I will watch any film in which Jennifer Lawrence appears, so I added
Mother! (2017) to my Netflix list. It was written and directed by Darren Aronofsky, a Brooklyn guy who takes chances. He has now done seven full length features. His breakout film,
Pi (1998), went over my head. I enjoyed
The Wrestler (2008), and was disappointed by the box office smash
Black Swan (2010). I passed on his others.
Mother! is obviously allegorical. What's it about below its chaotic surface? I thought it was a condemnation of the selfish artist whose loving wife has given him everything. That interpretation is addressed and refuted at indiewire.com. Here's an excerpt from the piece, edited by yours truly: "According to the Bible, before God created Man, there was Paradise. JLAW is Gaia, or Mother Earth, defending the living, breathing organism she has built into a perfect home. She can’t handle or fully understand why people are so disrespectful. Her husband is God, Who out of boredom creates Adam (Ed Harris) and Eve (Michelle Pfeiffer); they invade her pristine world and the artist’s study (the Garden of Eden), which holds God’s perfect crystal (the apple). Their dueling children are Cain and Abel. And they bring in worshipers who feed God’s need for adulation. Those who sit on Mother’s unsupported sink eventually cause the pipes to burst into the Great Flood. God impregnates Mother, who gives birth to the Messiah, who is followed by an increasingly chaotic communion and Revelations..." This makes perfect sense. Kudos. 102,000+ folks at IMDb have rated
Mother!, forging to a consensus of 6.4 on a scale of ten. It had mediocre results at the box office, returning $44 million worldwide on a budget of $33, which is understandable, since its appeal is limited to the most sophisticated movie-goers. Add DVD sales and rentals and streaming to the mix and the financial results aren't bad. Credit Aronfsky for having the nerve to fly way out of the mainstream, even when he creates something so abstract most people won't get it. I don't agree with the darkness of the message, at least not entirely. I think Man has done much that would impress the creator. His pluses significantly outnumber his minuses, even when it comes to the extraction of earth's resources. Here's a pic of the director and stars, minus Ed Harris:
Tiger Woods, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and Rory McIlroy failed to make the grade at this year's U.S. Open. The cut line was plus-eight - LOL! The world's number one ranked player, Dustin Johnson, seems on the brink of a runaway victory. Will the Shinnecock gods lay traps for him?
I've just begun a book by a shrink, written in 1952. The prose is eminently accessible, although two words and a German phrase within the first three pages were foreign to me.
Lithopedion: a fetus calcified in the body of the mother.
Epigonous: abhorrent, causing or deserving strong dislike or hatred (at least as far as I can figure out from merriam-webster.com)
Am schlafe der welt geruhrt: Stirred in the sleep of the world (Huh?)
My thanks to the young moms who bought books for their kids, to the elderly woman who purchased two Debbie Macomber romances, and to the woman who selected two paperbacks in Russian. Here's what was inside one of the recent donations. At first I assumed it was a book marker. Note the price. These days the average cost for a balcony seat to the most popular musicals is $65. I guess the buyer missed the show.
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