poliphilo

In the morning I did some pruning. There's a tree embedded in the hedge at the front that I think is an elder. It entertains ideas above its station. Ideally I'd like to cut the hedge back to waist height, but Rene, who shares it with us- wants it left as it is. She thinks it protects her windows from footballs.

In the afternoon we went to the Nativity play at Fabi's nursery. He was a shepherd. He had a line but I don't think he said it. At one point he came and joined us in the audience. I was sitting behind a tall woman with tall hair so I didn't see very much.

In the evening I watched Fellini's Toby Dammit on YouTube. A drunken English actor arrives in Rome, attends an awards ceremony, bails out early, goes for a spin in his new Ferrari and has a nasty accident. Of course the story is nothing. The interesting thing is the hallucinations. Are they Toby's hallucinations or Fellini's? I think they must be Fellini's because if I were Toby and I were having such interesting hallucinations I'd sit back and enjoy them and stop being such a raging knobhead. Here's the problem about presenting depression on the screen. If you make it interesting you misrepresent it- and if you don't no-one will come see your movie. Toby Dammit fits into Fellini's oeuvre somewhere between Guilietta and Casanova- and is an exercise in pure style- like a person waving a stick- but beautifully. Terence Stamp- an actor generally hired for his immobility- gets to wear white make-up and emote like a star of the silents.