A Diving Bell and a Butterfly But No Story

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a French movie based on the book written by a man who was totally paralysed by a cerebral hemorrage. He only has control of one eyelid, and through the astonishing love and effort of his care-givers, he is able to write a book by blinking his eye to indicate letters on a chart to spell out words. I get what the filmmakers were trying to do in this project. By limiting the movement and access of the camera, they were trying to approximate the feeling of claustrophobia and disassociation in the -- hmmmmm..... wait. Let me try this.

Here's my own montage of frames to give you a taste of watching this movie. You have to hold on each image for about 90 seconds, and you should shake the computer screen a little while you are holding. (And you can put a recording of someone talking French in the background.)































Get the point? I did. In the first ten minutes. Then, I fell asleep and kept jerking awake for the next two hours.

So, there isn't a narrative here. Which is proto-typical of European films. They are all about creating moments and not necessarily stories. There are a series of moments that don't culminate but just sort of stop after they had two hours of them. And there are some nice moments in this piece. Some really nice moments, although all of them belong to the care-givers of the patient. The love that the two women in the story show for their patient is heroic and heart-warming. And it is rendered even more impressive because he really isn't a nice man.

I found the main character very problematic. As the former chief editor of Elle magazine, he is so narcissistic and materialistic, that even in his terrible plight, and being forced to sit there seeing through his eye, I kept finding myself marveling about what a rather waste of a life he had led until his stroke. He never reaches for God in his state. And actually, he mocks religious people quite a bit. I found that evidence of a really, really hardened heart. And it didn't make me like him.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is the kind of movie that movie critics love and I am probably going to spark a lot of outrage and charges of being a Neanderthal. But I don't care. this movie bored me. I thought it's aspiration that the human imagination could always ascend was rather obvious. I didn't think the guy had anything very much to say in his book, and that it was the writing of the book that was the only thing inspiring.

My opinion is this is the kind of foreign experimental film that will leave most audience people bored and unsatisfied. As a story, I would give it a pass. As an artistic use of the screen, I give it a shrug and a few nods. Go see it if you like artsy European stuff.

Gettysburg, Pt. III

Day 3 -

After two days of fighting, the Confederates had been unable to strike a decisive hit on the Union forces. Lee had hit the Union on both flanks and been repulsed at very high cost. On July 3, 1863, Lee made one of the worst strategic calls in the history of warfare. He called for General Longstreet to marshall 15,000 rebels into a direct frontal assault at the center of the Union lines. Known as Picket's Charge (but it really should be known as the Picket-Trimble-Pettigrew Charge because George Pickett was just one of three corps commanders on the field that day), Lee's act of messianic hubris led to over 7000 casualties in less than an hour.

Here is the perspective of the Rebels as they came out of the tree line facing the entrenched Union troops on Cemetery Ridge to the east. Their destination was the copse of trees in the center of the picture. The 15,000 men had to walk over a mile of open field with no cover. Their lines were ripped open by artillery fire from Little Round Top but also all along the heights on Cemetery Ridge.



The Confederates had expected that their pre-charge cannonade would take out the fence on the road at the base of Cemetery Ridge. It didn't. Those surviving Confederates who made it as far as the road, found themselves pinned down by the fence. They were then savaged by cannister fire from the Union side. And then the Union infantry stood up in rows and fired round after round into them.



A memorial to the North Carolina troops who were part of the fateful charge.



Here's my friend Katie in front of the fancier monument to the North Carolina troops just in front of the Confederate tree line across from Cemetery Ridge.


Another Confederate perspective of the field from which one third of the 15,000 men started out. The copse of trees is just to the left of center. Even under intense canon fire, the Rebel troops executed several perfect turns so that they all came together just north of the copse of trees.


Here is the monument to the evil genius of the slavery forces, Robert E. Lee. (That's all the "malice towards none" I've got for the guy and his damn cause.)


