Do we need Romantic Comedies about 40+ people? And...Romantic Comedies?

The bigger question is not if we need romantic comedies about older people, which is a matter of age, but if we need romantic comedies at all…In that case we speak the genre.

 I’d like to speak about genre AND age, although when the film is what Brazilians call “sugared water” it’s not interesting no matter what age it covers or what genre it is.

 You may enjoy most contemporary “rom-com” if you love a spark between two people, then a parental or ex’s or society’s disapproval, or, alternatively, a misunderstanding, and after a bit of a mess a happy ending, you are going to enjoy yourself in most romantic comedies. But I want my water pure and my romantic comedies smart and funny.

Despite past disappointments, I watched the film Words and Pictures (2013). I couldn't resist the cast, especially Juliette Binoche and Clive Owen. If there was any chance I'd enjoy a romantic comedy it would have been one with them. Also, it was about people who are over 40. The Director, Fred Schepisi and the writer, Gerald Di Pego have done interesting work in the past.

Another chance to enjoy a movie of this kind: if it didn't take itself seriously.

Well, I didn't enjoy it very much.

Some parts were better than others. The idea of aged and imperfect lovers is cool. But...Well, the story goes like this: an alcoholic poet and teacher Jack Marcus is testing his relationships and losing his credibility. His bitterness emerges everywhere including the classroom.

A debilitated with rheumatism, painter and teacher Dina Delsanto comes to the little town college due to her worsening state of health. She is a rigid but excellent teacher.

They meet. One brings words, the other pictures, and through their students, who become better people thanks to it, they compete and tease and flirt and do what people do in a romantic comedy.

I think that because it was about 40+ aged people I was hoping for more depth and subtlety, and better humor.

My wise friends,  who understand cinema and read a lot and create their own stories, books, scripts and plays expressed their opinions, and I’m proudly quote them here.

Andrew Tibbett, for instance says: I like that cast and that director a lot. It's too bad the film couldn't find a better spin on the genre. I like that cast and that director a lot. It's too bad the film couldn't find a better spin on the genre.

Younger romcoms seem more willing to be funny. The older ones with Diane Keaten and Merle Streep and the like appear to take themselves too seriously. As you say, if ever a genre needed to NOT take itself seriously its this one.

Since loads of marriages are falling apart, I think older people are out there romancing and so it's a good idea to make films about that. But how to do it? Maybe it might work to go the complete other direction: very serious, like Hanke's Amour? Hardly a romcom, but...

The specific trouble with older love is that people are more set in their ways, more battle-scarred so it's harder to give yourself. Perhaps that's the route to explore. I like the new sitcom "You're the Worst". It's not about older people, but it is about cranky cranky cranky people who really DO NOT want to be in a lovely dove relationship and yet that is what happens to them. So, perhaps the older folks should resist more and fail more. That might be a better vein for comedy.It's almost if the romantic comedies de nos jours had been processed through TV and sitcoms.

Jonas Knutsson says: One reason [for the decline in the genre) is that so many of the hurdles that were used to set up these plots have (mercifully) disappeared, another being that there isn't really much of a culture of romance these days and it's difficult to pluck these things from the ether. I believe the writer of the British TV series "Yes, Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister" wrote an article, making pretty much the same point. It's just very difficult to come up with a plausible Capulets-and-Montagues scenario in my neck of the woods.

He adds that “they” did this stuff so well in the sixties and seventies: "Two for the Road", "Pete 'n' Tillie", "Loving", "Blume in Love". The list goes on.

“Pete 'n' Tillie” had some bleak moments but I think the sixties/seventies style didn't require a light touch for every scene. As I recall, the film had a lot of the sort of wisecracks that people make in ordinary life.

A lot of the Elliot Gould flicks of the seventies would probably be classified as "relationship flicks" today, as would "Two for the Road".

Frank J. Hutton says:  Probably, romantic comedies about 40+ people are needed, since there are 40+ people who're romantic and funny and like that sort of thing. The problem, I think, is that most of the movies just aren't any good.

Thinking back, I rather enjoyed the two with Jack Nicholson -- the one with Dianne Keaton and the other with Helen Hunt. If I recall, they seemed more honest than not and were genuinely funny in places, not all jacked up and shrill like most comedies are these days.

I'm not much for sentimental nonsense unless it's great vintage sentimental nonsense, in which case I'm a sucker and all bets are off. Until my late teens, I'd a definite predilection towards romantic melancholy, classic and otherwise. I escaped it by my early 20's. For whatever reason, Two For the Road always emblemized for me that certain yearning for repeated failure that lurks at the heart of melancholy...It's just the one movie. There's something about it. Probably that had something to do with by that time my parents had divorced and then remarried each other, which 2nd time around wasn't at all for the better. I could really wallow in that theme music and geez, Audrey Hepburn and all...

