This song became an anthem of change and hope. It has been called the archetypal protest song. It seemed to touch many people in many walks of life-  from parents to politicians, and from young people to old timers. The lyrics resonated through so many people who wanted to live as they wished.

For the leaders of our country -

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall.

For those who had brought forth children -

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand

And generally for all thoughtful people who cared about themselves as well as others, and would take the time to listen as well act:

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.

This song has been covered by many artists like Joan Baez and the Beach Boys. Folk singer Odetta and Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, The Byrds, and Phil Collins.

As recently as September 2008, John Mellencamp made a web-cam recording of the song and posted it on the internet as a statement about changes that might come to America after the 2008 Presidential Election.

So we know that the song, penned by the young Bob Dylan years ago, has enjoyed both longevity as well as impact. And certainly since the fall of 1963 the times have indeed changed.

For Asian actresses, for most of the late 20th century, they were locked into playing just exotic women of the night, or mistresses, or victims, along with roles in which they were asked to swing a sword.

Since the times are still changing, we’ll have a look at a film without martial arts and wire-work but with two Asian actresses. Michelle Yeoh and Michelle Krusiec have the lead roles in a movie that is called Far North (2007).

Yeoh (below), from Malaysia, has long been a headliner in Asian cinema. I guess the acme of her acting career and world wide fame can be best illustrated in her three most famous roles.  First, her role of Yu Shu Lien in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2003), then her role as Wai Lin in the James Bond thriller Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). Finally she starred as Mameha in Memoirs of a Geisha (2005).

Krusiec (below) is a American/Chinese actress who hails from Nevada. This 35 year old beauty has had a very successful career in American television. She’s made guest appearances in such series as NCIS, Grey’s Anatomy, Without A Trace, Cold Case, Monk, and ER. And she’s had a few film appearances.

Well both of these ladies must have packed an ample supply of long johns and other accouterments of winter clothing for their work in Far North. Filmed in part in Svalbord, one of Norway’s least hospitable areas in terms of climate,  this film was no walk in the park for either the onscreen actors nor the production crew. It would not be stretching the truth to say that ice wasn’t needed in your drinks in that part of the world.

In fact nearly all of this movie was shot out of doors or in a tent. The landscape is foreboding. Ice, rocks, snow, sky, and on occasion – some body of water that isn’t frozen. I read that the crew and cast had to take an ice-breaking Russian trawler to get to some of the locations.

Yeoh plays Saiva, a forty-something who at birth, we are told in a voice-over, was decreed by a shaman to be an evil presence. Consequently she has carried this thought around with her for her entire life. People are frightened of her and she distrusts everyone; hence she lives far away from others preferring isolation to neighbors.

We are never informed specifically as to where we are, or when the story takes place. In flashbacks we are shown that Saiva’s community was over-run by an invading army, or rather a band of soldiers. Her man was tortured and killed, then she was raped. Some how after this ordeal she is able to rescue an infant which may or may not be her own child.

In the present, Saiva and Anja (Michelle Krusiec) are on the move again. They’ve set up their tent on the shore of an desolate island, not only far from the madding crowds, but far from anyplace as well as anyone. They live by hunting and or fishing. Their relationship might be mother/daughter but we aren’t told that either.

One day, Saiva spots a walking wounded man named Loki (Sean Bean) on the frozen arctic tundra. With about one hundred meters separating the two of them, this man collapses. Against her better judgement, Saiva decides to save this man. So they bring him back to their dwelling.

He recovers and proves to be an asset by repairing the outboard motor on their small boat, meaning they no longer had to paddle to get anyplace.

He is proficient at hunting so they have more to eat. But when a man lives in close quarters with two attractive women sparks are bound to fly.

And they do. First somewhat furtively…

..then openly and much closer to home. When Loki and Anja announce that they are leaving to start a life together, there are consequences. Shocking consequences. Tragic consequences.

While far from being an ideal movie, this film does have a lot going for it with Krusiec and Yeoh being marvelous to look at even with their arctic clothing. The elements of nature play a huge part in the film from the barren frozen tundra to the extreme cold, to the sense of complete and utter isolation which makes for life being extremely difficult.

The film does have elements that are both unspoken and unspecified. We have to do a lot of guessing and even then, we get no answers. Which may add to your enjoyment of the film, as you must put in a lot of thought as you watch.