Moving over to the Union side on Cemetery Ridge, here is a monument to an Irish priest whose name I don't remember, but who was chaplain to the great Irish brigades who fought so hard for the Union at Gettysburg. There was some connection to the University of Notre Dame with this priest - maybe he was the Founder? Anyway, this was my favorite monument on the field. There was something very comforting about the hand raised in blessing after all the reminders of death and suffering. This monument said to me that God was here even amidst the carnage and terror of the battle.


Here is the copse of trees and the monument that represents the "high water mark of the Confederacy." Of the 15,000 who started on the P-T-P charge, only a few hundred made it to the angled stone walls just north of this spot. After this point, the Confederate army was basically playing duck and run the next two years until the end of the war.


I can't remember what this shot is of, but I think it is probably a diagonal view of "the angle."


The National Park Service has preserved lots of cannons and cassions left on the field from the battle.


Certainly the most impressive state monument of the hundreds on the field is this one to the men from the State of Pennsylvania who died fighting against the Rebel invasion of their state.


I end with a shot of the monument which tells the story of the American Civil War. It is from the state of Maryland which was divided politically half slave and half free. The monument depicts two brothers who were on opposite sides of the war, and met on the field at Gettysburg. Very moving.

Gettysburg, Pt. II

Day 2 -

Here is a shot of what would be the Confederate perspective of Cemetery Ridge upon which the Union army had dug in on the evening of July 1st. The Confederates had ultimately prevailed on Day 1, driving the Union back into these hills, but now (the traitorous - sorry but that's how I feel - he should have been hung for violating his oath to the U.S. and causing the deaths of so many hundreds of thousands of men!) Gen. Lee awakens to the proposition of fighting on the offense by attacking the Union positions. (On Day 3, Lee would order his men to suicidally charge across this field in the culminating action of Gettysburg.) The situation on Day 2 was very much the reverse of the set up of Lee's blood-soaked victory at Fredericksburg a few months before in which the Confederates were dug in on a slope behind a stonewall. Lee's troops cut down the brave Union soldiers by the thousands until idiotic, blustery Gen. Burnside withdrew. Now, Lee is looking across this mile of field, at the Union dug in on a sloping hill behind a stone wall.

On the extreme left of the Union flank (seen here on the right) are the hills known as Big Round Top and Little Round Top. Both were thickly wooded, although Big Round Top is the more dense and steep of the two and nobody had time or means to get troops up there. The rear side of Little Round Top is almost sheer and inaccessible, but if Lee's troops could take Little Round Top on the front or southern face, the dug-in Union army would be flanked and then over run. (And then the Southern army can sweep right over to Washington, force the Union to surrender, end the American experiment, and keep their slaves for another thousand years.) As we say in the movie business, it was a high stakes situation.

Lee entrusts the action on the Union left to Gen. Longstreet. (There is another attack at the same time on the other Union flank on the Union right on Culp's hill -- but I don't have any pictures from that side of the battlefield.)

Here is Longstreet's perspective from the tree line just west of Cemetery Ridge of his objective, Little Round Top. The land in between was high with golden wheat on the day of the battle, and there was a peach orchard and then a patch of woods at the base of the Round Tops.



Here is the Union perspective looking back at Longstreet. In the top right hand corner of the photo is the monument to the Union General Warren. Very much like Gen. Buford on Day 1, Warren arrived on Little Round Top to scout the battlefield, and was horrified to note that the hill was unfortified. He realized immediately that if the Confederates got Little Round Top, the battle would be over. So, with the glint of Mississippi and Texas steel creeping through the woods just below, Gen. Warren hastened three regiments of Union troops into position on Little Round Top. They were there only a few minutes when the Rebels surged up the hill.




Here is the detail of Gen. Warren's monument.



The Union almost lost the Day because of the actions of the weird, glory-seeking numbskull General Sickles. For no discernible reason, on the morning of Day 2, Sickles disobeyed orders and led his troops off of his dug-in position on the left side of Cemetery Ridge, and pushed forward across the wheat field to attack the approaching Confederates. Thousand and thousands of men died because of this fool-hardy action, although Sickles managed to get a Medal of Honor for losing his leg in the fighting.

