The Dictatorship of Relativism

Ideas do have consequences. Share

Danny Gospel

“We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are honourable, but we without honour.” 1 Corinthians 4:10

In few novels does a character come so close to an incarnation of the words “fool for Christ” as does Daniel David McGillicuddy, the hero of David Athey’s debut novel Danny Gospel. Danny has lost everything, his family, his home, his bride, his sanity, and his respectability. He has been stripped of everything except his faith, which feeds both his innate kindliness and his joy, a joy which the world cannot give or take away. He is a bit like the "Holy Fools" of the Russian Orthodox tradition, a living contradiction to the world, and the often unwitting vehicle for salvific graces.

Constantly seeking the elusive state he calls “normal and happy,” it becomes quickly obvious to the reader that while Danny may have moments of happiness in his life he will never be “normal.” The Gospel-singing Iowa farm family in which he was raised, although idealized by memory and bitter loss, was anything but normal. One tragic accident causes "the Gospel family" to unravel, leading to death and dispersal. Danny is left alone, except for a few faithful friends; his guilt over the original fatal mishap contributes to his trauma.

For Danny is truly emotionally troubled; the story is told from his point of view and it is not always clear when he is hallucinating and when he is lucid. It is difficult not to become mesmerized by the peculiar twists of Danny’s thought processes. His tendency to pursue every dream and impulse leads him upon an odyssey across America. His adventures at last bring him full circle, to the moment when being “normal and happy” are once again within his grasp.

However, Danny is uniquely marked by the cross. He longs for the days when his family proclaimed the Gospel through their music. Danny is called to share the Gospel on a deeper level, the level of abasement, of humiliation, of being a stranger and pilgrim on the earth. Lyrically written, Danny Gospel vivifies the scents and sounds of Iowa farms and towns, with characters who are distinctly Midwestern and prosaically salt-of-the-earth. Danny shines among them like a prophet of old, pointing the way to another and better world, saving his life by losing it. Share

What's in a Name?

Anthony Esolen discusses the difference between the designations of "housewife" and "stay-at-home mom."

I'll add, too, that the term "stay-at-home mom" marks an interesting and no healthy shift from the older "housewife." That is, the woman's role is defined in terms of what she does for her children, not what she does for her husband or for her husband and children together. Her primary duties as a married woman are, in this pseudo-conservative vision, to her children. But that doesn't accurately describe what she is in that home, or what her actual devotion to her husband is....

Nowadays it is a privilege (and practically a luxury) for a woman to be able devote herself entirely to her family. Like any vocation, being a wife and mother should be embraced with joy. Joy is not always a feeling; it is an overall attitude which comes with seeking to do the right thing. Every vocation is a challenge which demands a certain level of creativity. Making a comfortable and cheerful home, day in and day out, is no small task. How homemaking and mothering came to be so denigrated in our society I will never understand. Share

The Unmitigated Horror of Modern Slavery

When will it end? (Via Feminine Genius) Share

Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville

Historical fiction writer Susan Higginbotham recounts the events surrounding the controversial marriage of King Edward IV and his queen.

And here are some English rood screens from those years before Edward and Elizabeth's grandson Henry VIII turned everything upside down. Share

Notre Dame du Laus

A French shrine dedicated to the Blessed Mother has received full ecclesiastical approval, making it an official place of pilgrimage. Laus is the site of seventeenth century apparitions received by Dominican tertiary Benoîte Rencurel. Sometimes it takes awhile. (Thanks to Pewsitter and Abbey-Roads2)
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Brideshead Regurgitated

Andrew Cusack discusses the new production of Brideshead Revisited.

Well, the trailer for the film adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s classic novel “Brideshead Revisited” is out, and the film is slated for a summer release here in the States. (Trailer | Official Site). Waugh fans can but lament that, whereas Waugh said the book was essentially about “the operation of divine grace”, the screenwriter of this adaptation openly admitted that the script “turns God into a villain."

