Τετάρτη 25/01/2012

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Έχασε τη μάχη ο διάσημος σκηνοθέτης Θεόδωρος Αγγελόπουλος μετά από τροχαίο

(πηγή: Newsit.gr)

THEO ANGELOPOULOS / ULYSSES' GAZE, from www.someslashthings.com

 EXCERPT FROM A TEXT BASED ON A CONVERSATION BETWEEN THEO ANGELOPOULOS & MONIKA BIELSKYTE 

ULYSSES’ GAZE / I CHOSE TO MAKE A FILM IN THE BALKANS. AS YOU MAY KNOW, THE BEGINNING OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR HAPPENED IN THE BALKANS & DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR IT WAS THE BALKANS WHO RESISTED MORE THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY IN EUROPE, BESIDES RUSSIA. THEN THE YUGOSLAVIAN WAR HAPPENED, THE COUNTRY TEARING ITS OWN BODY APART. I WANTED TO MAKE A FILM THAT WAS A VOYAGE THROUGH THE BALKANS DURING THE WAR & WITH THE WAR ALSO AS A SUBJECT. THE REAL SUBJECT OF THE FILM, OF COURSE, IS NOT THE WAR, BUT THE STORY OF A MAN THAT TRIES TO RECONSTITUTE HIS LOST GAZE. HE TRIES TO FIND ONE OF THE EARLIEST MOVIES, A SHORT MOVIE SHOT DURING THE TURN OF THE CENTURY, BY THE MANAKI BROTHERS, THAT WAS LOST OR MAYBE NEVER EVEN DEVELOPED. A LOST GAZE IS A PARABLE ABOUT A FILMMAKER, A DIRECTOR THAT LOOKS AT THE WORLD. TRYING TO FIND YOUR LOST GAZE IS ABOUT TRYING TO FIND SOMETHING ESSENTIAL THAT HAS BEEN LOST— THE PRESENT & THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD.

THAT’S WHAT WE LIVED DURING THE LOCATION SCOUTING, WE LIVED THE WAR. WE NEEDED GUTS TO GO THROUGH ALL THESE DIFFERENT GROUPS OF PEOPLE, ALL THESE DIFFERENT NATIONALITIES, DIFFERENT ETHNICITIES— SERBS, CROATS— TO SCOUT THE LOCATIONS TO SEE & UNDERSTAND WHAT WAS HAPPENING. YOU KNOW THAT TAKING A RISK TO MAKE SOMETHING THAT IS DANGEROUS IS VERY EXCITING. I REMEMBER ONCE, I HAD TO GO SEE A LOCATION BUT THERE WAS A GROUP OF SERBS, REALLY TALL PEOPLE, & THEY WOULDN’T LET US PASS, SO I HAD TO GO & SEE THE LEADER OF THE MOB, & EXPLAIN TO HIM THAT IT WAS REALLY IMPORTANT TO MAKE A MOVIE ON THE LOCATION. THE FACT THAT I WAS A FILMMAKER HAD SOMEHOW CONVINCED HIM & HE GAVE ME AN ARMED MAN, NOT TO PROTECT ME BUT TO FOLLOW ME. I HAVE HAD AN EXTRAORDINARY VISIT TO THE PLACE & I HAVE SEEN THINGS I CAN NEVER FORGET, UNIQUE THINGS, THINGS THAT YOU WILL NEVER SEE AGAIN. AFTER THIS VOYAGE, THE IDEA FOR THE FILM, ULYSSES’ GAZE, HAD CRYSTALLISED & IT HAD TO BE MADE. THERE WAS ANOTHER CONFLICT, ANOTHER PROVOCATION FOR THIS FILM. WHEN I WAS SHOOTING THE SUSPENDED STEP OF THE STORK, IN THE SMALL TOWN OF FLORINA, THE BISHOP OF THE TOWN HAD EXCOMMUNICATED US BECAUSE HE THOUGHT WE WERE AN ENVOY OF SATAN, THE DEVIL. MASTROIANNI & JEANNE MOREAU WERE WITH US, IT WAS AN UNFORGETTABLE STORY. I DECIDED TO SHOOT THERE, IN FLORINA, WITH THE PEOPLE OF THE TOWN, NEARLY HALF OF THE POPULATION, & THIS TIME THE BISHOP DIDN’T INTERVENE, HE LET US SHOOT & SO IT WAS OUR FIRST SMALL VICTORY. BUT SOMETHING VERY SAD HAPPENED, THE DEATH OF GIAN MARIA VOLONTÉ. WE WERE GOING FROM ZAGREB TO SKOPJE BY PLANE, & FROM SKOPJE TO FLORINA BY BUS, & DURING THE WHOLE TRIP, GIAN MARIA WAS AT THE BACK OF THE BUS & HE SANG LA MARSEILLAISE ALL NIGHT LONG, DRUNK, THROUGHOUT OUR VOYAGE. WHEN WE ARRIVED & STARTED TO WORK, HE WAS WALKING AROUND DAZED, IN THE HALL OF THE HOTEL IN FLORINA, & HE CAME TOWARDS ME & STARTED TELLING ME SILENTLY, ‘THEO, THEO, C’EST LA RIVE GAUCHE LÀ, N’EST-CE PAS, C’EST LA RIVE GAUCHE?’... & HE CONTINUED TO WALK DAZED. THE NEXT MORNING I WAS WOKEN BY THE HOUSEMAID WHO BROUGHT ME TO GIAN MARIA VOLONTÉ’S ROOM & HE WAS DEAD, NAKED, IN HIS BATHROOM WITH A PILLOW UNDER HIS HEAD. HE WAS SLEEPING NAKED, IN THE BATHROOM. WE HAD HIS FUNERAL IN THAT TINY CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FOREST NEAR FLORINA, WITH THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF THE TOWN. THE CHURCH WAS SO SMALL THAT ONLY ONE PERSON AT A TIME COULD COME IN, & SO PEOPLE WERE COMING, ONE BY ONE, AFTER THE OTHER, & DURING ALL THIS TIME, MOZART’S REQUIEM WAS PLAYING. IT WAS AN EXTRAORDINARY, UNIQUE, MOMENT, & SO IT WAS THE END OF OUR TRIP DURING THE BALKANS AT WAR. THERE ARE SO MANY STORIES BEHIND THIS MOVIE, BUT I CANNOT TELL YOU ALL OF THEM AT THE SAME TIME...]