Here is the site of the Peach Orchard. Our guide told us that the peach trees had all gotten some kind of parasite, so the National Park Service had them dug up and the soil treated. There will be new peach trees planted next year so that this part of the battlefield will be restored to it's original look.


After changing hands six times and heavy losses on both sides, the Union forces of Gen. Sickle retreated across this wheatfield.


From the top of Little Round Top, this is a perspective of the battlefield called "the slaughter pen" because of all the men who died there. Over the course of Day 2, Rebel snipers in the woods and rocks shown here picked off scores of Union officers.


Front view of Little Round Top. I can't remember whose monument this is. Somebody heroic.


I can't believe I didn't take any pictures of Devil's Den. I do remember that it was much smaller than I expected considering the hundreds of men who fought and died in that part of the battlefield just southwest of the Round Tops. Guess I'll have to go back to get some pictures.

Here is the slope of Little Round Top looking slightly southwest. After prevailing in the peach orchard, the wheat field and Devil's Den, the Confederates charged up this hill over and over until the bodies covered the ground.


After unsuccessfully charging up the front of Little Round Top many times and sustaining heavy losses, the Rebels tried to cut through the little valley between Little Round Top and Big Round Top assaulting Little Round Top from the side. Here they were met by about two hundred stalwart New England farmers and fisherman - the 20th Maine.



Led by a former rhetoric and religion professor, Col. Joshua Chamberlain, the 20th Maine were veterans of many battles and had seen their numbers dwindle from nearly a thousand. The Maine was formed up in a near right angle to the other Union troops on the front of the hill with the steep impassible back slope of Little Round Top to their left and behind them. Here is the perspective of the 20th Maine looking down on the charging Rebels.


In the end, the Union would run out of bullets, and in a dashing and astounding feat of soldiering, Col. Chamberlain had his men fix bayonnets and charge into the oncoming Confederates. The Rebels were so shocked at the charge that nearly 600 of them surrendered and the rest ran back down the hill in terror. The charge of the 20th Maine ended the attacks on Little Round Top and subsequently the action of Day 2, and won Col. Chamberlain the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Here is the monument to the men of the 20th Maine.

Most Hallowed Ground

It was one of those epoch moments for me to finally get to Gettysburg just before Christmas. I have dreamed of going for years - really - and finally making it there felt very much like a home coming. I always feel very proud visiting the Mall and Capitol in Washington, DC, but I don't think I ever felt more American - and more love for my country, than I did standing at the crest of Little Round Top, looking out across the Gettysburg battlefield. There is a funny sense of ownership as an American at Gettysburg. I felt like the place belonged to me - belongs to all of us as Americans for whom it was purchased by the conviction and courage of our fellow Americans years ago.

The Gettysburg Address monument - "We can never forget what they did here."



All of American history seems to come together at Gettysburg because of the state monuments all over, and the stories of how they were built throughout the years as America continued to move on but still look back at the defining moments of July 1-3, 1863. It is a funny thing for the people of Gettysburg to live there. They were just a sleepy little hamlet of a thousand people, and then, history came knocking and transformed the place forever.

A detail on top of the monument dedicated to the Pennsylvania troops who fought at Gettysburg.


And the locals absolutely know it. Our guide, John, told us with pride that he had been giving the battlefield tour for 45 years. And he was still so full of passion and love for the place, that he gave us an extra hour of tour for free, I think probably because I knew a lot more about the place than most tourists, and he wanted to make sure I saw some cool stuff that he doesn't get to in the regular two hour tour.




My friend Katie and I had an absolutely beautiful day for our nearly five hours of trekking from the Lutheran Seminary to the site of Picket's charge, to Little Round Top and the copse of trees, and then finally ending up in the Union cemetery. It had been raining and freezing every day before, and I was ready to see the battlefield through whipping winds and squinted eyes. But the day was sunny and very temperate for the time of year - about mid 40's. And because the leaves were all off the trees, we could see the battlefield vistas almost without obstruction. It was a perfect day.



