व्हर्टिगोचे पोस्टर आणि श्याम जोशींचे मुखपृष्ठ....The Best Film Ever Made, Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo@60

#HitchcockVertigo60 

Alfred Hitchcock's 'Vertigo' was released, sixty years ago, on May 9 1958

मी 'व्हर्टिगो', १९५८ मुंबईच्या आलिशान स्टर्लिंग सिनेमात १९८५-८६ च्या सुमारास पहिल्यांदा बघितला आणि भारावून गेलो.  त्या सिनेमातील काय नाही आवडल? अगदी सॅनफ्रान्सिस्कोच्या  सुद्धा प्रेमात पडलो. किम नोवॅक तर बरेच दिवस डोक्यातून गेल्याच नाहीत- कित्येक महिन्यांनंतर समजले की त्यांनी पूर्ण सिनेमात ब्रेसीयर घातली नाहीये ते!.....

त्यानंतर 'व्हर्टिगो'  इतक्या वेळा पहिला की आता बघून, बघून पाठ झाला आहे. अलीकडे मला स्वतःला व्हर्टिगोचा त्रास झाल्यानंतर तर जिम स्टीवर्ट यांचा अभिनय आता अगदी आतपर्यंत पोचतोय.

 'सिटीझन केन' ला मागे टाकून व्हर्टिगो अलीकडे पहिल्या क्रमांकाला चढला आहे. (माझ्या यादीत टोकियो स्टोरी हा, मी तो पाहिल्या दिवसापासून, एक नंबरला आहे.)


David Thomson, LRB, June 2018:
"...Novak was a rarity, the shy knockout, a beauty who had no confidence. Her voice was hushed. There was a faraway look in her eyes. She was a ravishing blonde, but seemed uneasy being photographed or even seen. She was anxious to be respected (she had once been Miss Deepfreeze), and it was rumoured that she was the favoured project of Harry Cohn, the head of Columbia, the studio that signed her up in 1954. There were whispers that she couldn’t act; she was a restrained version of Marilyn Monroe early in her career, the kind of actress who was cast as a voyeur’s delight but seldom trusted with a serious part. Instead, she got the socialite wife in The Eddy Duchin Story. She was actually loaned out for Vertigo. Cohn profited hugely on her salary. She was being exploited in the standard Hollywood way while being asked to fit into a male dream...." 

François Truffaut:
“...The whole erotic aspect of the picture is fascinating. I remember another scene, at the beginning, when Stewart hauled Kim Novak out of the water. He takes her to his place, where we find her asleep in his bed. As she gradually comes to, there's an implication, though it's not specifically stated, that he's probably taken the girl's clothes off and has seen her in the nude. The rest of that scene is superb, as Kim Novak walks around with her toes sticking out of his bathrobe and then settles down by the fire, with Stewart pacing back and forth behind' her. Vertigo unfolds at a deliberate pace, with a contemplative rhythm that contrasts sharply with your other pictures, which are mostly based on swift motion and sudden transitions...”

David Thomson, The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Sixth Edition:
“…I found Orson Welles saying, “I believe that the movies—I’ll say a terrible thing—have never gone beyond Kane. That doesn’t mean that there haven’t been good movies, or great movies. But everything has been done now in movies, to the point of fatigue.”

Now, we may wonder just how pained Welles was by that vision. But in the recent “stir” that replaced Kane as the best film ever made—with Vertigo—his point was hard to escape. Vertigo is so much more old-fashioned than Kane, so clammy with self-pity, and so desperate to be sincere and significant. Those were never Hitchcock’s strengths, or things Welles bothered with. It’s not that film has stopped, or died, but it has not advanced like the sensation it was in its first fifty years. The realization that F may be for fake, and film, grows on us.,,,”  

 

आता माझी मी हे पोस्टर पाहण्याच्या आधीची,  मार्च १६ २०१६ची पोस्ट पहा. 

आता वाटतय ह्या पोस्टरचा प्रभाव तर श्याम जोशींच्या खालील चित्रावर नव्हता?

Artist: Shyam Joshi (श्याम जोशी) , 'Vangmay Shobha' (वाङ्मय-शोभा), दिवाळी १९६५

आधुनिक हिंदच्या खऱ्या नवयुगाचा जन्म या क्रांतिकार्यांच्या विजयानेच होणार आहे ...Karl Marx@200

#KarlMarx200
Today May 5 2018 is 200th birth anniversary of Karl Marx

D K Bedekar, Vangmay Shobha, August 1949:
दि के बेडेकर, वाङ्मय शोभा, ऑगस्ट १९४९:

Mary Gabriel, ‘Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution’:

“...The picture that gradually emerged was of a family that sacrificed everything for an idea the world would come to know as Marxism but which existed in their lifetimes largely inside Karl Marx’s brain. Egress of his ideas was continually thwarted.