How disappointing! Share

Moulin Rouge (1952)

I enjoy films about Paris; many events have unfolded there. Many remarkable people, saints, kings, queens, soldiers, artists, writers, have lived in the ancient city on the Seine. Among the artists who made names for themselves in Paris are those whose lives were not above reproach, such as the tormented Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The scion of an old family of Languedoc, he was overwhelmed by alcohol and a bohemian lifestyle, just as his star was reaching its zenith. Before his death, he captured for posterity scenes of the Paris of the nineteenth century, unveiling the dark side of the brilliant, shining city, with all its tawdriness as well as its glamor and joie de vivre.

The John Huston 1952 film Moulin Rouge, starring José Ferrer, brings the paintings of Toulouse-Lautrec to life. As one reviewer says:

Hollywood biographies tended to be highly suspect, as writers frequently invent facts for the sake of drama, sanitizing the lives of everyone from politicians to scientists. There have been quite a few bios of composers, which were often pure fantasy, but few about painters. The Moon and Sixpence comes to mind. Huston wisely makes Moulin Rouge about the wild times in the Montmartre as much as it is about his painter Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. Better yet, the film touches upon the artist's career but is not a series of triumphs. Henri suffers as his work becomes more widely known, and the film ends in a weird mix of bittersweet failure. Here the critics should have found the "Huston thread," for Moulin Rouge ends as many of the director's pictures do, with the hero's hopes foiled but his spirit unbroken.

Just looking at Moulin Rouge is reason enough to make special plans to see it. Oswald Morris' cinematography is overpowering. It's perhaps not as intoxicated with its own effects as Jack Cardiff's sometime is, but the images dazzle just the same. This is the first film where Huston used his weight to push some progressive ideas through Technicolor London. Moulin Rouge looks to have been shot with heavy diffusion and special lighting in the dance scenes to emulate Toulouse-Lautrec's canvasses. The experiment by and large is successful - the film has a unique "painterly" look that connects the artist to the audience in the same way as last year's Girl With a Pearl Earring. Huston's movie compares favorably with the more highly regarded Vincente Minnelli Vincent Van Gogh biopic Lust for Life, with its strained theatrics and overplaying by Kirk Douglas.

In a way Moulin Rouge is first a vehicle for José Ferrer, the kind of elitist toast-of-the-town actor that wide audiences tend to abandon after a while. He charmed everyone in Cyrano de Bergerac but later on had a hard time as a lead and eventually became sort of a permanent special guest star. This is his celebrated 'stunt' role, the one where the camera is carefully placed to give him the illusion of having tiny legs. The illusion isn't that impressive any more, and we accept Henri mainly because of Ferrer's acting. Ferrer is witty, droll, haughty and remote, all the while conveying a need for other people and for love. It's fine work and has more subtlety than one might think. Here's a fellow who allows one woman to abuse him and then callously rejects another to protect his feelings. Ferrer makes him into a tragic case with a massive talent. Henri never loses faith in his art. He is allowed the sweet satisfaction of hearing his father -- a remote man who earlier called his work pornographic -- read aloud the telegram that says his work is to hang in the Louvre. Ferrer plays the father as well; we're so distracted by the tricks to make Lautrec fils seem a cripple that we never notice the methods used to put Lautrec pere in the same frame with him.

Moulin Rouge is among the better films about infamous artists; I agree with the following assessment:

