(no subject)

Voyage to Italy may be the channel through which The Dead reaches Certified Copy - not to imply Kiarostami wouldn't know Joyce, but films speak more directly to films than texts do, are better remembered by them. And surely it's also the channel through which it reached Eyes Wide Shut, which is markedly more mortality-obsessed than Dream Story - understandably, given Kubrick's health. Though I wonder how aware Schnitzler was of Joyce, c. 1925? He must have at least heard someone Irish was up to interesting things with his own innovation. It's not clear in The Dead whether the couple's relationship is helped or hurt by what's revealed, nor is it in Certified Copy how the day's events will have affected the one or two marriages involved. I kind of think that's part of what makes them better stories than the others, good as those are. And at least conceptually Kiarostami may even be improving on Joyce, given who "the dead" become in his film. Not that more fucked up is generally better, in a narrative, but the initial repression the present-tense events untie gets honored as something other than a mere mistake when it's less clear that it wasn't necessary. It's hard to both be snow and know it.

Though by making the universality of his characters' plight less obvious Kubrick managed to heighten the menace of death - other people had the strangeness of strangers, making Cruise very alone. The film did that very well - its death was how death is in nightmares. Well enough to make you forget some of the ludicrousness, like that unbearable ballroom scene with Kidman and suitor.