We also don’t get a lot of character development but since we didn’t get much in the way of where and the when, it isn’t that important. Also there’s not a lot of dialogue either. This movie is a wonderful example of show not tell.

I thought this film was worth seeing for Michelle Yeoh, Michelle Krusiec and the very effective turn by Sean Bean. One more thing, if you will allow me this – the location is another reason to watch this drama. While the setting is world’s apart from the idyllic island and beaches that you usually see on my pages, this change is all for the good as Director Asif Kapadia does a marvelous job, despite the obvious obstacles of working in this environment, in bringing this cold and desolate location onscreen for we viewers.

Beyond that, it is nice to see Michelle Yeoh in a role where her martial arts skillset is set aside. For Krusiec we can say she does look very good on the big screen representing a change from her TV work. So, I do recommend the DVD.

Like Dylan said so many years ago, the times they are a-changing, and for Asian performers, we hope this change continues so we may see more new and varied roles offered to them and how they deal with the concurrent challenges to their skills as actors and actresses.

You carve out and clear a swath of land from the forest – back breaking work to say the least – then you struggle to put up a house, capture and save water, and grow a few meager crops. It’s an ongoing battle to keep out rodents, stay warm in the winter, and if you need to go shopping for supplies,  it’s next to impossible, as there’s no nearby shops. Besides that, as I said, you’ve got to worry about those troublesome neighbors on the warpath.

Such is life in upstate New York. In 1757.

Your neighbors are the Redcoats otherwise know as the British who set up a Fort William Henry just south of Lake George. A short two day walk from here. This fort was under the leadership of a Colonel Monro.

Twenty six miles away, at the north end of the lake was Fort Carillon under the leadership of Marquis de Montcalm. This was home to the French troops aka the Bluecoats, your other neighbors.

You see, the French and British were fighting over this part of the North American Colonies. Amidst all this lived still other neighbors who were some tribes of Native Americans, The Delaware, the Ottawas, the Hurons, and the Mohicans. Some of whom aligned with French, some with the British, and some with the settlers, or as they were known at the time, the Colonials.

We now are aware that this period was known as the Seven Years War in European history books, and was called The French and Indian War in American History books. James Fenimore Cooper wrote a novel, published in 1826, about this period called The Last of the Mohicans. While it has remained a standard in American Lit courses, it is more famous for been made into a movie numerous times.

The most recent was the Michael Mann production released in 1992 (cover above) . The stars were Daniel Day Lewis as Hawkeye, and Madeleine Stowe as Cora Munro, with Russell Means as Chingachgook, and Eric Schweig as Uncas.

The movie’s tagline was, The First American Hero. While this film was a real guy’s movie – you know, fast and ferocious action,

rugged outdoors locations,

romance,

as well as passionately heroic figures,

it is also one of a handful of films, where a man born of one race, whether through circumstances created by his own choice, or by events not of his choosing, takes a side, or makes a journey, to join with members of another race.

Nearly at the end of the movie Chingachgook makes a statement:

Chingachgook: The frontier moves with the sun and pushes the Red Man of these wilderness forests in front of it until one day there will be nowhere left. Then our race will be no more, or be not us.
Hawkeye: That is my father’s sadness talking.
Chingachgook: No, it is true. The frontier place is for people like my white son and his woman and their children. And one day there will be no more frontier. And men like you will go too, like the Mohicans. And new people will come, work, struggle. Some will make their life. But once, we were here. 

Hawkeye was the white son adopted by Chingachgook, and lived his life with his Indian family. While all lives are a form of journey, this one was far different than most. And for Nathaniel/Hawkeye his life was far nobler than most.

Another such character was Lt. Nathan Algren played by Tom Cruise, in Edward Zwick’s The Last Samurai (2003). The movie is set in the late 1870′s. Author, photographer, and journalist Simon Graham narrates:

They say Japan was made by a sword. They say the old gods dipped a coral blade into the ocean, and when they pulled it out four perfect drops fell back into the sea, and those drops became the islands of Japan.

Algren was an army officer who was still haunted and struggling over atrocities he and his men committed against Indians in the wars to push the American frontier further and further west. His life has fallen into disrepair.

To atone and to ‘get away from it all’ he is hired by a Japanese businessman, Omura, to come to Japan, and train the Emperor’s troops to quell the last of the Samurai led by Katsumoto,

played by Ken Watanabe.

