Cowboy, the real deal. Photo taken near J Bar L Ranch in Montana. This gentleman and his friends were riding across the state using only the real deal old school equipment.
Jack talking about the start of the beach scene in A Matter Of Life And Death, from Cameraman - The Jack Cardiff Story
I watched A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (shot by Jack Cardiff, up there, and directed by the “Michael” referenced above, Michael Powell [along with Emeric Pressburger, because they did things like that then]) for the first time on a flight to Dublin last fall, somewhere over the Atlantic with all the lights in the plane off and all the other passengers asleep. And thank christ for that, because i was crying through most of it. a completely magical experience; a completely magical film. no other word for it. a movie that makes you love your life almost as much as it makes you love what movies can do.
what he said
All the adjectives used in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road - via Distant Shape
I love that Cormac McCarthy uses weird, off-the-beaten-path words (maybe less in The Road than in some of his other books), but I also love the raw stripped-away-ness of his writing that leaks through the more verbose and complicated bits.
His most common adjectives in the book (according to this chart):
black
cold
dark
dead
gray
long
old
small
wet… I think that sums up the book better than Cliff’s Notes ever could.
john sepich hosts word lists/concordances for mccarthy’s novels. here are some overall stats:
Words in Cormac McCarthy’s vocabulary: 30,069
Words only in one book: 16,093
Words only used once: 13,384
Words only used twice: 4,313
Words in every book: 1,104
Pictured above, Louis-Ferdinand Céline (born 27 May 1894; died 1 July, 1961) with his cat, Bébert, in the late 1940s
‘Why kid ourselves, people have nothing to say to one another, they all talk about their own troubles and nothing else. Each man for himself, the earth for us all.’
—from Journey to the End of Night (1932; translated from the French by J.H.P. Marks)
You tell me that law is above freedom of utterance. And I reply that you can have no wise laws nor free enforcement of wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people - and, alas, their folly with it. But if there is freedom, folly will die of its own poison, and the wisdom will survive. That is the history of the race. It is the proof of man’s kinship with God. You say that freedom of utterance is not for time of stress, and I reply with the sad truth that only in time of stress is freedom of utterance in danger. No one questions it in calm days, because it is not needed. And the reverse is true also; only when free utterance is suppressed is it needed, and when it is needed, it is most vital to justice. Peace is good. But if you are interested in peace through force and without full discussion - that is to say, free utterance decently and in order - your interest in justice is slight. And peace without justice is tyranny, no matter how you may sugar-coat it with expediency. This state today is in more danger from suppression than from violence, because, in the end, suppression leads to violence. Violence, indeed, is the child of suppression. Whoever pleads for justice helps to keep the peace; and whoever tramples upon the plea for justice temperately made in the name of peace only outrages peace and kills something fine in the heart of man, which God put there when we got our manhood. When that is killed, brute meets brute on each side of the line.
So, dear friend, put fear out of your heart. This nation will survive, this state will prosper, the orderly business of life will go forward if only men can speak in whatever way given them to utter what their hearts hold - by voice, by posted card, by letter or by press. Reason never has failed men. Only force and repression have made the wrecks in the world.
“
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William Allen White, “To an Anxious Friend” (1922), The Emporia Gazette 1923 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Editorial Writing |
