The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

So this makes about 3 themes in the past 24 hours. One that I jacked, one that I tried to save, and one that Becca swept in and, with a wave of her hand (and a few hours of seriously hard work), made appear.

Well, it might as well have been a wave of the hand, to me. All I did was plug those little pictures into the holes. Seriously. With that, the Saga of the Redesign comes to a close. Thank god. But since it wasn’t my work, I don’t mind saying Becca did a hell of a job.

I’ll stop plaguing you with it accordingly.

Okay, so movie talk now.

My husband is gone about every other weekend for some classes. On these weekends, I tend to watch experimental movies– which doesn’t really mean that the movie is experimental in the real sense, but only that it’s something I’m sure could either be Very Good or Very Bad, and I don’t want to test it out on him since he has the attention span of a gnat that needs Ritalin. Makes him a good beta reader, but you know, I try to spare him the experimentation otherwise.

So last time I watched Girl with a Pearl Earring, which was pretty cool even though I’ve never read the book. Dutch Baroque art was my second Dead White Guy painting love, so I’m likely biased. The story wasn’t that engrossing, but Colin Firth as Creepy!Vermeer was very interesting  (look, I know I’m not the only one to whom he’ll always be Mr. Darcy), and I could look at Scarlett Johansson all day. And night. And then some. But I think the reason I enjoyed the movie was the way they captured the light and composed the shots in strange, extraordinarily Vermeer ways, without being too annoying about it. It was just flat out pretty to watch, in a very intricate way, so… shiny, man. Shiny and Vermeer, most importantly.

So tonight I watched Goya’s Ghosts. Spanish art was my first Dead White Guy art love; I took Spanish as my language in high school because I thought Picasso was the man. (Still do!) So this one is a Milos Forman film, and anyone who knows me knows I watch Amadeus at least once a month, so I figured okay, Goya, Forman, Javier Bardem (God, he’d better not be Goya, that’d be too weird– don’t worry folks, he’s not), Natalie Portman (bit hit or miss, but you know, I’m shallow and I like her face), and Stellan Skarsgard (there’s our Goya! A good choice!). Can this be a bad thing?

And if you like Goya at all (which, I mean, how can you not?), you’ll sit through this movie just because it’s even more literally like seeing a Goya come to life than that whole Vermeer thing. Those were some screwed up years for Europe– for a lot of the western world, really– and he got them right. There’s a moment in the very beginning where Bardem’s character is talking to the latter-day Inquisition, saying that his work isn’t blasphemy, but shows us what’s really wrong with the world as it is.

It’s up for debate whether it’s wrong, but the man’s work always hit a chord with me so I think it’s fairly apt in a general sense. This movie showed it without just telling you constantly, which was one of the major differences between fairly capturing an artist’s oeuvre, as in the Vermeer movie, and actually owning it, as in Goya’s Ghosts. (Oh movies, you teach me how to write daily.) So again, not the most amazing plot, but lovely, and Forman-y, and Goya-y. And it had some art geek squee moments, like the entire etching process being presented, etc. etc. So worth all the pain it caused me, being rather depressing.

Except that now I’m up too late/early again, and I know when I finally hit the pillow I’ll have some seriously weird ass dreams. So I leave you with a favorite etching of mine from Goya– not one of his most screwed up visions, but still, it always worked for me. I’ve gotten some good mileage out of it, writing wise.

This is El sueno de la razon produce monstruos, aka The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. Doesn’t it just?

El sueno de la razon produce monstruos