Pentimento meaning: From the movie "Julia"

Click on the picture to enlarge.

Still life from the movie "Julia" with Vanessa Redgrave

I have already posted about the film "Julia" and expressed numerous times my admiration by the work of Vanessa Redgrave.
I was watching "Julia" one more time  on the notebook which was very close to my vision so it was easier to pay attention to some details like these two "still lives".
It was when Jane Fonda's personage, Lilian, was in Paris.
The first one is for me an homage to Cézanne.
I'm enjoying paying close attention to photography in the movies I'm watching again.

A special place: Virtlantis where dissent is mandatory

This is another picture of the house I had at Second Life. At the fence I hanged pictures of people I admire: from left to right: Vanessa Redgrave as Julia; a graffiti of the poet Rimbaud; Italy's map (my grandma was Italian), and, the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

I love Vichen's graffiti that uses the leaves as the hair and you can watch it at this post.

I stopped going to Second Life because this Windows's version makes it impossible to use sound and talking to the friends I met - people from many countries - is the reason I go to this virtual place.
I have bonds with some people that are hard to explain for we have a connection that is not like a friendship in real life.
I'll try to make it come clear in another post.

A place I love to go is Virtlantis. We can practice English by talking about different topics that vary according to our mood - from our favorite dishes to "the meaning of life" which is the proposal when we feel out of topic: "Let's discuss the meaning of life." and the silence is broken with laughs.

There are numerous different activities in English and in other languages. I started teaching Portuguese and it was a great experience. I wanna do it again because it is very empowering and I never thought that someone would want to learn my language.

I tried learning Polish and Arab. It is so hard! I'm still learning English and French that are the two languages I've been studying since... ever for English and from high school for French. I lived in Paris for one years and, yes, they treat you well if you speak the language.
I rather dedicate my time trying to master these two languages I have the privilege of speaking.

It all for free. You don't have to pay for these activities at Virtlantis or at other language practicing community.

What I like about Virtlantis is the freedom of speech. Yes, a place we can dissent, better, a place where dissent is incentivated, as a matter of fact dissent is mandatory.
Of course you can tell the official version but usually you'll receive information from people who have connections with the independents who are trying hard to tell what is really going on.

Rambling is also encouraged as long as you leave time for the others. I abused my ramblings prerogatives a lot... Shame!

"Yes! I love Van Gogh but I think that people put too much emphasys on his biography in a way that it overshadows his work... and the movie that is seen by... so I read a book about him and a psychoanalyst said that the pattern of the wall paper indicated he was emotionally unstable.  This is crazy!... and since we are talking about Van Gogh who was born in The Netherlands and spent a brief period of time in Paris... France? Oh! Sarkozy was a disaster and...'

My problem is that I think aloud. I start making connections and... I have to thank those great people who were patience with me.

Time to research...

I'm not publishing lately cause I'm researching some stuffs that I know by intuition.
But we need to search for the facts.
I'm constantly seeking for the truth and it requires a lot of time. But we have to do it or we'll dangerously believe that what we know is enough. It is never enough...
The image is beautiful but I did choose it because it's not in the comfort of the sun that enlightenment is achieved. It is in the rain.
And sometimes... Enlightenment can be brutal.

Vanessa Redgrave's anti-Zionist Oscar Speech

I have already expressed the way I feel about Vanessa Redgrave in other posts. As we are in times of Oscar I would like to remember her speech at the 1978's Oscar ceremony award:

"I salute you, I pay tribute to you and I think you should be very  proud that in the last few weeks you stood firm and you have refused to be intimidated by the threats of a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums  whose behavior is an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world and to their great and heroic record of struggle against fascism and oppression and I  to you that I will continue to fight against anti-semitism and facism." 

While she was doing this speech the Zionists hoodlums were burning her effigy at the stadium park.
Vanessa received the award for her movie "Julia", that was based on Lilian Hellman's novel "Pentimento", telling the story of a woman who helped Jews escape the Nazism.

At the same year Vanessa had produced and bankrolled a documentary "The Palestinians" that praised  PLO and condemned Zionism. The documentary caused anger which explains the Zionists hoodlums.

