walnuts

Yesterday I walked along the Seine as thousands of protestors marched over me on a bridge. Now, as I watch contemporary dance on TV I can't help but thinking that France is a society that hasn't given up. Or maybe it's all of europe. They are trying to prove that you can have your cake- support for culture, environmental protections, health care, rights for workers not to be treated as cows- and eat it too. America has given up on so many of these delectable morsels. The American attitude is always, "That's taxpayers money you're wasting" or, "Who will pay for it?". Of course they rarely say that about this war.

And Walnuts. Yesterday I saw Bertolucci's "The Conformist" at the Cinematheque. In one short scene we enter the office of someone- a small character, a government person or a facist spy or something- he's eating walnuts off this beautfiul little wooden sculpture of a lady. He's cracking the nuts with a nutcracker as he talks, given his brief sermon on some assisination or other (I couldn't pay attention to that as I was too absorbed in the art direction), and as the camera pulls out we see that every horizontal shelf space in the room is lined with walnuts. His bookshelves, his desk, his mantle. But this is never part of the discussion, which is strictly business. And then it's over and we never return to the nuts or the character.

It is hard to explain why I feel so liberated by the walnuts. Maybe because American cinema would never dare to have the nuts. Every element must have a purpose and a meaning and clearly move the story forward, or so goes the dictum. But Bertolucci dreamed this government officer would be in an office covered in walnuts and so it was. And it is Sunday night, I've just had a nice rehearsal (very few tears) with my film's starlette and public TV is dedicating these 2 hours to gorgeous Spanish dancing, filmed beautifully.