Saturday Night And Sunday Morning

Look carefully at this photo:

What do you see in the bottom right corner?

If you said, "bottom bracket spindles", you:  a.) have a great eye, b.) have the right app handy, c.) spend too much time looking at bike blogs or d.) have seen Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.

That seminal British New Wave film basically put Albert Finney on the map.  In SNaSM, his second film, he plays Arthur Seaton, whom we meet at work in the film's very first scene.  Where, exactly, does he work?  We know it's a bicycle factory, and we learn it's in Nottingham.  Let's see...If it were an American film and it said he worked in a bicycle factory in Chicago, we would probably assume--rightly--it was the Schwinn plant.  Likewise, our hunch that he works in the old Raleigh factory proves to be correct.

Now, as much as many of us would like to work in the bicycle industry, working in a bicycle factory is really just as boring and repetitive as working in any other kind of factory.  And so it is for Arthur, in spite of the good wage and esteem of his colleagues he earns.  

The tedium of working the lathe and his humdrum life lead him to spend his free time in pubs, where he meets Brenda, the wife of a co-worker.  He gets falling-down drunk, she takes him home and they have breakfast before her husband returns from a weekend at the races.

If I were to spend my time giving advice about everyday living instead of teaching academic skills, one of the first things I'd tell young people is that they should never, ever get into bed with anyone they meet while drinking.  It never ends well.  It doesn't for Arthur, either.  You can guess what happened. And later he confesses everything to Doreen, a young unmarried girl he meets during another night at the pub.  

Oh, if you're not interested in looking at the inner workings of the Raleigh factory or a working-class pub, you can enjoy the adorable Shirley Anne Field, who plays Doreen.

Metamorphosis: NYC Streets

Anybody who's been cycling in New York for a decade or more knows that riding this city's streets is much different now from how it was then. 

The most obvious changes are the bike lanes--which were all but nonexistent in the early 2000s--and, of course, Citibike.  Also, there are purely and simply more people riding--and, as I've recounted in other posts, I encounter other cyclists while riding along streets and in neighborhoods where, not so long ago, I would be the only person on a bike.

As I've also discussed in other posts, I don't think the changes have necessarily made this a better city for cyclists.  Some of the lanes are poorly designed (a few lead to nowhere) and built.  Perhaps even worse is that the building of bike lanes and installation of Citibike ports doesn't seem to have accompanied a reduction in motorized traffic.  Streets can't be made any wider, so the bike lanes that run along major streets and avenues were created by blocking off one of the traffic lanes.  That has led to more traffic congestion and greater tension between motorists and cyclists--and between cyclists themselves. 

Some riders, most of  whom wouldn't have been riding had the bike lanes not been built, are as rude and aggressive as some of the worst drivers I've seen.  Years ago, I knew--at least by sight--most of the cyclists I'd see on a given day.  Even if we didn't know each other by name, we looked out for each other:  We signaled turns.  We didn't cut each other off. We alerted each other to broken glass and other hazards. Today, it seems, a lot of the newbies are riding as if they have blinders on.  And the ones who ride motorized and electric bikes are even worse!

So, even though I enjoyed the film I am including in this post, I do not share the view of filmmaker Clarence Eckerson Jr. that this city is more bike-friendly as a result of the changes it shows.  Still, the film is interesting to watch because it visually chronicles some of the changes in the appearance as well as the rhythms of the Big Apple:

 

A "Breaking Away" Reunion

I'm not a religious person.  Not really.  I was raised a Roman Catholic and was--OK, here's my most shocking confession to date--an Evangelical Christian for a time, when I was in college.

Then I didn't go to church for more than three decades. (I went into churches, mosques, synagogues and temples to look at art, hear music and attend weddings, funerals and all of those other things most of us attend under duress.  That's not the same as going to church!)  Finally, about two years ago, after someone's suggestion, I started attending church again for a time.  I got over that.  Now here I am again, without religion.

I mention my history of faith--or, more precisely, lack thereof--because I still believe in the concept of sin.  To me, the US invasion of Iraq is a sin.  So is any other form of genocide.  I would add slavery and any form of personal mendacity (though I am not without guilt!) to the list.

Oh, and here are two other sins, at least in my book:  remakes and sequels.  At least, that's what they are most of the time.  Thankfully, no one has been depraved enough to try to remake Citizen Kane, The Godfather (The Godfather, Part 2 is one notable exception to what I've said about sequels), Casablanca, La Grande Illusion or Ladri di Biciclette.

Or Breaking Away.  At least, no one has mentioned the "r" word.  If anyone had mentioned it, surely it would have been heard at the Interbike show this week, where Dennis Quaid, Dennis Christopher and Jackie Earle Hayley--three of the four "Cutters" from the movie--reunited.  Daniel Stern, who played the goofy, lanky Cyril, was the only one missing.

