O Solo M&Mio

OK, Uncle Joe. I get it. No one likes to ripped off in the Snickers or Rold Gold department. Shrinkflation is definitely a thing. How do we like our junk food? Just like we like our love (as the old song goes): “More, more, more.”

But those purveyors of Nacho Cheese Doritoes and Jujubes are crafty, aren't they? There was plenty of "more" at the multiplex snack counter the other night: popcorn by the barrelful, soda pop cups requiring two handed bicep curls for every sip, and candy bars that were --as Uncle Joe's well-snacked rival might say--"Yuuugge."

“Mi Dio! Hai mangiato tutti gli M&M's!!” Lise Davidsen in The Met’s Forza del Destino.

For a single moviegoer, alone in his power-reclining Barcalounger built for two, this presents a problem of will. My most recent cinema experience wasn't a diverting 100-minute Rom-Com or even a 3-hour space opera. I was there for a real opera--all 4-1/2 hours of Giuseppe Verdi's La Forza del Destino, recorded in performance at New York's Metropolitan Opera.

Since the virtual curtain rose at 6:30 pm, I arrived dinnerless and hungry. I nibbled through a clamshell of French fries as the heroine Leonora enters a cloistered convent after her country erupts in civil war. First intermission: plenty of time for dessert. Perhaps some nice cantucci accompanied by a vin santo (this was Verdi after all). The best I could do was a bag of M&Ms (plain, not peanut--I don't want anything natural interfering with the cold, industrial fact of my candy) and, yes, a glass of wine.

“Moderation be damned!”

I would have been content with a few of the "minis" that you toss into a trick-or-treater’s sack on Halloween. Or satisfied with the size I remember buying for a quarter at the corner drug store. But movie theaters offer but one size—definitely more than a single serving.

No problem, I fantasized. I'll nibble through my recommended daily allowance during Act Two, roll up the bag and save it for tomorrow. Yeah, right. On the big screen in front of me, Don Alvaro called for camaraderie in the long war ahead. On the seat beside me, the candy sang its own silent aria: "Paulo….Live for today! Seize the candy-coated moment! Moderation be damned!"

Need I tell you, dear reader, how this story ends. On screen, desolation and death. Vengeance has triumphed. A lone survivor sings mournfully of his lost love. Around me in my seat, the detritus of tragedy--a rainbow-stained palm, a crumpled wrapper. And deep inside, satisfaction tinged with regret. Not to mention a bit of a tummy ache.

The Way We Live Now

He is reputed to be one of the wealthiest men in the city. His palatial residence and other properties are considered by some to be the peak of luxury. By others—not so much. He is persuasive in his business dealings but known for inflating his assets to secure loans for projects that will never be realized. Relying on his reputation as a businessman, he eventually decides to run for public office. He wins. But his business methods eventually lead to some scrutiny in the press. He is investigated and has charges brought against him. His foreign wife sits by quietly as he maneuvers around the charges, relying on supporters to keep his career and interests afloat.  

Guess who.

The man in question is Augustus Melmotte, the main character in Anthony Trollope's novel, The Way We Live Now. Melmotte's "now" is late-19th-century London. This is a work of fiction, as they say, and any resemblance to real persons or events is purely coincidental. But really: it seems that "the way we lived then"--150 years ago-- isn't too different from "the way we’re living now."  

In Trollope's 800-page comedy of manners, Melmotte is surrounded by a web of dazzling comic creations that keep you moving briskly through the—um, yes—100 chapters. Felix Carbury is mildly lovable oaf, a solipsist adept at gambling away his widowed mother's meager income. To solve the family money problems, his mother persuades him to woo Melmotte’s awkward daughter, who falls for him hook, line and (sizable) dowry.

Felix’s admirable sister, Henrietta, has fallen in love with the admirable Paul Montague, who is way too admirable to definitively break with his “former” fiancee, Mrs. Hurtle, a widowed American of mystery who isn’t ready to be “former” just yet. Mrs. Hurtle ends up in a rooming house with Ruby Ruggles, Felix’s gal on the side and blows the whistle on his two-timing.

David Suchet wheels and deals as Augustus Melmotte in The Way We Live Now.