And yeah, I was wondering that about 'Two For the Road' and was thinking, 'You mean I was scarred into an adolescence of persistent melancholic romantic failure by a rom-com?'

Tamara Lee says: I recently came upon this article in the Atlantic  Romantic Comedy is Dying

 considering the end of romantic comedies in favour of cinematic romance. Something I've noticed lately is an increase in older women/younger man affair romances. The French Bright Days Ahead comes to mind, but there seem to be quite a few.

I suppose the idea is the 40-year-old men are busy having affairs with 20 year girls, so the 40-year-old women need to also...

(I love her biting humor!)

She includes another excellent link to a new film, about a French older woman and an American younger man 5 to 7 and introduces the question if the French mind the typecasting. 5 to 7

Martin Heavisides says: If you broaden the scope a bit (which contemporary examples, which can be called, to distinguish their indistinguishibility, Rom Coms, generally do not) a number of quite fine films are romantic comedies or contain elements of same.

Les Enfant du Paradis

Le Roi du Coeur

Harold and Maude

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Afterglow

Addicted to Love

Joe Versus the Volcano

of which Afterglow involves over 40s in a key role, Les Enfant du Paradis lovers who are young initially but approaching middle age when the story ends, and Harold and Maude involves cross-generational romance with a vengeance. But few romantic comedies are close to as odd or ambitious as these.

@@

After talking about it but especially after listening to these intriguing people, I suppose that the basic answer is YES we want to explore romance in this age and in any age, as we pass through the ages. What we want, however, is not any romantic comedy but a romantic comedy that allows us to recognize ourselves and others in it, appreciate the surprises and the humor and go back to our own life films.

The odd film: Jack Goes Boating (2010) Philip Seymour Hoffman

Odd refers to random and also to strangeness. Films and books about misfits attract me because I relate well to being an outsider and repel me because usually the artist is so better fit into society than his creations that it makes me wander if it's not patronizing or exploration. The latter is not exactly rational: you create what you can, and if it's not an exercise and show of skills, than it's authentic work.

Anyway,  This film made me miss the presence of Philip Seymour Hoffman, the sensitive, multi-faceted actor, here a director as well, in the cinema.

The story sheds light on low class people who struggle to make a living, to love despite the difficulties, temptations and fear, and in the shy Jack and the neurotic Connie cases even to express themselves in words.

Jack (Hoffman) and Clyde (Jhn Orotz) drive limos. If at first Clyde is more social, already married, and a good friend and Jack is a complete ill-fit everywhere. Slowly, while their friendships strengthens, however, Jack seems to be the one who'll find true love, a better job and happiness.

If it sounds a bit of a cliche, well, it is. A bit. But it consists of many beautiful moments, exploration of intimacy and of alienation, and everyone acts extremely well.

On the whole, then, it's worth watching for what it does well.

Director:

Philip Seymour Hoffman

Writers (WGA):

Robert Glaudini (screenplay)

Robert Glaudini (play)

Cast

Philip Seymour Hoffman ... Jack

John Ortiz ... Clyde

Richard Petrocelli ... Uncle Frank

Thomas McCarthy ... Dr. Bob Thomas (as Tom McCarthy)

Amy Ryan ... Connie

Daphne Rubin-Vega ... Lucy

Salvatore Inzerillo ... Cannoli

And others

Films you may want to watch as well: The Little House (2014) & Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)

I haven't written in a long long while, and maybe my followers if there have been any have dropped...
But I do want to post in the blog small comments about great and small works of art, or rather, books and films.
I'd love to hear about your impressions as well.

The Little House (2014) -A Japanese Film / Yôji Yamada

A beautiful film, engrossing, sensitive, and culturally informative.
A woman writes a diary for her already grownup grandson. She tells about the days she worked as a maid for a couple and their little son before and during the second WW. The hierarchy between social classes comes through strongly although and maybe because she is very well treated and even loved-within class limits, also, the submissive role of women is clear. On top, good manners, bows, and apologies make you feel how wooden the people had become in their own homes. 
Anyway, there's also a story of infidelity, of survival, and you want it to go on, although it's quite long already.

Directed by 
Yôji Yamada

based on the novel by Kyôko Nakajima ...