Dennis Christopher at Interbike, 17 September 2015. Photo by Jason Ogulnik, published in the Las Vegas Journal-Review.

Although Quaid became, arguably, the most famous of the quartet, Christopher's character--the wannabe Italian bicycle racer Dave Stoller--is the most memorable of the film.  I'd daresay he's one of the most memorable characters in all of filmdom.

One way you know that Breaking Away is, in its own way, a masterpiece is that it resonated even with people who've never had any desire to ride a bike.  Some have compared it to Rocky (which, I think, is a better movie than most highbrow critics are willing to admit), but I think it's both sweeter and more complex.  For one thing, there are so many subplots--about social class, generational conflicts and about youthful dreams vs. parents' aspirations for their children.  It also showed, interestingly, Dave's parents rekindling their sexual lives in late middle age.  That might be an even more radical thing to include in a film today than it was in 1979, when Breaking Away appeared in movie theatres.

Steve Tesich is the screenwriter who wove all of those elements into what I believe to be one of the best screenplays ever written. How many other screenwriters have written something that became both a film and a movie, appreciated by film critics and movie reviewers as well as general audiences?

He died in 1996, at the age of 53.  Anyone who tries to remake Breaking Away will incur his wrath. (As if I would know about that!)

 

Cycling With Moliere

What was the last movie (film, if you're a snotty intellectual like me) you saw about cycling?  

They don't come around very often, do they?  It's a bit surprising, given that there are so many photographic images and a pretty fair amount of art of or about bicycles or bicycling.

A few weeks ago, Alceste a Bicyclette (Cycling with Moliere) was released in the USA, after first being screened in France late last year. 

In the film, soap opera star Gauthier Valence (played by Lambert Wilson) travels to the wet, windswept Ile de Re to convince his friend, reclusive actor  Serge Tanneur (Fabrice Luchini) to star in a production of Moliere's comedy of manners.

But Tanneur has exiled himself to a family manor that's seen better days after suffering a nervous breakdown some three years earlier.  Tanneur is as misanthropic and dismissive of society's conventions as Moliere's character. But can Valence induce Tanneur's love of Moliere overcome his reclusiveness?  Or will Valence's vision fall to Tanneur's refusal to re-engage with the world--or in some clash between his and Valence's egos?  (That's what actors do when they get together. Trust me; I know.)

The reviews of the film are mixed.  But I'm tempted to check it out just because it's about cycling and Moliere--and because I've heard Luchini give some beautiful readings of Baudelaire and other French writers.  

Bicycles Are For The Summer

Mention "bicycle movies" or "movies with bicycles" and the first ones that come to most people's minds are Ladri di Biciclette (usually translated as The Bicycle Thief, but is literally Bicycle Thieves) and Breaking Away.  Both, I think, deserve their reputations, although BA is a bit more of a "feel-good" film than LdB.  

I've seen both more than once.   Seeing either one reminds me of what Robert Graves said about Shakespeare:  In spite of all the people who say he's very good, he really is very good.  

Anyway, there's a lesser-known (at least here in the US) bicycle film that I'd like to see again. Las Bicicletas Son Para El Verano (Bicycles Are For The Summer), released in 1985, was directed by Jaime Chavarri and based an eponymous play written by Fernando Fernan Gomez.  I have not seen the play, but it was well-reviewed.  I imagine it deserved those reviews if the film is in any way true to it.

The play and movie take place during the Spanish Civil War.  Luisito, the son of upper-middle-class Madrilenos Don Luis and Dona Dolores (Sorry, my keyboard doesn't have accent marks or tildes!)  wants a new bicycle, in spite of having failed his exams.  However, the war forces his parents to delay the purchase of his bicycle and that delay, like the war itself, drags on longer than any of them expected. 

More than anything, it's a story of survival and adaptation.  In that sense, it has more in common with LdB than with BA, although the dreams and hopes of one of the characters are as central to it as they are in BA.  I'll try not to give too much away in saying that, in time, Luisito has to abandon not only his hope of getting a bicycle, but his education and his dreams of becoming a writer, much as his father did.  Meanwhile, Luisito's sister Manolita has to abandon her dreams of becoming an actress after having a baby with a soldier who dies.  

Also, the story reveals class resentments between the family and their neighbors and friends but how, ultimately, they have to rely on each other in order to survive the privations of the war and the subsequent Franco regime.

Those of you who are fans of Pedro Almodovar will be interested in this film because it features one of the early appearances of an actress who would later star in several of his films:  Victoria Abril.

I don't know when I'll get to see the play.  But I'm sure there's a DVD of the film to be had somewhere.  The first chance I get, I'll watch it.