If you have never been, you should go. It is one of those places on earth that, as Lincoln noted, has been consecrated by the blood of the hundred thousand men who fought there. It felt holier than most churches I've been in.




There are more than 10,000 Union graves here from those who died during the three day battle. All told, there were 50,000 casualties - dead and wounded between both sides. In the decades after the War, the Confederate bodies, hastily buried all over the field after the battle, were dug up through the efforts of a group of Southern women and interred at a cemetery outside of Richmond, VA. So the actual Gettysburg cemetery holds only Union dead.



Just in case there are any other Gettysburg geeks out there (and, Lord knows, everyone SHOULD BE a Gettysburg geek!), and also so I have these images close at hand when I want to gaze at them, here is a photo journal of the battlefield. And because I am really, really geeky, the photos are in chronological order according to the action of the battle.


Day #1

My hero - Buford: Saving the High Ground.

This is the guy who literally saved the day at Gettysburg - that is, in his actions on Day 1, he did much to help the Union win the three day battle, which victory perhaps also may have saved the Union.

Buford was a cavalry officer who got into Gettysburg first on July 1, 1863, ahead of the nearly 100,000 Union troops and just in time to intercept a small detachment of Confederate troops. Buford recognized the value of the high ground just south of the town and brilliantly dismounted and deployed his 2,000 horsemen, positioning them to hold off the Confederates long enough for General Reynolds to bring his infantry up in support. It was a gutsy, visionary, and courageous feat of generalship, and earned Buford an immortal place in American military history.



Buford's monument stands on the outskirts of Gettysburg, looking toward the west from which the Confederates under General Lee would make their assault for the next three days.


This is a shot of the ridge just west of Seminary hill upon which Buford's cavalrymen dug in. They held off ten times as many Confederates for a couple of hours. The fence line leads into the woods in which the famous black hatted, Minnesota Iron Brigades valiantly engaged the Confederates at great cost to both sides.


Just behind the fence above is McPherson's barn, the site of terrible fighting as the Union forces slowly withdrew during the day.

Here is a shot of a building that is one of the original battlefield structures still standing. During the battle, it was a ladies' school. Like most of the structures in the little town, it was a hospital by the end of the first day of fighting. This house stands right in the middle of the action of Day 1.


And to prove it, it even has a cannon ball still stuck in its facade, visible here as the little black spot.



The most well-regarded and talented of the Union generals, John Reynolds was picked off by a sniper within fifteen minutes of arriving on the battlefield. It was a huge psychological and tactical loss to the Union and probably contributed to the disordered retreat of the Union forces at the end of Day 1.



Reynold's monument stands right behind Buford's, looking west at the approaching Confederates. (Interesting trivia about battlefield memorials: There is an immutable protocol for battlefield memorial statues. Only officers can be depicted on horseback, of course. And then, all four of the horses hooves on the ground means that the subject survived the battle. One of the horse's hooves off the ground means that the subject was wounded. Two hoofs in the air means that the subject was killed.)

The Lutheran Seminary cupola from which Buford surveyed his troops during the action.

Two days later, it would be used by the Confederates particularly to survey the fateful Pickett/Pettigrew/Trimble Charge.

Okay, I have to do some paying work today so I will post photos of Day 2 hopefully tomorrow.

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Frakking With My Brain

How did I miss this?!




None of my friends and regular readers will believe this, but as of about two weeks ago, I am a total nerdy fan of the new Battlestar Galactica from the Sci-Fi Channel. (If anybody out there has Season 3 on any kind of format, I want to be your new best friend!) Why didn't anybody tell me about this show? It's the smartest dramatic writing I've seen on television in years - maybe ever. And by smart I mean the pacing is exciting - really daring sometimes, the stakes are high, the dialogue is great, the characters are multi-leveled and the themes are important. I discovered it by accident at Christmas with my sisters. (And all that matters now is, how do we get our hands on Season 3?!)

