Errata is a web journal written by Robert Davis who has neither spent a night in a ghost town nor pulled a turnip from the earth. He doesn't even know if turnips grow in the ground. Perhaps on trees, like candy corn. Therefore, Errata is a non-commercial project.

Observation #1: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious."

Observation #2: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious" at the top of your lungs. Bring your eyebrows together before you say it. Effective!

Observation #3: Same for books. Even at libraries.

There is a prize for people who correctly guess the thing about Metropolis, Nevada.

Except where the text specifically states otherwise, Errata's vagaries are indicated vaguely and its authors are indistinct in the traditional way of the Internet, except where the authors lay claim to their work. In some cases Robert Davis lays claim to work that is not his own but has been abandoned like so many ghost towns. Except where held presently, fistfuls of dirt are suspended via dispersal, or dispersed via suspension (in the air), and thus their dissolution is their transcendence, or their transcendence is their dissolution. And yet our eyes tear, and our vision is impaired, demonstrating for the umpteenth time that one entity's gain is another's fit of sneezes. Except where indicated, storms shall outlive the clay upon which they rain, unless storms are improperly delimited by their clouds, which dissolve, rather than by their inevitable return. Thus the clay loses, unless the clay is said to own the storm, to use it to make itself heavy, to make itself cling to white garments, refuse dispersal, cake upon the facades of abandoned buildings, and sit like Man [sic] upon the earth where it is pelted by a storm that it owns. In which case the clay still loses, if you ask us.

Some of the above is legally binding and should be considered a mental contract between Errata and those upon whom it acts. The bit about the prize should be considered an overstatement insofar as prizes differ from dirt and prize dispersal differs from dirt dispersal. Please recall that ownership is a weight and, therefore, hope that you do not win the prize.

One day Errata or its representatives will call upon you for a favor. It is expected that you will hop-to without delay.

You may contact Robert Davis by email unless it's about the rock that was thrown in anger. The rock is more properly called a clod. Why do you continue to raise the topic?

25 May 2004

Colour Me Kubrick

Greetings from London. I hadn't planned to see many movies this week, but I made a list of possibilities, anyway, and it looks like I may have a chance to catch Distant, after all. It opens here on Friday, which is a nice surprise since I missed its brief run at home a few weeks ago.

Anyway...

I ran across a small article in this week's Sunday Times Magazine about a guy named Alan Conway who went around London and elsewhere claiming to be Stanley Kubrick.

The fact that he didn't look remotely like the famous director did not matter: his deceit was helped by Kubrick's decision to spend the latter part of his life as a recluse. Conway was born Eddie Jablowsky in 1934 in London's East End. As a child he fell into petty crime, and while in borstal he changed his name to (aptly enough) Alan Conn. Several dodgy deals, name changes and fake credit cards later, he took Kubrick's identity as a key to a more lavish lifestyle.

This isn't news. Here's an article from 1999 that gives some of the details.

Now the curious thing is that someone is making a movie about this, called Colour Me Kubrick and starring John Malkovich as Conway. The director is Brian W. Cook who's making his directorial debut, although he's been working in the movies for a while and was even a co-producer of Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut.

All of this will sound strangely familiar to fans of Abbas Kiarostami's Close Up, one of Kiarostami's most acclaimed movies, a fascinating tale about a guy named Ali Sabzian who pretended to be well-known Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. But Sabzian's trickery is about as different from Conway's exploits as Makhmalbaf's movies are from Kubrick's. Rather than jetting around the globe as someone else, Sabzian spent time prepping a family to star in his next film, going over to their house to talk with them and act out scenes.

This really happened, and then Kiarostami made a movie about it, but in typical reflective fashion he constructed his movie like a mobius strip: he cast the actual people — Sabzian and the family — as themselves and had them reenact the events for his camera; he filmed a sudden meeting between Sabzian and the real Makhmalbaf; and he filmed the court hearing in which Sabzian's mother testifies, the point where the movie becomes surprisingly emotional. With a layer of mirrors, Close Up gradually becomes a poetic examination of life and desire, and Kiarostami uses the prestige of movies as a reflection of that desire. Why, after all, would someone fantasize about being a celebrity or be flattered that one wants to come into his home?

(It's related to something that Hitchcock explores in Rear Window, I think, which just came up in a separate post. Jimmy Stewart wishes that he and his girlfriend had a more exciting life, like in the movies, and he projects that desire onto what he sees through his window — like a movie screen — but be careful what you wish for. His girlfriend breaks the barrier by stepping into the screen, which opens the door for the nefarious characters on the other side who then step out of the screen and into Stewart's apartment. Who's watching whom?)

Whether Colour Me Kubrick will be more like Close Up or Catch Me If You Can is anyone's guess, but it's interesting to imagine what someone who's willing to step through the looking glass, as Kiarostami was, could make of this material, especially with Malkovich in the role. He has not only played directors in the past, but he has also played "himself" in Being John Malkovich, a character we know isn't really him but instead a reflection of his celebrity.

Colour Me Kubrick opens later this year.

Posted by davis | Link

Reader Comments

May 29, 2004, 01:59 PM

acquarello

The Guardian article seems to be slanted towards a Six Degrees of Separation type vibe, which I can see Malkovich pulling off (in a kind of Ripley's Game enigmatic persona). It'll be interesting to see which approach they'll use.

June 2, 2004, 07:24 AM

davis

Hmm, those are two interesting comparisons, acquarello. I haven't seen either of them.

I'm curious about the movie, but I'm even more curious about the Kubrick collection that's being exhibited at a museum -- is it in Germany? Now that sounds entertaining.

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