Wrangling Over Income Inequality: A Comprehensive Review And Critique Of Robert Reich's Book 'Aftershock', by Dr.Duru, seeking alpha, 20/01/2012

Highlight Summary
Robert Reich reviews America’s history with income inequality and how it helped to weaken the economy going into the Great Depression and the Great Recession. He is inspired by Marriner Eccles, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board from 1934-1948. Eccles concluded in his memoirs that the Great Depression was caused by the increased concentration of wealth which reduced the purchasing power of everyone else. This process compromised the ability for consumers to purchase enough of the economy’s (potential) output to sustain growth:

 

As mass production has to be accompanied by mass consumption, mass consumption, in turn, implies a distribution of wealth – not of existing wealth, but of wealth as it is currently produced – to provide men with buying power equal to the amount of goods and services offered by the nation’s economic machinery…as in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped.

(p17-18) – Eccles, 1950

 

 

Reich describes how a restoration of balance helped drive America’s post-war prosperity. He also warns that a future of persistent income inequality has the potential to fuel a reactionary political movement that seeks to punish the rich even if it further worsens the economy. Reich concludes with a substantial list of recommended solutions that almost all rely on government intervention and income transfers. Even as Reich occasionally resorts to moralizing and dipping into the well of “American values,” he exerts considerable effort on presenting data (although sometimes poorly referenced or incomplete), pragmatism, and a holistic view of the economy.

The following three quotes from the book effectively demonstrate Reich’s core premise and principles:

 

The fundamental problem is that Americans no longer have the purchasing power to buy what the U.S. economy is capable of producing. The reason is that a larger and larger portion of total income is going to the top. What’s broken is the basic bargain linking pay to production. The solution is to remake the bargain. (p75)

If the underlying ‘fundamentals’ are in order; if consumers are subsequently capable of spending and saving; if businesses have good reasons to invest; if governments maintain a fair balance between public needs and fiscal restraint; if the global economy efficiently allocates savings around the world, and if the environment can be sustained – then we can expect healthy and stable growth. But if these conditions are out of whack, economies as well as societies become imperiled. (p5)

Unless America’s middle class receives a fair share, it cannot consume nearly what the nation is capable of producing, at least without going deeply into debt. And debt on this scale is unsustainable, as we have seen. The inevitable result is slower economic growth and an economy increasingly susceptible to great booms and terrible busts….Widening inequality, coupled with a growing perception that big business and Wall Street are in cahoots with big government for the purpose of making the rich even richer, gives fodder to demagogues on the extreme right and the extreme left. They gain power by turning the public’s economic anxieties into resentments against particular groups…such demagogues and the movements they inspire can cause great harm. (p127)

Brother My Cup Is Empty Lyrics (Χα!)

Brother, my cup is empty
And I haven't got a penny
For to buy no more whiskey
I have to go home 


I am the captain of my pain
Tis the bit, the bridle,
The trashing cane
The stirrup, the harness
Thewhipping mane
The pickled eye
The shrinking brain 
O brother, buy me one more drink
I'll explain the nature of my pain
Yes, let me tell you once again
I am the captain of my pain


O brother, my cup is empty
And I haven't got a penny
For to buy no more whiskey
I have to go home


I cannot blame it all on her
To blame her all would be a lie
For many a night I lay awake
And wished that I could watch her die
To see her accusing finger spurt
To see flies swarm her hateful eye
To watch her groaning in the dirt
To see her clicking tongue crack dry
O brother, buy me one more drink
One more drink and then goodbye
And do not mock me when I say
Let's drink one more before I die


O brother, my cup is empty
And I haven't got a penny
For to buy no more whiskey
I have to go home


Well I've been sliding down on rainbows
Well I've been swinging from the stars
Now this wretch in beggars clothing
Bangs his cup across the bars
Look, this cup of mine is empty!
Seems I've misplaced my desires
Seems I'm sweeping up the ashes
Of all my former fires
So brother, be a brother
And fill this tiny cup of mine
And please, sir, make it whiskey
For I have no head for wine


O brother, my cup is empty
And I haven't got a penny
For to buy no more whiskey
I have to go home


I counted up my blessings
And counted only one
One tiny little blessing
And now that blessings gone
So buy me one more drink, my brother
Then I'm taking to the road
Yes, I'm taking to the rain
I'm taking to the snow
O my friend, my only brother
Do not let the party grieve
So throw a dollar onto the bar
Now kiss my ass and leave


O brother, my cup is empty
And I haven't got a penny
For to buy no more whiskey
I have to go home