'Shiva's dance' (Fables of the Self, by C.S. Shah)
World without end.
Amen.
What would you do if somebody hurt so very, irreparably badly they pleaded with you to end their life?
Somebody with no other way out?
Pursuing a personal season of films starring Susannah York, tonight I finally watched 'They Shoot Horses, Don't They?' (Rotten Tomatoes).
York, as almost invariably, is first rate. So are Jane Fonda, Michael Sarrazin and virtually everybody else in this tragic tale of a marathon dance contest set in the Depression of the 1930s.
The most gruelling film I've seen in a long time, it doesn't help answer the question for me but it makes an appalling kind of sense.
I really don't give a damn how many Oscars Sydney Pollack's 1969 account of Horace McCoy's novel was nominated for or won and also wonder what those who find it dated use for "brains".
Scores, prizes and the "when" of it all are completely beside the point once this movie's allegory, acting, artwork and music are done with you.
Pollack and his screen-writers fleshed out a pulp novel to give us a broader vision of desparation, hope and despair.
Jane Fonda commented that McCoy's hero "influenced Camus's 'The Stranger' ('L'Etranger')."
'They Shoot Horses, Don't They?' is terrifyingly brilliant.
Relentless and very strongly recommended.
12:38:49 AM link
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