Of course, Algren is captured by the Samurai and over time, his wounds heal, he learns their ways, and ultimately fights with them against the very troops that he had trained. He too has made a journey to a destination that he had not considered only a short time before.

Of course there is a woman, Taka,

played by the mesmerizing Koyuki,

who will eventually take an interest in Algren.

A marvelous movie, this was again a story of a white man who not only made a long journey halfway across the world, but who also made an inner journey within himself by adopting the ways of another race. It was more than a journey; rather it was  a transformation and a cleansing of his soul. The Last Samurai, made in 2003,  in many ways reflects a similar story in a 1990 movie called Dances With Wolves.

This movie starred Kevin Costner, who also directed the movie. ‘Dances With Wolves’ walked away with 7 Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. Costner plays Lt. John Dunbar who asks for a posting to the western frontier following the Civil War. He is sent to remote outpost which is deserted. Only it’s not.

He ‘befriends’ a wolf, who lingers around hoping for some food scraps. Dunbar calls this wolf Two-socks. Then he meets the local Sioux Indian tribe, who instead of being belligerent and bellicose, are instead curious about this solitary soldier.

The friendship blossoms and Dunbar is accepted by the tribe.

The Indian chief who befriends Dunbar is called Kicking Bird, and is played by Graham Greene.

He meets a white woman who was raised by the tribe since childhood. She is called Stands With A Fist and is played by Mary McDonnell in an Oscar nominated role. Of course, love blossoms.

Stands With a Fist: [translating for Kicking Bird] He thanks Dances with Wolves for coming.
John Dunbar: Who is Dances with Wolves?
Stands With a Fist: It is the name all the people are calling you now.

So this is the third film in which a white man makes a journey overland and at the same across an inner frontier, and learns the ways of another people.

Of course movies can be slanted in a particular direction, or influenced by the writer’s and director’s backgrounds and feelings. The characters of Hawkeye, Algren, and Dunbar all made journeys toward brighter destinations both inwardly as well as physically.

Stay

The same is true in the world of art. Often we can see and feel a particular direction or destination which is significant in an artist’s works.

Red Colt

Artist B.C. Nowlin also makes such a journey through his paintings. It is my pleasure to share these with you.

Days

His works are filled with emotion, mystery, and spirituality.

Sometime

His use of vibrant colors is extraordinary as his painting are both intense and dramatic.

Tomorrow

Nowlin’s roots in the southwest of America, along with his first hand relationship with Native American history, no doubt are a powerful influence on his work.

Spirit Man

His paintings most often do not define the locations or destinations in specific terms.

You Too

His abstractions make us use our imaginations and intellectual capabilities to get to that place which is universal in the minds of all humans.

Three

As the tagline from Dances With Wolves says, Inside everyone is a frontier waiting to be discovered. Take note of how Nowlin’s art seems to portray people on their way to something or someplace. The paintings are a mirror of the decisions we make on the journeys through our own lives. But these painting are far more eloquent than mere words. Happy trails to you and thanks for reading.

and only a few days ago, I had gone to see State of Play, which I’ll discuss later.

As it were, both of these movies had a newspaper columnist as the lead, or one of the leads. As always after watching any movie, I’d come home and read various opinions by the movie critics. I like reading these reviews in the newspaper. I read the reviews not to find out if it is okay to like the movie, or not, but to see what others thought of it. And I enjoy the physicality of holding and reading a newspaper and holding it my hands.

But newspapers are losing ground these days to the onslaught of the electronic media. Television and the Internet have an immediate accessibility that newspapers don’t. Whereas newspapers have to be written, edited, then sent to the presses for printing, and finally delivered to a news-stand, to your door, to the store on the corner, or maybe it is  a short drive away in your car, and all of this takes some time and a lot of effort by many folks.

On the other hand you can watch the news on television, or read the news on your computer, if it is connected to the internet, whenever you want 24/7. That’s called immediacy. Dressing, bathing, and even eating are all optional if you are a news junkie and need to consume the latest information that is hurtling around the globe before even brushing your teeth.

So our world is changing, and the way we stay involved is also changing. But newspapers are still with us. As are movie critics. As are movies about newspapers which is the topic for this column.

For example, let’s take a very brief look at The Soloist which stars Robert Downey Jr as LA Times columnist Steve Lopez, and Jamie Foxx, as the schizophrenic and homeless street musician, Nathaniel Ayers. In a few words, the plot can be summarized as the story of a newspaper journalist who befriends a homeless musician, on the way to searching for a new column for his paper.