At the left video proves that she kept her promise of fighting fascism.

"I came to see that human rights and human rights law is the only basis for creating a world that my children, your children, our grandchildren can live in."
Vanessa Redgrave

"Enlightenment can be brutal" Vanessa Redgrave's "The Fever"

This is another of those posts that nobody will care, nobody will comment and nobody will have access.
For the last months I have been reading and searching a lot and became aware of many facts that are happening in this world that made me realize that fiction, especially those that display a dystopic world, portrays a pale idea about what governments and the elite is doing.

I will say nothing else because I also realized that it is impossible to try to share this knowledge even tough it affects all individuals of the world.
I am exhausted and, yes, enlightenment can be brutal. All my life I was never afraid of questioning and asking "why" or "who will profit from that" maybe because I lived under dictatorship and in my twenties it was a period of time that it was a shame not having a political view.

No man was considered a man if he did not read the newspapers, reading disinformations consciously or not, in the morning whatever his views were.
Today saying "I don't like politics." is glamorous and some people say it as if they were above good and evil with this attitude as if they were immune and free of the manipulations of the powers.

What is being done, and I wrote some posts about it that were ignored, is inhuman, heinous and criminal in a global scale. Everybody is affected.
There is nothing I can do and I hate this phrase. I was thinking about publishing this post about this movie that is the first step if someone wants to understand not only the world but what regulates his/her life in a high degree: what we eat, what we drink, what we think the control of our subjectivity, but I gave up improving it's test.

I am tired and I know that enlightenment is a personal journey thou the consequences of politicians acts affects humankind.
I cannot make people care about their own lives being manipulated and influenced. There are also those who are aware and that is enough for them and they use their knowledge to be good in rhetoric.
Just two alerts about the Nazi regimen:

"Propaganda is the art of persuasion - persuading others that your 'side of the story' is correct. Propaganda might take the form of persuading others that your military might is too great to be challenged; that your political might within a nation is too great or popular to challenge etc. In Nazi Germany, Dr Joseph Goebbels was in charge of propaganda. Goebbels official title was Minister of Propaganda and National Enlightenment."

"Education played a very important part in Nazi Germany in trying to cultivate a loyal following for Hitler and the Nazis. The Nazis were aware that education would create loyal Nazis by the time they reached adulthood."

"If you tell a lie, tell a big one." Goebbels

This is the unfinished test I was doing about "The Fever":

I have already expressed my admiration for Vanessa Redgrave in four posts and the first time I watched the movie "The Fever", 2004 HBO production, I felt like sharing but I didn't.

I saw part of it today and again I couldn't take my eyes of the screen because Vanessa's acting always deeply affects me.

Her voice, the way she speaks, the way she acts mixed with her activism, the Oscar speech, Julia, her family, the lost of her daughter Natasha Richardson, integrity, character, dignity her universe moves me and comforts me knowing that she dedicates her life and career seeking for justice in this world.

Filmed in Zagreb, Croatia the story is in a nameless country that has a little of all the problems of the world and it is about the awakening of a woman who never had to confront the gap between poor and rich or the fight of those who are dispossessed of their rights.

As always, the truth bewilders, confuses, aches, changes the reality and it is during a fever that this woman has a soliloquy that is very enlightening and for those who have never experienced questioning the reality of other people it can be taken as a lesson.

"Enlightenment can be brutal." is a sub-tag of the movie and we all know how hard it is to read some truths, how much emotionally stressful it is to try to understand so many injustices humankind have been enduring in a degree that the absurdity of some events makes many people feel that it is impossible that such event is real and sometimes the only way out is doubting one's own sanity.

Funny that we live in a moment where some people are becoming aware about being lied but some prefer to run from the truth therefore: it is not easy to face it especially the fact that we are all involved in the problems of the world and we shouldn't continue uncountable:

"The ever-widening gap between those who have and those who have not plagues me, because there sees to be no legitimate moral reason for this. It is the awakening to the brutal realization that we are deeply connected to the condition of so many other people that lies at the core of 'The Fever,' and is why this film needed to be made now, more than ever."

Carlo Nero filmmaker

Angelina Jolie is a survivor of the brutality of the regimen that murdered her sister and who decided to join the rebels: "That's right. I'm one of those people, I'm one of those people against the government."