The story I discovered was of a love between a husband and wife that remained passionate and consuming despite the deaths of four children, poverty, illness, social ostracism, and the ultimate betrayal, when Marx fathered another woman’s child. It was the story of three young women who adored their father and dedicated themselves to his grand idea, even at the cost of their own dreams, even at the cost of their own children. It was the story of a group of brilliant, combative, exasperating, funny, passionate, and ultimately tragic figures caught up in the revolutions sweeping nineteenth-century Europe. It was, above all, the story of hopes dashed against the bulwark of bitter reality, personal and political...”

 
Jason Barker, The New York Times, April 30 2018:
"...The key factor in Marx’s intellectual legacy in our present-day society is not “philosophy” but “critique,” or what he described in 1843 as “the ruthless criticism of all that exists: ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be.” “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it,” he wrote in 1845...."

आज कार्ल मार्क्स यांची २००वी जयंती.
जीएंनी मार्क्सवादावर सडकून टीका केली आहे. ती माझ्या ब्लॉगच्या एका वर्षांपूर्वीच्या पोस्टवर (http://searchingforlaugh.blogspot.in/…/karl-marx-will-soon-…) आली होती.

"...तेव्हा अखेर प्रत्येकाला जाता जाता स्वतःचेच 'तत्वज्ञान' बनवत जगण्याखेरीज काही मार्ग दिसत नाही., कारण धर्माचे मूळ स्वरूप सदैव वैयक्तिकच राहणार. Institutionalized religion म्हणजे एक fraud आहे, किंवा स्काऊट, रोटरी, लायन चळवळीपेक्षा तिला महत्व नाही. ज्यावेळी धर्मच अपुरा पडू लागला तेव्हा काही जणांना Marxism सारखे secular तत्वज्ञान समाधान देऊ शकले. पण त्याबाबतही मी अगदी असाध्य कोडगा ठरतो. त्याच्याइतके अनाकर्षक, वैराण, हमाली तत्वज्ञान मला कुठे आढळले नाही...मार्क्सवादी माणसाचे चित्र काढायचे झाल्यास ठोकळ्यावर ठोकळे ठेवलेली आकृती काढली की पुरे..."
(पृष्ठ १७९, 'जी एंची निवडक पत्रे', खंड १, १९९५)

त्यांच्या स्वामी ह्या कथेकडे स्टालिनच्या काळातील सोवियत रशियामधील जीवनाचे रूपक कथा (allegory) म्हणून पाहता येईल.

पण आज मला जीएंचे दुसरे अवतरण आठवते.
"...त्याने प्रेमाचा व शांतीचा संदेश सांगितला, पण प्रसार झाला तो तलवारीच्या जोरावर; त्याने निरिच्छ्तेवर भर दिला, तर आता त्याच्या धर्माचा आधार आहे संपत्ती. हा तुला त्याचा विजय वाटतो, तसे पाहिले तर त्याचे सच्चे अनुयायी एखाद्या खेड्यातील वसतीपेक्षा जास्त नसतील. पण म्हणून का त्याच्या शिकवणीचे महत्व कमी होते?..."
('यात्रिक', 'पिंगळावेळ', 1977)

आपल्याला बहुतेकांना माहित आहे की जीएंनी हे येसू आणि ख्रिश्चन धर्माबद्दल म्हटले आहे. मला आज वाटते हे मार्क्स आणि त्याच्या नावाने ज्या कम्युनिझम चा प्रसार झाला त्याला सुद्धा लागू आहे.

लेनिन, स्टालिन, माओ वगैरे क्रूरात्मे किंवा भारतातले अप्पलपोटे, बडबडे, टीव्ही, पुस्तक, फेसबुक आणि वर्तमानपत्रात आढळणारे समाजवादी, म्हणजे कार्ल आणि त्याची शिकवण नव्हे.... "त्याचे सच्चे अनुयायी एखाद्या खेड्यातील वसतीपेक्षा जास्त नसतील".... "पण म्हणून का त्याच्या शिकवणीचे महत्व कमी होते?"

असाच एक कार्लचा सच्चा अनुयायी म्हणजे मला दि के बेडेकर वाटतात. वर दिलेले त्यांचे quotation वाचा....  इतका आशावाद, इतका भाबडेपणा, इतका सज्जनपणा, इतकी सचोटी...आज जगभर कम्युनिझम कोलमडून पडला असला तरी हेलावून टाकते... (btw बा सी मर्ढेकरांच्या कवितांचे सुंदर परिक्षण करणारे दि के बेडेकर जीए म्हणतात - "ठोकळ्यावर ठोकळे ठेवलेली आकृती काढली की पुरे"- तसे अजिबात नव्हते!)

Best known for lyric poetry and praised profusely by Nietzsche for the use of German language but whose writings were abhorred by the Nazis, Heinrich Heine sitting with Jenny and Karl Marx, standing, 1848

courtesy: AKG Images   

इंग्रजी कॉमिक्सची शंभर सोनेरी पाने....Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story

Artist: Art Spiegelman

एप्रिल २०१८ मध्ये हे वेबपेज पहिले आणि पुन्हा एकदा लक्षात आलेकी माध्यम म्हणून इंग्लिश मध्ये कॉमिकस कुठल्याकुठे गेले आहे .... हे एक पेज नीट वाचण्यात कित्येक दिवस जातील....