Life has a mind of its own

But depending on where you live and which papers you read, you could form a variety of impressions before even seeing the movie for yourself, as movie critics also have a mind of their own, and aren’t bloody likely to agree.

Roger Ebert, noted movie critic opened his review with,

“The Soloist has all the elements of an uplifting drama, except for the uplift.”

Kenneth Turan, movie critic for the Los Angeles Times, which is also Steve Lopez’s paper said,

 I can’t help resenting that it suffered the death of a thousand cuts and, more frustrating still, that all this happened in the name of doing good in the world, of making the story’s powerful lessons more palatable to a wider audience.

Mick LaSalle, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle penned,

“….The Soloist ends up as a fairly canned piece of work.“

Claudia Puig of USA Today said in part,

“… it presents a moving tribute to friendship and the power of music. “

Joe Morganstern of the Wall Street Journal offered,

“Bravo to all concerned” 

But we are digressing. As stated above, this column isn’t about The Soloist, or movie critics, or even about newspapers. The topic is movies about newspapers, so let’s look at a number of my favorites.

In 1931, Howard Hughes, yes that Howard Hughes, produced a movie called The Front Page. In 1941, the movie was remade as His Girl Friday with Cary Grant as newspaper editor Walter Burns. In this updated version, the Hildy Johnson role, played by a male actor in the 1931 version, was played by actress Rosalind Russell. Then in 1974, The Front Page was again remade, this time starring Walter Matthau as  Burns, and Jack Lemmon as Hildy Johnson.

Essentially a comedy, set in and around a newspaper, The Front Page, in its many versions, utilized plot elements of political corruption surrounding the execution of a murderer, and how the newspaper went about uncovering this sordid cesspool, while the leads bantered with snappy repartee.

It’s the hottest story since the Chicago Fire… And they’re sitting on it

1981 was the year that Absence of Malice was released. Sally Field played a young reporter. She was earnest, and she was inexperienced. Paul Newman played a local businessman who was the son of a long dead mob syndicate figure, but had been straight for years. Field was given a false lead by an unscrupulous  prosecutor in the hopes that he could build his case via the ‘crusading reporter’.

Field’s problem was that she fell in love with victim of this scheme, Newman. Newman’s problem was that his life was unraveling on the front page of the newspapers, and yet – he was innocent.

In 1993, Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington starred in The Pelican Brief. Adapted from the John Grisham novel, the movie was well received and did very well at the box office.

Two Supreme Court Justices have been assassinated. One lone law student has stumbled upon the truth. An investigative journalist wants her story. Everybody else wants her dead.

Defense of the Realm was a 1985 movie which starred Gabriel Byrne and Greta Scacchi. Byrne, as the reporter, hears about a story that links a prominent Member of Parliament to a KGB agent. His job is to find the truth.

Just how far will a government go to hide the truth?

Still in the 80′s, The Year of Living Dangerously was released in 1983. The stars were Mel Gibson as an Australian foreign correspondent on his first assignment, covering the Indonesian civil war of 1965, Linda Hunt as a Half-Chinese, diminutive photographer, Billy Kwan, and Sigourney Weaver, as Jill Bryant, a diplomat stationed in Indonesia. Gibson’s character Guy Hamilton, gets caught up and has to make some difficult choices about his career, his working relationship with Kwan, and his affair with Bryant.

A Love Caught In the Fire of Revolution

A similar story was Salvador, a 1986 movie directed by Oliver Stone, which starred James Woods, as a down on his luck journalist. Woods, as Richard Boyle, heads for El Salvador to cover the unrest following an assassination of a popular Archbishop.

He gets caught up between the guerrillas who want his photos to reach the world press,  and the right wing military junta who wants him to provide photos of the insurgents. Meanwhile he must find a way to get his Salvadorean girl friend out of the country.

Sweet Smell of Success (1957) starred Burt Lancaster as J.J. Hunsecker, a corrosive and despicably evil newspaper columnist who wielded power through the gossip, innuendos, and outright lies, which he wrote in his syndicated column read by 60 million people. Tony Curtis played the up and coming press agent, Sidney Falco, who would do anything, including selling out his girl friend to get close to the seat of power and to smell the sweet smell of success.

