It’s LATE. Gotta make this one short.
Productive day! Got my Netflix stuff done early, and then the Ho and I worked on the project. It’s coming along! Close. Hung out with the pups. It was a busy, solid day.
Oh! And tonight, since Liz was over hanging out with Kristen, I watched a movie on my own. The Seventh Seal, the film that made Ingomar Bergman an internationally know “auteur.” It was interesting. I wouldn’t say that it was entirely successful for me—the overt PRESENTATION of that aesthetic is not my bag; it rarely moves me—but there were undoubtedly some things that stuck out. Like Max Von Sydow. What a face! And he was a very capable performer. Good lord, I’d so much rather have him as Lawrence of Arabia over Peter O’Toole. And the visuals, particularly in the opening couple scenes, when he sits down to play chess with the devil. The burning of the witch was also legit captivating, as was the actor being bullied in the tavern. But the overall story? Was there one? And while I appreciate a meditation on death and the existence of God, it was far too intellectual to me, far too on the nose, too impersonal. Didn’t make me feel anything.
Wrap all that up in a nails, freight train of a story? I’m aaaalllll the way in.
That’s all to say, there are parts of that movie that will stick with me. And it’s interesting to see Bergman in his earlier days. He’d made a ton of films before that, actually, but it was Seventh Seal apparently that put him on the map, really, and kicked off a string of films that are considered to be masterpieces. So, not entirely effective, it could have been so, soooo much better…but it was still interesting and thought provoking. At times really good.
Night.