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Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? (1969)
A Magickal Overview
This is an extraordinary film. But it's not for everyone, and it must be viewed in it's context.
There was a time when Anthony Newley was one of the biggest stars in the world. With two hit Broadway musicals and a slew of movies under his belt, and songs STILL being covered by today's artists ("Feeling Good" is currently enjoying a popular resurgence courtesy of Michael Buble'"), Universal Studios gave him carte blanche to make any movie he wanted. Newley had already established a proved track record of using his own life as source material. Making this kind of film was a logical next step for him.
In many respects, this film is a masterpiece. It is utterly unique; visually beautiful, it looks like a lucid dream. Newley was a master of symbolism, and the way he illustrates different levels of reality and different states of consciousness is nothing short of brilliant. Highly "Jungian", this film is meant be viewed and interpreted like a dream. Many reviewers have lambasted "Heironumus" for it's use of symbolism, but on the contrary, that is the beauty and magic of the film. Anyone familiar with the Western Hermetic Tradition will delight in the eloquence with which this movie speaks. It cannot be an accident that "Heironymus" was filmed in Malta, the home of the Knights Templar. It makes one question how deeply into the occult Newley must have been.
PLOT SUMMARY: Heironymus Merkin, a major star, is making a film about his own life, told as a fairy tale/epic myth. He is screening it for his mother and two toddler children. It is his intent that his children know the truth about who their father is, warts and all. The film-within-the-film is still in production, and Heironymus battles with the studio, writers, and critics for the integrity of his personal truth.
The film is:
about mid-life crisis
an exposition of internalized toxic shame
an examination of the repetition compulsion
A confession
a cry for help
a treatise on the unreality of life
a rare look at celebrity-hood from a celebrity's point of view
a self-portrait of a sex-addict
a dissertation on erotic mania
AND it's a musical-comedy.
The movie is many things, confusing, because Newley was himself confused. Then again, aren't we all to some degree? The greatest thing about "Heironymus" is all the questions it brings up. It inspires deep process, and that is what makes it Art, and a true gift to the world.
I am committed to helping this film finding it's audience.
Blue Car (2002)
A Magickal Overview
"Blue Car" is an initiatory tale. Auster tells Meg that she is going to be a poet, and lo and behold, by the films conclusion, a poet she has become. Observe how repressed and suppressed she was at the beginning of the piece; notice how fully self-expressed she is by the film's conclusion. We see her and her mother having authentic, heartfelt dialog, something there had been no room for or possibility of before. Reunited with her father, sitting in the "blue car", she recalls a past event so beautifully, so eloquently, so full of wonder it's clear that she will never go back to being the person she had been. When Meg asks Auster about the way his novel ends, he replies "They make love, and he is transformed." In actuality, it was she who was transformed. Her awakening came through suffering, but often this is what it takes for a person to really grow.
Life is is often complicated. People do good things for bad reasons, and/or bad things for good reasons. Nearly every character in the piece has a turn displaying grandiose errors in judgment. These characters were all ( save perhaps Auster) unconscious. Meg herself was just pulled along, compelled to make it down to Florida and her rendezvous with whatever it was that awaited her. The shattering of her illusions, rather than destroying her, created a clearing for a greater understanding of herself and her relationship to the world. Meg's new awake and aware self created opportunities for new and healthier relationships, especially with her parents.
Such is the untidiness of life that even though Auster was wholly inappropriate with Meg, he did deliver what he promised, in an unexpected and roundabout way. She lost her innocence, but gained insight and the ability to express it. The vulnerability, the loneliness, the pain he exploited in her were the very attributes that gave her the depth to be a great poet. With his own novel nothing but blank pages, he fed off of her raw talent, and couldn't resist the opportunity to take advantage. A relationship like this, when it occurs in real life (and they do all the time) is karmic. Someone comes along to serve as a catalyst for change. "Blue Car" is an initiatory tale, and Auster was Meg's initiator. It wasn't what she wanted or expected, but in a way, it was just what she needed. This was the only way her life was going to change. For all the ordeals she she underwent, she ended up in far better place than before.
Ulee's Gold (1997)
A Magickal Overview
"Ulee's Gold" is an allegorical film about Alchemy, which is itself a metaphor for a process of spiritual development. The medieval alchemists famously attempted to turn lead into gold. As they consciously went through the various steps and stages of refining the metal, they would (theoretically) grow spiritually as their inner development mirrored their outer work. The "Gold" in the title refers to the honey Ulee manufactures, as well as symbolizing his family, himself, and the highest potential of all of the above.
This film succeeds on all levels. Unlike most metaphorical or allegorical films, the narrative is matter-of-fact and grounded in reality. Here archetypal themes are spelled out in a modern context that requires no suspension of disbelief. The alchemical motif is repeated throughout, illustrating the different stages of the process. Ulee and his family heal by working together in the alchemical process of honey production.In a larger context, the entire tale, from Ulee's archetypal descent into to the underworld all the way to the love flowing amidst his restored family, is itself an alchemical working. The viewer gets to experience what the process is like - the challenge, growth, healing, and love, just by watching the film. "Ulee's Gold" leaves you feeling good. It's a simple film, not unlike an "ABC Afterschool Special", but superbly crafted and highly satisfying.