Yôji Yamada ... (screenplay) 
Emiko Hiramatsu ... (screenplay)

Cast 
Satoshi Tsumabuki Satoshi Tsumabuki ...
Takeshi
Chieko Baishô Chieko Baishô ...
Taki (older)
Takako Matsu Takako Matsu ...
Tokiko Hirai
Yui Natsukawa Yui Natsukawa
Takatarô Kataoka Takatarô Kataoka ...
Mr. Hirai
Haru Kuroki Haru Kuroki

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)

A little less successful in entertainment scripts written by Charlie Kaufman, but it's still good. (It's rumored on the Net that Kaufman disliked what director George Clooney changed in the script.) You can feel the Clooney touch, influenced by or corresponding to The Coen brothers' touch in their cutsey/smartass films (I like their other films), and by Soderberg, the latter mentioned by my friend Jonas Knutsson. HT

This one is not cutesy, only smartass, which I prefer.

Also, it's based on a "cult memoir of game show impresario Chuck Barris, in which he purports to have been a CIA hitman."
It's enjoyable, and displays many many famous faces. 

Director:
George Clooney
Writers:
Chuck Barris (book)
Charlie Kaufman (screenplay)


Dick Clark ... Himself
Sam Rockwell ... Chuck Barris
Michelle Sweeney ... J. Sweeney
Drew Barrymore ... Penny
Chelsea Ceci ... Tuvia, Age 8
Michael Cera ... Chuck Age 8 and 11 (as Michael Céra)
Brad Pitt ... Brad, Bachelor #1
Matt Damon ... Matt, Bachelor #2
Murray Langston ... Actual Unknown Comic
Marlida Ferreira ... Woman in Pub
Julia Roberts ... Patricia Watson

Sorry, but this Year Can't End Before I Finish Everything I Wanted to Finish (and Start)

The heavy traffic and the blazing sun of the last days of 2014 keep me in, which could be good for my numerous projects, but instead I entered various social networks and started thinking what I might have missed or left unfinished because of the many  opportunities to unfocus.
I'll be positive first: I finished my MA studies with a thesis about the female body in literature. I presented it in a congress in Durham University in England and had a whole week in London. (This, of course, was just for fun, which is essential.)
I published my book Life In, Life Out with Matter Press and am happy with it.
Lastly, I passed the PhD selection tests with a fine grade that made me feel I am not yet too old, too forgetful, too lazy or too late to accomplish stuff usually done decades earlier.
I haven't finished the revision of my book, Baby Harvest, and I really want to do it before the university year starts and I'll sink deep into other books.
I haven't written even close to enough, since I dedicated my time either to writing my thesis or edit, revise and review stories and books.
I haven't read all the books I wish I'd have.
Now, at the bottom of everything, however, and I'm sorry if I'm sentimental, there are people, real, fictional, real and fictional. REAL. Really.
All in all I'm a lucky fool. The year may come and go, it's only a question of numbers. A few people will read this post, and to those who will I send my love, because this is what matters before during and after the fireworks.

Writing about This Body and the Other: Corporeality in Three Contemporary Novels and a Short Story Collection by Women

I realize there are many questions to deal with once I turn my attention to difference, social fragmentation and multi-ethnicity in regard to the situation of minority, immigrant, exiled, or otherwise underprivileged women. So, my challenge is to investigate how doubly-marginalized women are affected by gender-related concepts referring to the body, and what are the specific issues with which they deal. 
Since I love literature and maybe even understand the world through it, I am going to analyze female characters’ relationships with and through their bodies and their corporeal manifestations of suffering, pleasure, resistance, acceptance or overcoming problems. I want to analyze the characters’ different conflicts and quests -- whether for freedom, self-acceptance, equal rights or peace, among others -- in order to point out any possible social and personal transformations. 
If anyone has anything to discuss and contribute, I'd be happy to open the conversation! 
I am wondering about entering with Jewish immigrants fiction-I feel a connection to it. The books and the stories I'll probably use are these:

            Property

Valerie Martin, a white author from the U.S.A., describes the state of women as possessions at the time of slavery in the United States. Martin offers an original slant in her dive into a white female slave-owner’s psyche and situation as she tells her life story, interweaving it with her relationships with her black female slave. While the character tries to release herself from the greedy possession of her husband’s hold, she is unaware of repeating the pattern of ownership and property in her own connection with the black woman. We learn about both women only through her eyes, and the gap between what she tells and what the reader can read out of it is more meaningful than the related facts.

            At the Full and Change of the Moon:

The neo-slave narrative written by the Canadian author Dionne Brand, born in the Caribbean, is the story of a Trinidadian slave and her descendants. This tale of diaspora accompanies the family from Trinidad to Amsterdam in the twentieth century. The novel begins in 1802 when a female slave leads a mass suicide revolt, releasing from it only her daughter, and dies tortured yet realized. The relationships of the daughter with her own children and the way she leads her life involve memory, pain, hope, and unconventional behavior that mark the future of the family. As in Property the author mixes historical data with fiction.

