What You Can Learn at the Movies

Face it: most of what we know about famous figures we know from movies about them. In fact what notable figures haven’t had a movie made about them? Dian Fossey you say? Wrong: Gorillas in the Mist. Howard Hughes? Nope: The Aviator.  Moses? The Ten Commandments. Certainly not Jesus who’s had TWO movies made about him just in the last 20 years, one starring Willem Dafoe and one starring Caviezel who at least looked a little mid-eastern (AND spoke Aramaic. The whole movie had subtitles, remember?)

But let's look at the life of Mozart just because we’ve been thinking about him these last few days. Most of what I know about Mozart I know from seeing Amadeus. Here’s the trailer for it now with Mozart being played by Tom Hulce fresh from his star turn in Animal House:[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du-rD2QL1Pc]So too , most of what I know about Beethoven I know from seeing Immortal Beloved and here’s that trailer :[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS9MTQqVUFY.]It leaves you really hoping that the writers of all these screenplays stuck to the facts. I mean you try to learn about all the great figures but it’s a daunting task. Our lives are so short and here’s this ever-growing tail of human history. In a way it’s a wonder we remember anything at all of what went before.Anyway here’s  the movie that taught ME the most about a  historical figure and  then sent me right to the bookstore for the 400-page book about him (which, come to think of it, I should probably take down from the shelf and read again.)[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVwCeGxTN-A]

Twinkle Twinkle it Takes Guts

I knew that I knew the music to  yesterday’s video of the falling-apart-treadmill - I had sung it all my life in various choirs and choruses -  but I looked it up to get the details and found this snazzy picture of the composer along with some reaction to the music that made me smile from ear to ear:“Mozart he was the best!” begins  Person Number One. “He wrote Twinkle Twinkle Little Star when he was four or some composition I don’t know what but can U imagine being totally deaf? what he  wrote is mind-blowing!” – this prompting Person Number Two to say, “Uhhh Mozart wasn’t deaf, your thinking of Beethoven,” and Person Number Three to weigh in with, “He did write his first composition at four. As for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star it’s a myth that he wrote that – the melody is French - but he did write variations on it, in his early twenties”OK, true enough but hey, we can all have our own take on a thing? Like Person Number Four who writes  “I like rap music and hip hop but I defy anyone on the planet to not like this!” – leading Person Number Five to say this in one long run-on sentence without benefit of  period, apostrophe OR the ‘ly’ suffix that makes a word an adverb: “Mozart-was-just-incredible-talented-beyond-anyone-wildest-dreams-he-played-for-the-empress-when-he-was-only five-sorry-for-the-bluntness-but-that-is-just-a-stupid-mixup-to-make-" Wh-i-i-i-ch causes Person Number Seven to sigh “God, take Justin Bieber and give us back Amadeus Mozart!” and on and on. You can see it all here along with the tune itself.And then there’s our friend Bach and his Minuet in G Major that most of us know as the pop song   “Lovers' Concerto” or, for us average joes who often don't quite catch the real name of a thing, “How Gentle is the Rain.”You know it, right? It appears that it’s known the world over: “Ah!” writes one member of the public under the YouTube version you 're about to click on. “Beautiful!" writes another. “こんな　やさしい　歌い方ってありますか～～♪♪  天使に　囁かれて　いるみたいで たまりませせんなぁ　☆彡writes a third.Let’s all listen to it now – it really is a quite lovely version - and then stop a minute and be in awe too, just like these good people God bless ‘em, and appreciate the fact that they took a minute and to go on record  with their opinions which in my book takes courage every time.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_wmS9DleJ4&feature=player_embedded]