Michel Moore is a journalist and it was his character that showed the other side of the country to the woman.

They have no names what makes of their story the story of all of us.

The Dissent project tells more about Carlos Nero and Vanessa Redgrave.

The right picture is Vanessa Redgrave in the movie Julia.

Stream of consciousness in pictures

Post updated:

I was searching to write about stream of consciousness in the literary sense and came across with some works in painting and in photography that has the title stream of Consciousness. I published two pictures I found interesting and left a message to the photographer as I always do and got an e-mail. I've been blogging for two years and for the first time someone complained. No problems. I have received many thanks for promoting people out of the mainstream artistic scene.

These pictures are mine.

Right one: Stream of consciousness when we are facing the horrors of the world (Anna Politkovskaya is at the picture behind my avatar)

Left picture: Looking at James Joyce's Ulysses that will be one of the authors I'll talk about tomorrow when approaching stream of consciousness in the literary sense. Why should I promote a starlet when I can have Vanessa Redgrave at 'Julia" in a picture?

Now I understand why some people get the pictures, publish them without credits and use them as they want. But I cannot do it. Only once in two years it caused misunderstanding.

Now I'm stimulated to do a stream of consciousness photo with water... YaY!

Xenophobia

That was the word Vanessa Redgrave did answer James Lipton for the question "What is your least favorite word?" on the famous "Inside Actor's Studio". I admire this woman immensely. Julia is one of my favorites movies and she told how she came up producing and acting. She was on a theater and a cinema usher showed Lillian Hellman's book and as she didn't had read he lend it to her. She did read it in one night and decided to make the movie.

Xenophobia comes from the Greek words ξένος (xenos), meaning "someone with whom you are not acquainted", and φόβος (phobos), meaning "fear". In the beginning of this century while the word globalization conveys a sympathetic image but covers the worst face of the capitalistic system, whose sole aim seems to be producing money and it's values are spreading all over the world, xenophobia is being manifested in many different ways. I would think twice spending one year in Paris while on the eighties I was received with great hospitality. Perhaps because I was around people linked to arts but I'm not sure. I was treated well by French people everywhere I went. I speak the language and it helps. But I'm not sure if it would be the same. I've received a six month visa in UK although I was just spending a week before returning home. But from the news I've been reading and talking to some English and French people it seems that things would be very different.

I hope that I am wrong but I witness strange things happening in social networkings and virtual worlds. Still nothing is being discussed.

Adapted from a post I did at justAna .

Pentimento by Lillian Hellman and the movie Julia

This is how Lillian Hellman starts her novel Pentimento, that was inspiration for the movie "Julia", 1977:

"Old paint on canvas, as it ages, sometimws becomes trasparent. When that happens it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original lines: a tree will show through a woman's dress, a child manes way for a dog, a large boat is no longer on an open sea. That is called pentimento because the painter "repented," changed his mind. Perhaps it would be as well to say the old conception, replaced by a later choice, is a way of seeing and then seeing again.

That is all I mean about the people in this book. The paint has aged now and I wanted to see what was there for once, what is there for now."

The movie starts with this words being said by Jane Fond who is Lillian. I like it very much. I will publish an example of pentimento on a canvas tomorrow.

Anna Politkovskaya an homage and seven great women

This is not the first time I publish about Anna Politikovskaya. August, 30 would be her birthday and... I don't think I have to explain. I took pictures at my virtual garden in front of the fence where I hanged some posters. At the left side is Vanessa Redgrave in the movie Julia. We are talking about five great women since Lilian Hellman, who wrote the book that was adapted for the movie, has Jane Fonda as Lilian .

Now I'm remembering Natasha Richardson Vanessa's Redgrave daughter who did the movie Nell with Jodie Foster. The only man is Rimbaud who is designed in white graffiti at the fence. R.I.P. Anna Politkovskaya R.I.P. Natasha Richardson

(click the images to enlarge)

Vanessa Redgrave - Tragedy and Comedy

"... you notice that there are intense moments of great tragedy and lost, events, you name it, you will always have some..." (click to listen - 1 min)