Every dog has his day

In 1957, Clark Gable starred with Doris Day in Teacher’s Pet. Gable played James Gammon, a hard-boiled city editor for a New York tabloid newspaper. Day portrayed Erica Stone, a college professor of journalism. For reasons that we don’t need to get into here, Gammon enrolls as a student in Stone’s journalism classes.

Not only do they clash about journalism, but Cupid’s arrows fill the air. Whereas Sweet Smell of Success was a biting and tough picture to sit through because of its cynical characters, Pet is a lighthearted, comedy-romance, a veritable walk through the park. This movie almost launched Day’s career has the female lead in many of the 60′s ‘sex’ comedies.  As for The King, Gable, this would be one of his last roles, but he still had the gift of being great in comedy roles.

For a funny look into how a newspaper works, we have The Paper, a 1994 movie with a topnotch cast which included Michael Keaton, Robert Duvall, Glenn Close, Jason Robards, Jason Alexander, Marisa Tomei, and Randy Quaid. Directed by Ron Howard, this movie did quite well in telling the story about a newspaper staff. This movie’s tag-line was:  Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

In 1974, when conspiracies and political upheaval were fresh in everyone’s mind, Warren Beatty  starred as an ambitious  reporter in The Parallax View. He gets in way over his head when he begins to investigate a senatorial assassination, and a shadowy multinational corporation.

There is no conspiracy. Just twelve people dead.

Released in 1976, All The President’s Men was the story of real life Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward played by Robert Redford, and Carl Bernstein, played by Dustin Hoffman. This brilliant film that garnered 4 Oscars, was directed by Alan J. Pakula.

The movie retold the story of how the two reporters uncovered the truth which ultimately led to the toppling of the Richard Nixon presidency. Terms like Deep-Throat, non-denial denial, Watergate, cover-up, and dirty tricks, which had been terms we’d heard on the television news, or the the newspapers’ coverage came to life on the screen in this movie.

At times it looked like it might cost them their jobs, their reputations, and maybe even their lives

How about another. Nothing But The Truth (2008) is the story of a newspaper reporter, Rachel Armstrong, played by Kate Beckinsale, her editor is played by Angela Bassett, and the government’s Special Prosecutor, Patton Dubois, played by Matt Dillon, and a CIA agent, Erica Van Doren,  played by Vera Farmiga. This movie has a simple plot-line; A Washington DC reporter faces jail-time for outing a CIA agent, and refusing to reveal her source of the story.

Don’t Reveal The Source

Our last movie about newspapers is State of Play starring Russell Crowe as a rumpled but smart investigative reporter for the fictional Washington Globe newspaper.

Following some leads surrounding two separate deaths, Crowe as Cal McAffrey, works the story with a team to get to the truth.

Once again, murder, conspiracies, and a shadowy multinational corporation are the components of the story.

Find the Truth

Well, that’s was certainly a heady mix of movies. Some are famous classics, and others are not so well known. But at the heart of each of them was a newspaper. The newspaper remains a solid source of inspiration for screen-writers, and for a happy ticket-buying public, or DVD watching audiences.

Whether or not traditional paper newspapers will go the way of the pony express, smoke signals, drums, or carrier pigeons as means of delivering the news, I cannot say. And whether or not future movies will have on-line newspapers, information technology (IT) specialists, and blog authors as their lead characters remains to be seen.

In any event, I hope you will continue to visit Also On Video. There’s absolutely no chance that you’ll get newsprint on your hands when reading my column. It’s also true that you won’t be able to use my words to line the bird’s cage, or to wrap your coffee grounds in, unless you print out my columns. Last time I checked, toner for your laser printer, and ink cartridges were way more expensive than newspapers. Thanks for your readership.

jmm

Get your motor runnin’
Head out on the highway
Lookin’ for adventure
And whatever comes our way

40 years later, Steppenwolf’s classic Born to Be Wild, still comes to mind as the anthem of Easy Rider. Powerful music and a powerful film, thank you Mr. Hopper. So Dennis Hopper went from being a rather unconventional actor to being a sought-after, fair-haired, wunderkind. Ka-ching! But success is quite hard to sustain, and Hopper went from being an A-List actor/director to someone whose work and personal life headed downhill. He became someone who might be found at a rehab center during the aftermath following Easy Rider’s release and rise.

Fast forward to 1979 and Hopper resurrects himself and his career. He takes a role of a pot-smoking photo-journalist in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Was he acting or was he just living his dream? After this, Hopper also directed Out of the Blue which garnered critical acclaim.

