Random Musings on Language
A few nights back, I watched three Kurosawa films back to back (to back ?). It had been a tough day and I needed my fix. There is something to be said about the stress-busting properties of such an experience, but perhaps later (I need non-cinematic memories/subjects and fast…)
Somewhere into the first half of Yojimbo, I realised that I was not really looking at the subtitles anymore.Well, after you have seen a movie many (ever enough?) times, familiar plot and characters mean that you do not need subtitles anymore. Yes, you may not be able to follow the dialogues word-for-translated word, but your mind can paraphrase enough from memory for comprehension to occur. While you do not have to then juggle observing action and reading the words, you cannot internalise them (words), in a manner you would of a familiar tongue. A linguistic limbo, I guess.What you are left with however, is the music of the language.
You don't need a degree in linguistics to tell you that language is a complex mixture or words, expressions, gestures, tone, rhythm and peculiar nuances (common to all but unique to each language). Minor variations in tone and subtle gesture changes can sometimes communicate so much. And therein lies the joy of just experiencing a language as it happens - to listen, to see, to feel, and hopefully even comprehend.
And what of writing, the spoken word (and speaking?)? and word association and those million other things that can be written on language. Whether in a familiar tongue or otherwise, it is better sometimes, to leave things to be said by people who have said it before, more succinctly, and way better than you ever can.
The tawny guttural water
spells itself: Moyola
is its own score and consort,
bedding the locale
in the utterance,
reed music, an old chanter
breathing its mists
through vowels and history.
"Gifts of Rain" ~ Seamus Heaney
Somewhere into the first half of Yojimbo, I realised that I was not really looking at the subtitles anymore.Well, after you have seen a movie many (ever enough?) times, familiar plot and characters mean that you do not need subtitles anymore. Yes, you may not be able to follow the dialogues word-for-translated word, but your mind can paraphrase enough from memory for comprehension to occur. While you do not have to then juggle observing action and reading the words, you cannot internalise them (words), in a manner you would of a familiar tongue. A linguistic limbo, I guess.What you are left with however, is the music of the language.
You don't need a degree in linguistics to tell you that language is a complex mixture or words, expressions, gestures, tone, rhythm and peculiar nuances (common to all but unique to each language). Minor variations in tone and subtle gesture changes can sometimes communicate so much. And therein lies the joy of just experiencing a language as it happens - to listen, to see, to feel, and hopefully even comprehend.
And what of writing, the spoken word (and speaking?)? and word association and those million other things that can be written on language. Whether in a familiar tongue or otherwise, it is better sometimes, to leave things to be said by people who have said it before, more succinctly, and way better than you ever can.
The tawny guttural water
spells itself: Moyola
is its own score and consort,
bedding the locale
in the utterance,
reed music, an old chanter
breathing its mists
through vowels and history.
"Gifts of Rain" ~ Seamus Heaney
Sing to the Exponential Thermo-stellar Device
Many years ago, many many years ago (before Bruce I-can-tilt-my-head-and-squint-at-the-same-time Willis’ Armageddon), when Star Movies had the balls to play some real cinema for Indian audiences, they managed to run a sci-fi classic called Dark Star. Created by John Carpenter and Dan o' Bannon in the days before they met Kurt Russell and the m^%#$fuckin Alien respectively, Dark Star was a school project turned cult film.
The movie revolved around the inter-galactic travels(travails?) of the unglamorous spaceship Dark Star and its haggard crew. Their job - to boldly take their spaceship where no toy has gone before and destroy unstable planets with smart-ass bombs and baby-sit a polka-dotted beach-ball alien along the way. The movie had low-budget sets and rather primitive graphics (although the narrative hardly suffers for lack of visual support); a cast that included Dan O’ Bannon (that's how low-budget) - all mashed together with a kick-ass whacky script.
Sample this – An intuitive bomb (Bomb #20) with a Cartesian disposition, discovers its true purpose in life after getting a crash course in phenomenology from a crew member, who does so in order to stop the bomb from exploding within the ship, and is acting on the advice of a dead and cryogenically frozen ex-captain, who is understandably feeling lonely. Fuck yeah!
It is precious and just goes to prove that having Americans bombing the world (you know like real-life) can make better cinema than having them saving the world. Again. And Again.
In one word, the movie is "friggin awesome". Ok, two words. I wanted to write more words, but as usual, once you read Ebert's review on something, you kinda quit that idea on account of feeling small. Note to self: Next time you want to write about a movie, do not read Ebert's review of the same prior to the initiation of writing. Simple.
But I have one memory of this movie that Ebert doesn’t have a clue about. The first time I watched the movie, I had no clue about its cult status. In fact, I came upon the movie when it was close to rolling credits. It was ending with a song. A sweet little ditty that caught my ear and refused to let go. I waited for a rerun of the movie just to hear the song. And when it came, I grabbed it on compact cassette tape (Yes TAPE!) with the aid of an ancient recorder. It even recorded the sounds of a sunday afternoon and mixed it with one special Bhangaaarwaaaleeeeeeyyyaaaaaa...Baatli Bhangaaarwaaaleeeeeeyyyaaaaaa....
The special remix tape may be lost to fungus, but the song lives. The song was Benson, Arizona. It still is happily enough the same Benson, Arizona.
Benson, Arizona, the same stars in the sky
but they seemed so much kinder when we watched them, you and I…
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