I choke this out as a life-long, confirmed despiser of all shows in which people have dogfights in space ships, wear vinyl clothing and do the ER style fast dialogue only about anti-matter hyper drives instead of IV pushes. I hate sci-fi. But I love this show.

What Exec Producer Ron Moore has done with Battlestar Galactica is craft a truly wonderful drama, that just happens to be set in, you know, spaceships and occasionally vinyl flight suits. The shows are all about the issues we are facing as a society today, although without the hallmark left-sided agenda that one normally expects. And it isn't transparently talking about today's issues. It just feels like the themes arise naturally out of the dilemmas faced by the last surviving 49,763 humans (or is it 48,765 today?) who are desperately fleeing across the universe trying to get away from their own creations - Cylons - who are out to kill them - and "have a plan" (sorry, I had to say it). I can't even figure out where the writers stand most of the time on particular issues because the writing is so balanced - although on the big universal questions, the show always gets it right.



The background issue of the show - and probably what most sci-fi is about - is the problem of mankind losing control of his own tinkering with science. But the showrunners seem just as much preoccupied with the old Nuremburg trial question (and a perennial wartime question relevant today with all things Iraq War/Patriot Act/Quantanamo) of how far "I was just following orders" works as a ethical framework. It comes up nearly every other episode. As Dostovesky said, "The primary drive in human nature is to give over responsibility for our own lives." In many ways, BSG is all about that struggle.

And then, because the Cylons are essentially a terrorist network, there are all the issues of how tough is too tough when you are trying to save innocent people from terrorists. How far do you go before you become worse than your enemies? And then there is the whole problem of the humans had it coming for being so profligate. And then the Cylons find their strength in religious commitment. Other cool questions include, "Is it okay to steal an election from someone who you know is very, very bad?" and, "how much do civil liberties change in times of crisis?" and "Abortion is a luxury that a dying civilization can not afford." It's very concerned with the complexity of moral decisions -- no issue is pat or simple. (Which is very interesting to watch with the background of the Presidential Primaries in which every issue is over-simplified on the stump.) But I want to be clear that this show is not an anti-war screed. Anything but.



On the inter-personal level - because the characters are what really make the show - Battlestar is all about how love can make us heroic and then paralyzed, and how historic events can never be separated from the mystery of one on one human attractions and antipathies. The characters, while being extraordainary, aren't the stuff of plastic super heroes. They are all deeply flawed, but not in a cynical way. They make mistakes from exhaustion, because the burdens of their very hard life wears them down. Or because they are jealous or afraid. But then, they summon their best humanity again and die for each other. Very cool. But it would be hard to put a poster of this Starbuck (great portrayal by this new kid Katie Sackhoff!) or president Roslyn (where has Mary McConnell been hiding?!) on my wall. In the same way that one wouldn't put a poster of Pierre from War and Peace or Sebastian from Brideshead. (Oops, sorry Karen, did that reference just go over your head?) These are characters for grown ups.

Such smart writing. Really good acting. Surprisingly uncheesy special effects for a TV show (where the standard is now always going to be the cinema of George Lucas, this show holds up.)

A real gem if you haven't seen it. Especially with nothing entertaining on now during the strike. It's for adults. (Note: Season 1 had some over the top sexuality and every so often there was a moment of the same in Season 2. Also, some of the violence is very intense. We didn't watch the show around my eight year old nephew.) But frankly, the themes are over the heads of most kids. There is enough action to keep you following all the ponderous choices (and I mean ponderous in a good way), but this isn't Star Trek by any means. (Nor is it the first Battlestar series as my sister Alison has asserted. This is a whole other animal.) A real gem.

So say we all.

P.S. So, Season 3 somebody? (Sean?! Why didn't anybody tell me?!)