The Cooler (2003)
A Magickal Overview
"You gotta know when to hold, know when to fold" Kenny Rogers, "The Gambler"
There is a rhythm to life. There is feast, then famine. The only constant is change: changing times, changing seasons, changing fortunes. Las Vegas, where fortune changes from minute to minute, is the setting for "The Cooler", a sort of modern-day fairy tale.
Timing is everything, and "The Cooler" takes place during a pivotal week at The Golden Shangri-La, last of the old-school casinos, and casino boss Shelly Kaplow's personal fiefdom. Bernie Lootz's six years of indentured servitude as the "cooler" - a sort of bad-luck charm- are up at the end of the week, and he intends to leave town and start a new life. Shelly's higher-ups want to give the casino a face-lift and make it over into yet another family- friendly resort. The conflict in the film is all about the events Shelly sets in motion through his resistance to change.
Shelly is a figure with qualities Plutonian and Saturnian. He is a psychic vampire and a crazy-making tyrant. His relationship with Bernie is symbiotic and highly karmic. Bernie's "bad luck" equates into good luck for Shelly, because Shelly has been able to work the dynamic between them wholly to his advantage. The tide is turning now, and forces beyond Shelly's control threaten the status quo.
Everything Shelly does backfires on him, because he is struggling against forces larger than himself. His misguided, short-sighted flailing actually empowers those he seeks to control. He hires Natalie to pretend to be Bernie's girlfriend so he'll want to stick around, but they turn out to be perfect for each other and genuinely fall in love. Bernie's spirits are lifted so high by the relationship that he brings luck now to the casino patrons, a development very bad for business. Shelly's attempts to rectify matters by breaking up the lovers only strengthens their resolve and brings them closer to their destiny. Meanwhile, the Golden Shangri-La slips further and further from his grasp.
Eventually, Shelly gets the picture. He stops struggling and gives in once it's apparent there's nothing he can do about it. By then the tables have turned completely.
I really love this film. I love the karmic subtext, the idea that there IS cosmic justice. The film is perfectly cast. The love story is awesome, one of the most delightful relationships I've ever seen depicted in film. The way Bernie and Natalie relate to and interact with one another is brilliant. However, there is something weird about the ending, it's as if they changed it as the last minute because it didn't test well with the preview audiences. Even with a different ending, I would find "The Cooler" just as satisfying, because of the process the characters underwent along the way.
The Piano (1993)
A Magickal Overview
Spoilers!
As a student of metaphysics and magick I found "The Piano" to be rich and detailed in it's illustration of fundamental magickal principles, i.e. kundalini, the "true will", and polarities (yin & yang). Ada's muteness was a physical manifestation of a throat chakra blockage, as this is the chakra that relates to self-expression.
Note the sort of female archetype Ada represented is the kind men find most threatening. She is silent, inscrutable, unpredictable, powerful, with a mind of her own, like the ocean that carries her in and, and the conclusion, away.
Baines and Stewart could not have been more different, and here depict the yin-yang polarities that generate the conflict in which Ada finds herself enmeshed.
I don't know anything about the Moari, but in the film they seem to be a pretty free and open people. Indigenous cultures are highly magickal, attuned to the rhythms and cycles of the earth and sky. I assume Baine's tattoos signify a degree of initiation into their mysteries. I gather that Baine's work with the Maori opened him up to the point that not only was he able to "hear" Ada through her music, but really "see" her, in a way that Stewart would never be able to.
The "arrangement" Baines made with Ada basically amounted to a sex-magick operation. It was a successful one, replete with the usual blowback one can expect from these sorts of thing. The fact that the operation worked can be attributed to Baine's single minded focus and that he was in actuality the right man for her. He loved her for all the "right" reasons. They resonated together.
Baines had a limited time to generate enough Kundalini to show Ada how he felt about her, get her to reciprocate, and then stand the universe on it's head so that they could be together.
The "arrangement" was in my eyes the most genius part of the film. While it would appear that Baines has the upper hand it is really Ada who is in control, because he is thrall to her. He asks for permission every step of the way, and she grants it. He allows her to set the terms. She is an equal partner in their process.
I must digress here because Ada's will is usually expressed by what she choses NOT TO DO, i.e. won't speak, won't sleep with Stewart, etc. The only time we see really see her chosing TO DO something it is in relationship to Baines. In this respect he succeeds in "giving her a voice" in her destiny.
To overcome their barriers Baines uses touch. His touch was always gentle, even worshipful. When he appears naked before her rather than an aggressive move it is a sign of his vulnerability. Contrast that with Stewart, who could not tolerate being vulnerable. Baines succeeds in raising enough kundalini to charge them both up and the piano as well.
When forbidden to see Baines, Ada tries equlibrate by working the other side of the formula with Stewart. This is where she tries to undress him, caress and explore his body, but he won't play.
Naturally events escalate to the crisis level, after which Stewart realizes he can't fight fate and lets Ada go, although not out of any altruism but rather so that he can keep his stiff upper lip and go on pretending none of it ever happened.
The ending is terribly ambiguous, although it's far more satisfying to think Ada consciously submerged the past and was reborn into a new life of love and happiness in a bright, sunny, modern place. If Stewart showed no growth then Ada and Baines must necessarily grow, as they represent the other polarity. Of course, if Ada did drown herself one could view it as hers and Baines' punishment for messing with the natural order of things. Such is the trouble with magick.
There is so much information encoded in "The Piano" that I could go on for days, but I just wanted to express my views on these points, as they seemed the most important.