ASK MICK LASALLE
Dear Mick, my Dear Sir: Thank you kindly for your tribute to Jeanne Moreau, and my personal sympathy to you in your loss (and mine, and …). I was terribly sad to hear of her death, as I expect you were as well. Thank you for writing of her with kindness and insight.
Mark A. Hetts, San Francisco Dear Mark, my Dear Sir: Well, you’re welcome, but I have to be perfectly honest with you. I liked Jeanne Moreau just fine, but I was never particularly a fan, so it was not a personal loss at all. Writing obits and appreciations is like being a professional funeral orator, in which the goal is to create vehicles not for one’s own emotions but for those of the listener, or in this case, the reader. To do so, it’s necessary to put oneself in a certain mind-set that is never exactly unreal or insincere, and yet is almost always unfelt, even if you do occasionally end up feeling something later, as I did, say, in the case of Philip Seymour Hoffman. In the actual moment, though, the strongest feeling is perhaps a certain pride in craft.
Really, I can think of only one occasion when real emotion was a factor and I ended up writing an obituary from inside that sad feeling. That was the case of Brittany Murphy in 2009. Check it out on SFGate. com to see the difference between showbiz and actual feeling. It may well be that the obituaries written with a sense of craft, not emotion, are more moving, because they’re written with attention to your feelings, not mine. Hey there Mick: I really enjoy “Common Law” (1931) with Constance Bennett. Can you guess the subject matter?
Tom Hulsey, Walnut Creek Hey there Tom: I’ve seen that one a few times, and I’ve even shown it to classes. It’s about a nude model who moves in with an artist, without benefit of matrimony. Constance Bennett was a huge star in this period, and that’s one of her three best movies. The other two are “What Price Hollywood?” (1932) and my favorite, “Bed of Roses” (1933). All worth seeing. Dear Mick: I just wanted to thank you for recommending the movie “One Day.” It was truly great — sure, some misses — but overall, a wonderful movie.
Bill Whelan, Corte Madera Dear Bill: It’s one of the great movies of the decade, unaccountably dismissed by a majority of critics. It’s an attempt to capture the sweep of life in just two hours, and it’s brilliant. That moment when he’s walking down the hill in 2011 and crosses paths with himself and Anne Hathaway coming up that same hill in 1988 — and of course they don’t see each other, because they’re separated by time — that’s one of the most moving shots I’ve seen in years. “One Day” is a very emotional film, genuinely and honestly emotional, and there’s a big chunk of the critical community that distrusts emotion, that is made nervous by it, as though someone were trying to trick them.
There are also a lot of nerdy male critics who react with spontaneous scorn to a confident, blithe character like the one played by Jim Sturgess, not realizing that a guy like that has his own pain and his own insecurities. But then, too, a lot of the public — and this is just a matter of taste and not to be condemned or criticized — really doesn’t want to see a movie about love. Sex, yes. Romance, maybe. But a movie about the real work of love and the emergence of the spirit is just not going to grab anybody. But I do think critics missed the boat here, because a movie like this needs context, and that’s what critics can provide. It needs to be set up and served up, and then people will see it and understand it and value it. I’ve shown this movie to everybody, and it has always gone over well. Thanks for the chance to remind people of this movie.
Have a question? Ask Mick LaSalle at mlasalle@sfchronicle.com. Include your name and city for publication, and a phone number for verification. Letters may be edited for clarity and length.