Screening History / Gore Vidal
Patricia Black
from a friend who doesn't like Vidal but knows that I enjoy him). It's
part memoir, part history, and all about cinema! It begins nicely enough:
"As I now move, graciously, I hope, toward the door marked Exit, it occurs
to me that the only thing I ever really liked to do was go to the movies.
Naturally, Sex and Art always took precedence over the cinema. Unfortun-
ately, neither ever proved to be as dependable..."
Ah, here's a nice one: "Welles was deeply political ... he was a miracle
of empathy, and he knew all the gradations of despair that the oyster ex-
perienced as it slid down his gullet."
and later: "... a primary function of the narrative art is to produce em-
pathy in those who may otherwise lack the ability to understand what it
is that another person feels or thinks."
...to enable us to recognize each other through the veil of our differ-
ences ... Bill? I think I just channelled Bruce! Did I? (gosh that felt
good :))
back to Vidal: "Lonely children often have imaginary playmates but I was
never lonely; rather, I was solitary, and wanted no company at all other
than books and movies, and my own imagination." (nice distinction)
One more, and then naptime: "We now know, through such FBI informers as
Ronald Reagan, that in the thirties and the forties Hollywood was being
infiltated by the Reds and that writers in the pay of Moscow were subtly
poisoning every script that they could with malicious attacks on greed
and selfishness and those other traits that have made our country great."
(I love this guy! and he does it all without smiley-faces!)
Sweet dreams.
Patricia