Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Nobody Has Been Here For A Hundred Years


The trailer to one of my favorite movies, Blood Simple, quotes Alfred Hitchcock -- "Killing someone is very, very hard and very, very painful." This movie contains the kind of morbid humor that I love, the first of the Coen brothers' oeuvre that would eventually include The Big Lebowski and Fargo. Blood Simple is a perfect writing exercise in that everybody looks at the same body of evidence and comes up with different conclusions that cause all sorts of mayhem. The real story is only known by one character, a slow-talking, wickedly funny Texan hitman who claims that if you cut off his head, I can still crawl around without it.
I suppose we an all get by without something before being left for dead. I was talking to a relative stranger the other day about one of my least favorite subjects, nature, and trying to be neutral, bordering on pleasant, lest I be looked at as a head case. "You can go to a piece of land and imagine that nobody has been here for a hundred years," he said. "That's amazing." Of course, my mind went to the brutal west Texas landscape and thought, "You can go places like that in Texas too and understand immediately why nobody has been there in a hundred years." It's Blood Simple land, the place we all come to at times, where you can't trust anybody, where desperation and loneliness penetrate your very pores. You don't need to come to a state as big as a country for the experience. After all, as our hitman says at the beginning of the movie, Down here, you're on your own. If you're lucky, someone else will dig your own grave, but it's just as likely that you'll do it yourself.
Michelle's Spell of the Day
"When belief is painful, we are slow to believe." Ovid
Cocktail Hour
Drinking music suggestion: Midnight Love Marvin Gaye
Benedictions and Maledictions
Thanks to all my readers for the kind wishes for my one year blog anniversary on Saturday -- I'm going to have to think about the questions for the next year and get back to everyone when I come up with an answer.
Happy Monday and Happy Birthday to Marvin Gaye!
Six more days until The Sopranos airs!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

After I killed Emil Kolar in the Sopranos, I had to dig him up and dispose of the body more properly. Even though my work wasn't always perfect, Tony Soprano eventually made me a Captain in the family. I like to think that my success isn't all family connections.

Anonymous said...

In "Blood Simple," my wife Abby's adultery started the whole macabre chain of events rolling. I was buried alive, but not without putting up one hell of a fight.

Anonymous said...

When I was alive, my native Poles would always chant that they wanted me to live for 100 years. I didn't make it. But I was buried under St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, which has been around for many centuries. And now I may become a saint. Thank you, Jesus. And may all the people of the world have a blessed Holy Week!

Anonymous said...

Tony and Carmela Soprano are on the cover of TV Guide Magazine. Good article on the show's symbols and an excellent two-page photo layout of the main players on the Sopranos, the most successful show in the history of cable television.

Charles Gramlich said...

I remember "Blood Simple." I think it was M. Emmitt Walsh's best role ever. Great movie.

Anonymous said...

Hey Michelle, that photo has one of my favorite magazines and one of my favorite writers, if you know what I mean.

Anonymous said...

FoxyLadyD
OnOpeningDay
TigerAndLady
ROckinMama
R2C2!!!!!SunnysideUp

ZZZZZZZ said...

morbid is something I do well... love the hair michelle! Messy Sexy. I like it! haha

Reel Fanatic said...

I just watched "Blood Simple" again a few weeks ago after not seeing it for a long, long time, and it was even better than I had remembered ... It is superbly written, like you pointed out, and it is my second-favorite Coens' movie, next only to O Brother

Susan Miller said...

Sometimes I treasure that place where nobody else can go because sometimes it seems all that I have left of myself. Travelling there now, and it is the first time in my life I've been able to write for only me.