was the only one I could access? Worth thinking about, and terrifying of course). Jenny's fears and arguments make a lot of sense when you think about it. But this movie is incredibly smart - to me, Jenny realises she has to be her own self and discover this life by herself by getting there with a mind of her own, not because she's tied up to somebody else on whom she depends. The last line is all about that, self-discovery, education for the sake of education. Jenny dates other boys and "One of the boys suggested that we go to Paris and I said I'd always wanted to see Paris. As if I'd never been." I relate so much to Jenny it's as if the film had been written for me. One of the best movies I've ever seen, for sure.

I finally read my first play by Oscar Wilde - up till now I had read Dorian Gray, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and I was looking forward to discover more of his writings, so I borrowed a copy of The Importance of Being Earnest from the library. I was not disappointed, this play is really good. It's a classic tale of mistaken identities with a lot of comedy thrown in, most of it provided by the wonderful character of Cecily - a young woman whose personality is so interesting she completely steals the show. She creates her own reality - when she's in love, she writes letters to herself and pretends they're from her lover and then thanks her fictional lover for his letters. "Do you remember when you called off the engagement?" she asks to a confused Algernon, and she produces the letter she wrote in Algernon's name explaining the whole affair as she imagined it.
There's also some great situation comedy in the first scene in which Algernon eats the cucumber sandwiches made for his Aunt and keeps assuring his friend they're for his aunt before helping himself to some more. An absolute delight of a play, it's witty and entertaining and I'm looking forward to reading more by Wilde.

I've just (a few minutes ago, I had typed this post before and now I'm adding this paragraph) come back from the Glenn Miller Orchestra concert at the Oxford Playhouse. I'm at a loss for words. This was my first concert ever and boy did it deliver. Absolutely fantastic. I had a dream seat (row C, seat 12) and couldn't have been more ideally placed. I was by far the only person under the age of 50 that I could see but I do believe I was the most enthusiastic - to be quite honest my mouth might need surgery because I just couldn't stop smiling for two hours and a half! I was often the first one to clap after a song and I was for sure the first person to stand up to clap the whole orchestra at the end of the concert. People were a bit... slow but the row behind me was super enthusiastic as well. It's such a wonderful feeling to be sharing this music with other people.
I don't know if the seating arrangement is the best - I for one wanted to dance so bad during several songs but had to stay still in my seat.
The orchestra was absolutely splendid. Not one mistake, completely flawless and the selection of songs was amazing. Moonlight Serenade live is pure heaven. It outranked In the Mood as my personal favourite and trust me that was a challenge. Insanely catchy and gorgeous during the slow songs, we were treated to a tribute to Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin in the middle and one last rendition of My Favorite Things by Rogers and Hammerstein. Other highlights included Tuxedo Junction and When the Saints Go Marching In. Worth every single pound. Just to give you a clearer picture: I actually cried, literally, when they played their first song. I couldn't believe my luck - most of the artists I love are long dead. And the song was Anchors Aweigh, one of Miller's catchiest. One of the musicians was in Benny Goodman's band for years. Can you imagine?
DO try and see them if you can, it's a terrific experience. I can't believe this was my first concert, it set the bar so high!

See you soon for the next adventure!

Sibylle

It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)

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Guess who has tickets to the Glenn Miller Orchestra concert on January 23? That's right! And row C if you please because I jumped on the chance as soon as I saw this performance on next year's schedule. Saying that I can't wait is a massive understatement.
I don't know yet if I want to post a reminder of what I loved this year, 2009 was pretty bad in terms of new discoveries. September was the worst month of them all and it's a wonder I survived it. 2010 is likely to be as busy as I'll be preparing a really hard exam to sit in June 2011 (only 10% of those who sit pass). But none of that now. I have new names to be excited about so without further ado, let me introduce you to...