Meanwhile, Henrietta’s romance with Paul doesn’t sit well with the righteous and well-heeled Roger Carbury, who carries a serious torch for her. She’ll have none of Roger, thus denying her mother an easy way out of their family financial troubles. Thus love triangles become love polygons, which Trollope naturally transforms into a somewhat neatly ordered, Victorian coupling—pretty maids and masters all in a row. So go ahead, dive into Trollope’s world. It’s not quite our world, but at least you can chuckle through it.  

The Way We Stream Now

Matthew Macfadyen and Shirley Henderson in The Way We Live Now.

Perhaps you're not quite ready to tackle a Victorian doorstop just now. Fear not, for you are in the capable hands of Andrew Davies, who has distilled Trollope’s world into a 5-hour BBC mini series that is available to stream or check out from your local library. Davies is a practiced master of adapted literary sagas. He’s produced nearly fifty since the late ‘70s, including Sense & Sensibility, LIttle Dorrit, Middlemarch, War & Peace, and Les Miserables. His partner in Trollope here is none other than David Yates, who has been seriously ensconced in Harry Potter world since 2007 (he directed four of the original Potter films and all three of the Fantastic Beast prequels).

You might miss some of the verbal music and comic nuances of Trollope's wry prose, but the 2001 screen version is ripe with terrific performances from some now familiar actors. David Suchet, familiar as Hercule Poirot to PBS superfans, plays Augustus Melmotte, and provides the appropriate amount of scenery chewing for this larger-than-life character. Felix Carbury is none other than a young Matthew MacFayden of Succession fame, where he played another dolt scheming for a sizable inheritance. Paul Montague is played by Oppenheimer himself, this year's Oscar winner for Best Actor, Cillian Murphy. And Melmotte’s daughter, the object of Felix’s financial desires is played by Shirley Henderson, who would go on to work with Yates again as Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter movies.

Lost in Translation

Sometimes, a random grab off the library DVD shelf yields a treasure. Lost in Translation 2003) is a buddy movie like no other. Movie star Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is tired. Arriving in Tokyo to film a whiskey commercial, he’s appropriately awed by the Tokyo cityscape. But he is world weary and lonely, disheartened by his Hollywood life and a bit tired of his 25-year marriage. His wife sends him a package of carpet sample options for a remodeling project and his silent reaction would make Old Stone Face, Buster Keaton, proud.

Bill Murray and Scarlett Johanssen in Sophia Coppola’s Lost in Translation.

Charlotte (Scarlett Johanssen) has her own deadpan reaction to the city, but it’s a look of youthful fascination and curiosity (even though she plays a Yale graduate, Johanssen was only 19 at the time). In director Sophia Coppola's generous serving of reaction shots, we see her devour with city with her eyes--and it seems, her soul. Coppola's camera allows us to absorb Tokyo life right along with her: a video arcade with its crazed bleep-bloop music and players’ balletic enthusiasm, the stoic simplicity of a traditional wedding, the ethereal silence of a Buddhist temple.

Coppola's script (which won an Oscar for Best Screenplay) wisely allows the pair their own space for a good chunk of the movie. While Charlotte immerses herself in the city, Harris is put through a hilarious series of frustrating photo and video shoots. Eventually, they find each other. She’s not awed by his stardom. He drawn to her youth and curiosity. They are lonely. They opt to be lonely together.

The friendship teeters on the edge of romance, not because they see a life together, but because they are exactly what the other needs during this week in an otherworldly place. It somehow prepares their spirits to return to their own lives. And in the beautiful but enigmatic final scene, they thank each other for this week of being lost together.

M. Emmet Walsh

Hollywood is full of them: actors who are not red-carpet stars, but who can carry a scene and create an indelible character with some savvy choices. M. Emmet Walsh was one of those actors. He died this week at the age of 88.

He’ll probably be best remembered for his performance in Blood Simple—justly so. But you shouldn’t overlook the performance that persuaded Joel and Ethan Cohen to create a role for him in their debut film. Playing a parole officer in Ulu Grossbard’s Straight Time, Walsh conveyed his character’s hard-bitten experience with ex-cons. His cruel cynicism pushes Max Dembo (Dustin Hoffman) back into his criminal ways. He played over 120 roles like this in his life. As Walsh told Gilbert Gottfried in a 2018 podcast, looking back on his career, “There’s a lot of stuff out there. They’re not all ‘Hamlet.’ But I’m not ashamed of any of it.”

Have a good week.