            On Beauty 

 Zadie Smith, an English author, the daughter of a Jamaican mother and an English father, writes about the intertwined lives of two families. The family living in the U.S.A consists of a white Englishman, his African-American wife, and their three children. The other family, husband, wife and two children, are Trinidadians living in England. Both men are academics and rivals. The families end up living in the same town in the USA, and the women become close and change the families’ relationships. Interracial relationships, culture gaps, the academy and its effect on the characters’ lives bring out the difference and the sameness in the characters’ expectations and the way they perceive themselves and the world.

The Interpreter of Maladies

            Jhumpa Lahiri, born in India and living in the United States, introduces relationships involving ethnicity, class, postcolonial issues, and stereotypes. In the story “Sexy” a white woman from Boston has an affair with an Indian man and a friendly relationship with an Indian female co-worker. A parallel line of infidelity stretches between the story of the co-worker’s cousin’s failed marriage and the affair the Bostonian has with the Indian man. In “The Treatment of Bibi Haldar” a young Indian woman, employed and exploited by her wealthy cousin and husband, becomes sick. While the community puts a pressure to marry her, the couple refuses to let her go. When they end-up shunning her, out of fear for their baby, she becomes pregnant from an unknown man and is fully recovered.

I hope to speak about the bodily issue involved in the women's perception of their selves. There is more to say, but I'll do it in another post.

Life In, Life Out, my first book, a flash collection published by Matter Press

Previous publications of flashes from the book include:

In Print

W.W. Norton Flash Fiction International Fire. Water along with stories by Nobel Prize winner Czeslaw Milosz, Etgar Keret and Shabnam Nadiya

The Flash: a Flash Fiction Anthology (UK) Major Chaos published along with stories by Rick Moody, Steve Almond and others

Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine at Chester University UK: Boxing

Gigantic: Out of Order along with stories by Lydia Davis and Ottessa Moshfegh

The Los Angeles Review: The Bison

Prism International (Canada): Once a Month We Play

On Line

Smokelong Quarterly: Fire. Water. (Anthologized in W.W. Norton Anthology)

The Future of Color in Salon.com

Salon.com: Perfect for This World

More:

“Crystal and Gold” in NOÖ Journal;
“Nature” in 3:AM;
“Running Away Diary” in Portland Magazine
& Dragons with Cancer Anthology ;
“String Theory” in The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts;
“Get DownTo It” in NANO Fiction;
“Soap” in The Salt River Review;“
“Somewhere Station” in Eclectica;
“The Spirit of His Will” in Absinthe Review;
“Wings” in Pindeldyboz;
“Sudden Changes” in Happy and Pig Iron Malt, Web Del Sol;
“Tiny Love Stories” in Dispatch;
“Unless” in Corium Magazine;
“A Narrow Bridge” in EveryWriter Resource; 
 “About My Life Length” in Quick Fiction.

Photography and cover design byVered Navon.

Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity By Judith Butler

Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble has been one of the most cited and influential texts in gender studies since its publication in 1990. Butler introduces problems resulting from the identification of gender with the biological difference between men and women, analyses the power relations in the basis of the concept of gender, describes methods of controls and suggests that deconstruction can lead to change.

According to the scholar, gender-based classification is constructed by discourse with the objective of recreating hegemonic paradigms and perpetuating current power relations. Former feminists have noted the importance of exposing the interests behind conventions. Butler goes further: defining Women and Men as universal categories disguises the interest it serves.

She writes, “Signification is not a founding act, but rather a regulated process of repetition that both  conceals  itself  and  enforces  its  rules  precisely  through  the  production  of substantializing effects” (185). She states that analysis (or deconstruction) provides tools for the socially oppressed to fight against the existing social order.

 In the author’s view, the category of Women from which the feminist struggle arises is different from the political, hierarchical myth based on biology. The assumption that there is a pre-discursive body with a pre-determined sexuality and gender sustains oppression against subjugated and marginalized subjects. Disconnected from the body, she suggests, gender can include more than two versions.

            In the first chapter, titled “Subjects of Sex, Gender, Desire”, Butler introduces woman as a subject of feminism and distinguishes between sex and gender. In the second she discusses heterosexuality within psychoanalytical and structuralist theories. Lastly, “Subversive bodily acts” deals with the category of biological sex and ends with Butler’s theory of gender-related performance and performativity.