P.G. Wodehouse. Now why, why did I wait so long? His books are a complete riot. I grabbed an omnibus at random from the library and it ended up being an omnibus of his last two Jeeves and Wooster novels, Much Obliged, Jeeves and Aunts Aren't Gentlemen, but no matter, they stand well on their own, some references to previous stories were lost on me but not so much that I felt lost. I fell head over heels for him. I am SO glad he was such a prolific writer - he wrote several series of books and a whole shelf worth of stand-alone titles. Jeeves is Wooster's sparkling and bright valet (now that's social commentary for you, that the valet should by far be smarter than the gentleman - by the way, did you know that a valet serves a person whereas a butler serves a house? Fascinating stuff). The latter is terribly slow-minded and gets himself into tricky situations Jeeves saves him from. It's seriously hilarious, their dialogs are an absolute delight and Wooster's utterly eccentric world of the idle rich is captivating and extremely well-captured. The books are formulaic so having read one is having read them all. That being said, both Much Obliged, Jeeves and Aunts Aren't Gentlemen are absolutely excellent and I'd be sorry to miss out on any book by Wodehouse, formulaic or not. I'm well aware of the existence of the TV show starring Stephen Fry as Jeeves and Hugh Laurie as Wooster, which I'll most likely start watching very soon. I sure hope they've done something different with the characters as I'll be reading the books and wouldn't want to be told the same story twice.

I also finished Author, Author by David Lodge. I'm not sure it was such a wise choice to start with this book as an introduction to Lodge. The novel is in fact a biography of Henry James in the form of a novel so the voice was really James' and not the author's. It was enjoyable enough, even though I came to dislike the author, the secondary characters were interesting enough to keep me going. At least, it convinced me I absolutely need to try Oscar Wilde next year as I've delayed this discovery long enough.

In terms of movies, I saw a few but only two stood out. Coco avant Chanel (2009) isn't a very good movie - it's a romance, and romances bore me to tears unless they're funny. This one wasn't. Still, Gabrielle's personality won me over, she's a woman who knows what she's capable of, is honest to the point of bluntness, and doesn't accept charity from anyone on the grounds that she's a woman. She's an orphan and laughs at the eccentricities of the idle rich while she makes sure she finds a job to look after herself. At the turn of the 20th century, it's quite remarkable. She freed women from corsets and created pieces of clothing that were both comfortable and classy so women could breathe and laugh.

It Happened one Night (1934) is believed to be the first screwball comedy - it's one of these movies I'd always planned on watching but up till now I was always keeping it for last as I've reached the end of my list of screwball comedies to check out. Claudette Colbert plays Ellie, an heiress who flees her father's tyranny, meets Peter (Clark Gable playing a journalist) on her way to New York and after a while, falls for him. I've expressed my dislike for Clark Gable before but I'll admit he's actually pretty good in this picture. Their exchanges are quite funny for a while as Ellie does everything in her power to escape Peter whom she doesn't like but as in all screwballs, initial negative reaction leads to witty banter which in its turn leads to realization of true feelings. Colbert is a great actress, I'm glad I finally watched a movie with her.

Have you ever felt that a work of fiction had been created for you and just for you? It's actually different from loving a work to pieces, I'm talking about things you had no idea were in you but which a work of fiction made you realize had been here for as long as you could remember but you didn't have enough vocabulary to express it accurately? It happened to me once with The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst, it was terrifying. And it's happened to me this week again, with music. This time I don't feel terror as much as relief. Django Reinhardt's music, The The Temperance Seven's music and Chris Barber's music are simply me. I've beaten around the bush for so long, feeling it was here, closer to who I was but not quite and then I stumbled upon them and it was a complete shock. Finally. Home. Reinhardt pretty much created gypsy jazz, The Temperance Seven and Chris Barber make the most incredibly catchy big band music ever. The Temperance Seven's rendition of The Charleston may just be my favourite song. I want to learn how to dance the Charleston so bad. It reminded me of Mad Men. In My Old Kentucky Home, an episode from season three, Pete and Trudy dance to that. They're complete show-offs but I would kill to be them for just the duration of this dance. So here are several things:

First of all, a contemporary rendition of Reinhardt's Minor Swing:


Django Reinhardt performing The Sheik of Araby:


Chris Barber and his band performing Bobby Shaftoe:


The Temperance Seven's rendition of The Charleston and Black Bottom:


And finally Pete and Trudy dancing to an instrumental version of The Charleston:





That's likely to be my last post of 2009. Have excellent fun with the rest of December, I'll catch you next year!

Sibylle

Quick post to urge you all to head over to Obscure Classics - some truly excellent posts to be found there these days and many movies to add to my list of films to watch. Now go read and watch, and don't forget the popcorn. Shoo, shoo!

Charles Farrell and Mary Duncan on a still from The River (1929) by the wonderful Frank Borzage.