URI - Part III; "The Illusionist"; The Film of Film; "The Bicycle Thief"

I feel much better, but I can also tell there is a slight residue. URIs do not go away quickly.

Last Sunday, a friend and I saw "The Illusionist". A beautiful film that you could appreciate for the lusciousness of the visual experience alone. With Prague, Czech Republic, substituting for early 20th century Vienna. Ed Norton, as usual, is superb. To my way of thinking, he is almost beyond compare. There's always a vulnerability, yet slightly sinister quality to his characters. (In this way, he reminds me of James Dean, but more disciplined.)

The tricks seem genuine, as though he might indeed be in league with supernatural forces. On reading about the film, much was made of the orange tree trick - how unrealistic it appeared. Yet there was actually such a trick that was performer by Chevalier Joseph Pinetti, as early as 1782.

There are a number of tricks that I have no idea if they would have been appropriate to the period or not. I'm not even sure I could imagine them today.

Yes. You can predict how the film will end. That's apparent about 30 minutes in. But it's the telling of the tale that's important. There's a brief 60-second supposed scenario that reveals how it might have happen. But that too could be an illusion.

Later, I lower myself to read the comments at IMDB. All too many comments were of the "It was lame.", "It sucked." and "It was so boring, I fell asleep."

Oh, me! There are those who say English is the richest language in the history of the world, and these are the comments we get?! This is why I'm a big advocate of the universal distribution of condoms, family-planning clinics on every corner, huge tax breaks for having no children, and if all else fails, medics who will conduct abortions in the privacy and comfort your own bedroom. These people should not be allowed to breed.

How easy it is to forget that you're watching artificial figures on celluloid or electronic pixels on a screen. Is this some strange form of lucid dreaming build into our racial consciousness? Or is the glorified remnants of our need to share information.

I can think of two brilliant films that show themsleves to be film on film.

In Ingmar Bergman's "Persona", there are several times in which it appears the film has broken, or the repeat of a previous reel. The last moments of the film are literally, shots of the film leaving the projector.

In Federico Fellini's "E la nave va" ("And the Ship Sails On"), there's a scene in which the camera slowly pulls back for a wide-shot, but it continues and continues, until you can see the entire set, and the wall of the studio, and the crew members at work.

And there are movies that seem to go on without point. And can almost put you to sleep. One that comes to mind is Vittorio De Sica's "Ladri di biciclette" ("The Bicycle Thief"). It's post WWII Italy, and poverty is rampant.

"Antonio Ricci, unemployed for over two years, is overjoyed when he's finally given a job putting up posters. There's a catch, though - he needs a bicycle as a requirement of the job, so he pawns the family linen to get a pawned bicycle back. He goes off to his first day's work, truly happy for the first time in years - and the title of the film gives away what happens next."

There's a brief shot of the pawn shop that shows the back room. It is crammed with linen - towels, sheets, spreads, pillow cases. I'll never forget that shot.

Of course, the bicycle is almost immediately stolen. He and his son, Bruno, then wander through Rome trying to get help to replace the bicycle. At the end, the father sees a bike leaning against a wall, and he tries to steal it. Bruno sees him, and the look on his face is one of the most terrifying in all of cinema.

When I first saw, alone, by the way, this film on a Saturday night in the spring of 1968 in the auditorium of the old Lamar Law Center at the University of Mississippi, the night was warm almost sultry. In those days before AC buildings, the windows were open to the outside noise of cars and night birds. The audience was sparse, and as the movie continued, members of the audience drifted off like characters in a Christie thriller. And to be honest, I was tempted to leave a couple of times. By the end, there were no more than a dozen cinephiles left.

I sometimes think that going to the various cinema exhibitions at the university my junior and senior years was one of the very few things that had any meaning to me.

PAX!