This is the movie that started me on a life-long love affair with Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) and once again, it was John Huston who ignited the affair, just as he had with Sam Spade and "The Maltese Falcon" on his very first assignment as a young director. "Moulin Rouge" was a nominee the year that Cecil B. De Mille's "The Greatest Show On Earth" won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1952, even though Huston's recreation of the Paris art scene of the 1890's is a far superior film. Jose Ferrer was also nominated for the physically painful role of the aristocratic Toulouse-Lautrec, who captured the gaiety of Montmartre night life, while moving through life with a sad, resigned dignity. Huston got a wonderful performance out of Colette Marchand, playing Marie Charlet, an actual young model who tormented Toulouse-Lautrec, more out of personal desperation than any real malice. However, Toulouse-Lautrec's friendship with Myriamme Hayem (Suzanne Flon) seems to owe more to Pierre la Mure's novel than it does to reality. Certainly, some of the other colorful characters here played far more authentic roles in the artist's life. There really was a La Goulue (Katherine Kath), of course: Her real name was Louise Weber (1870-1929) and Toulouse-Lautrec's posters of the dancer will long outlive them both. Jane Avril (1868-1943) survived a difficult childhood to become one of the great entertainers of her day. Zsa Zsa Gabor delivers one of her better performances as the charming dancer immortalised in Toulouse-Lautrec's posters. Toulouse-Lautrec's friend Maurice Joyant (1864-1930, played by Lee Montague) wrote one of the first biographies of the artist. Like Toulouse-Lautrec, Huston was well-born, and both artists shared a deep passion for the truth plus a strong determination to establish their own reputations quite separate and apart from the circumstances of their birth. Both succeeded, although Toulouse-Lautrec undoubtedly paid the higher price. Huston lovingly recreates the Moulin Rouge in all its garish splendor, paying meticulous attention to the Technicolor process, trying to get every detail just right. ("Moulin Rouge" did win the Oscar for art direction and set decoration that year.) It's a sad, exquisite film of an irretrievably vanished era that still has the power to lure us into its spell, if only in our dreams.

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Madama Butterfly

Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini is one of the greatest operas of all time, plumbing the depths of tragedy. A fifteen year old Japanese geisha marries an American sailor, who has no intention of keeping his troth. She becomes a Christian, her family disowns her, and then her husband abandons her. She bears his child and waits for him, only to have him return with an American wife. They want to take her little boy away. According to the Japanese tradition of choosing death rather than dishonor, she kills herself. It is a horrific finale.

Yes, she was too young to be married. We must remember that in other cultures and in other places and times, girls were married as teenagers. Our society is shocked by teenage brides, but the girls in those cultures were raised with the expectation that they would be married young.

Puccini was certainly not celebrating the manner in which his Japanese heroine was treated by her husband. He was condemning it, and the music captures the unspeakable outrage. Such thoughtless cruelty was happening all over the world and what way does an artist have to make a statement about a bad situation other than paint a picture, write a novel, make a film, or compose an opera. Madama Butterfly actually opened many people's eyes to the careless behavior of Europeans and Americans in non-Christian cultures, behaving in ways which did not win souls but rather led to death.

Here is some more commentary on this most tragic of operas.

Madame Butterfly originated in a story by John Luther Long and was adapted for the stage by David Belasco. The play premiered with great success in New York in 1900, then quickly crossed the Atlantic for a London production where it was seen by Giacomo Puccini. Puccini's first version of the opera failed at La Scala in 1904, but a revised version was successful the same year, the version that we hear today, one of the most frequently produced operas in the entire repertory.

Butterfly is different from many operas. It is intimate, devoid of spectacle, taking place completely within a house in Nagasaki. There is one straight plot line, without subplots. Girl wins boy, girl loses boy, girl commits hara kiri. What makes the piece work are the characterizations of Butterfly and her Captain Pinkerton, both in the drama and in the rich and luscious Puccini score.

From when we first meet Pinkerton, a dashing officer in the United States Navy, it is clear that the man is a philandering heel, infatuated with the fifteen year old Butterfly, cognizant of her fragility, but "not content with life unless he makes his treasure the flowers on every shore." He says as he compares her to a butterfly, "I must pursue her even though I damage her wings."

The stage for the tragedy is set. We meet the beauteous Cio-Cio San, not a complete innocent - she has been a geisha, after all - but nonetheless fragile, unworldly, and in love with the handsome sailor. She deceives herself, despite abundant warnings, as to Pinkerton's motives.

The tale unfolds with well written dialogue, sung to music which captures the feelings of love and yearning and pain, raising the entire experience into the realm of great art, transcendently moving. This simple plot provides the vehicle for the arias of love and loss and hope and despair, the stuff of which the very best operatic music is made.

Madama Butterfly is an opera for our epoch, as young girls are exploited not by foreign invaders but by their own friends, families, communities, schools. Like Butterfly, they are often forced to surrender their children, especially when the children are slain in abortion. Written at the dawn of the modern age, Puccini's opera transcends musical entertainment; it is art which captures the darkness that would sweep our times.

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