त्यावरील एक एन्ट्री विशेष उल्लेखनीय वाटली :

Writers: Alfred Hassler and Benton Resnik; Letterer: John Duffy

त्याची ओळख कशी करून दिलीय ते पहा :

 "The Fellowship of Reconciliation was formed in England in early 1914 in a failed attempt to prevent the outbreak of World War I. The following year, they opened up their American branch of the organization and have been serving the public good ever since. In the 1950s, they were directly involved with Martin Luther King Jr. in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56. It was while working with Dr. King that the Fellowship’s director of publications, Alfred Hassler, came up with a brainstorm. He pitched the idea of producing a comic book that could serve to spread the message of the boycott. Essentially, he wanted to create a guidebook for nonviolent protesting.

Hassler worked with Toby Press to produce the comic book. Legendary cartoonist Al Capp lent a few artists from his studio to draw it. Dr. King gave his own feedback on the comic book as well. The published work was a 16-page publication called Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story. It opened with a short biography of King’s life, then an “everyman” account of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, followed by a detailed guide to how to do a nonviolent protest like the bus boycotts. 375,000 copies were printed — 250,000 in English and 125,000 in Spanish — and they were distributed through African-American schools, churches, and civil-rights groups. The protesters who became known as the Greensboro Four, who helped to desegregate Woolworth’s in North Carolina by having protest sit-ins, specifically cited The Montgomery Story as the direct inspiration for their actions. The success of the comic led to countless other political groups using comic books to express their message to the masses. Recently, in honor of The Montgomery Story, Representative John Lewis used comics to tell his autobiography in the award-winning and best-selling graphic memoir series, March."

स्वतः डॉ॰ मार्टिन लूथर किंग, जूनियर यांनी कॉमिक्स वाचून फीडबॅक दिला....

Capitalism, c2018: I Am Going to Eat You...

# InternationalWorkers'Day
Today May 1 2018 is International Workers' Day

John Gray:

"...What we need, we have been told, is a gentler, kinder and morally prettier sort of capitalism, one that is based on serving the public good rather than selfish acquisitiveness. It’s a high-minded fantasy, which Keynes relegated to a distant future and Marx would have scoffed at..."
"...In its role as a political tract, The Wire is a polemic against the idea that the unrestrained market is the embodiment of individual liberty. Simon has used the series to expose the contradictions of this atavistic ideology: supposedly aiming to enhance choice, the reinvention of the free market has left the majority of people more exposed to random events and arbitrary power than before. Like the dim remnant on the left that insists communism has yet to be tried, neoliberals will say that the free market still does not yet truly exist. Against this fantasy of market freedom, The Wire is saying: Look, this is how capitalism works..."

Johan Norberg:

"Karl Marx thought that capitalism inevitably made the rich richer and the poor poorer. By the time Marx died, however, the average Englishman was three times richer than at the time of his birth 65 years earlier — never before had the population experienced anything like it."

Artist: Paul Noth, The New Yorker, August 2016

When I first saw this brilliant cartoon, I immediately thought of Mr. Donald Trump. The cartoonist also probably meant the same.

But then I thought, the wolf is not him but indeed the naked capitalism that exists today and it tells us- sheep- 'like it is': I am going to eat you....and worse, you can't do a shit about it.

तरली तर चेटकीण, बुडली तर स्त्री-हक्क कार्यकर्ती! ....Make It New

Ezra Pound: "Make It New."

André Gide: “Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.”

 courtesy: Wikipedia

(Illustration from an 18th century chapbook reproduced in Chap-books of the eighteenth century by John Ashton (1834))

वरील चित्र इ स १८००च्या आधीचे आहे.इथे एका स्त्रीला शिक्षा दिली जातीय. त्यात जे मशीन आहे त्याला ककींग किंवा डकिंग स्टूल म्हणायचे.

का शिक्षा दिली जातीय? तर जास्त वाद घातल्याबद्दल. "Punishing a woman accused of excessive arguing in the ducking stool."

विकिपीडिया सांगते:

“In medieval times until the early 18th century, ducking was a way used to establish whether a suspect was a witch. The ducking stools were first used for this purpose but ducking was later inflicted without the chair. In this instance the victim's right thumb was bound to her left big toe. A rope was attached to her waist and the "witch" was thrown into a river or deep pond. If the "witch" floated it was deemed that she was in league with the devil, rejecting the "baptismal water". If the "witch" sank she was deemed innocent.”

आता या सगळ्या पार्श्वभूमीवर खालील मार्च २०१८मधले चित्र पहा :

Artist: Peter Kuper, The New Yorker, March 2018

एक चांगला कार्टूनिस्ट एका जुन्या चित्रात नव्याने प्राण कसा भरू शकतो याचे हे उदाहरण आहे. भारतातील अशाच एका प्रयत्नासाठी- स्व. सुधीर तेलंग यांनी केलेल्या-  ही "Sudhir Tailang Is Making Shankar New"

मे २०१२ची पोस्ट पहा.