As Hopper’s reclamation of both his personal life and his career gathered speed, we too can again fast forward – this time to 1988, when Hopper was given the directorial reins for a controversial film about a pair of cops, one an experienced veteran, and the other, his rookie partner. They patrol the streets of East L.A. Their job – to attempt to keep gang violence under control.

This film was called Colors – the gangs were the Bloods and the Crips, and the colors were red and blue. Robert Duvall played the aging cop,  and the mercurial Sean Penn played the gung-ho rookie. You may recall this memorable story told by Duvall as Hodges to the restless for action Penn, as McGavin:

Bob Hodges: [to his new partner] There’s two bulls standing on top of a mountain. The younger one says to the older one: “Hey pop, let’s say we run down there and fuck one of them cows”. The older one says: “No son. Lets walk down and fuck ‘em all”.

Colorful words, indeed and significant to the story as we later found out. Speaking of colors, and of another well known actor, who worked for many years as an A-Lister without his career reaching the pinnacle of an Oscar winning performance; let’s now look at Paul Newman in The Color of Money.

Yes, we are back to colors again. Newman worked with Tom Cruise in this 1986 Martin Scorcese film about a pool hustler and his protege. Newman’s Fast Eddie Felson had last been seen on screen in the 1961 classic movie, The Hustler.

If you want to use the term sequel, you wouldn’t be all wrong. But 25 years did pass before any one could buy a ticket for this so-called sequel. Newman had been nominated for an Oscar in 1962 for his role in The Hustler, but he didn’t win that year. Nor did he win for any of his other noteworthy screen roles. But he did win for The Color of Money.

So we have a few common threads here. Movies, about color(s), with the word Color(s) in the title, and with longtime film actors getting some substantial attention for their work many years into their careers. If not quite the stuff that makes for miracles, then at least we can say that they were heading in the right direction.

Shifting gears but not really changing direction, let’s now look at a pair of artists. These two artists, Jeff Ham (above) and John Nieto (below), are known for the distinctive use of bold colors. But that’s kind of a very mild understatement as you can see by examining their artwork.

Ham has stated that he loves to paint animals, people, and landscapes. He’s not concerned about backgrounds or settings, and his chief goal is to impact the viewer by making everything he paints into an iconic image by his use of raw, bright, and explosive colors. We will start out with a look at some his dynamic animal portraits.

Coyote

Horse

Laughing Coyote

Ham has said, “I do my best to translate emotion and feelings into color and communicate my individual interpretation of each subject. My goal is to capture spontaneity.

Dylan

Nelson

Lennon

As an artist I am learning to express myself in an honest and straightforward manner.”

Sidne

The Stones

Orange Sidne

Note how Ham uses his striking colors in gradients or as abstractions which propel the model or subjects to the fore. Also note how the raw reds impact you.

Nieto’s work is similar in his subjects and his use of striking colors. But Nieto’s works are far more linear Rather than merge or grade his colors, he prefers the clear division which creates a different style but with no less of an impact. But he has not completely gone away from gradients and/or the slow merging of his colors. Its just not his first choice.

Blue Wolf

Coyote Self Portrait

Powerful Medicine

His works have been called dramatic compositions, which through the use of broad strokes and brilliant colors with a halo of a contrasting color surrounding his subjects – have made for unmistakeably modern images.

Garcia

Einstein

Berry

Nieto has said, “…if I am painting a person,  I am painting much more than that. My art is the result of an emotional involvement with my subject matter rather than a cerebral one. I’m in a trance when I paint. It’s like being a drummer — you don’t look at the drums, you just know intuitively where they are.”

Archer 1

Navajo

Prayer for the Return of the Buffalo

His works are truly great, but to get a true measure of the man, I must relate one more thing about Nieto which will tie together this article. In 2002, John Nieto suffered a massive stroke. He was nearly comatose for two and half years. In July of 2005, he was admitted to a Dallas, Texas hospital for congestive heart failure. The treatment of his heart failure also helped to bring about a miraculous recovery which also cured all of his stroke symptoms. Literally, within days, John Nieto was painting again. Some of the works on this page are from after his recovery. His journey from death’s doorway to his current place in the world of Art is indeed a miracle, or at least is a legend for the ages, as is his art.

So Newman, who passed away last fall,  and Hopper…

who is still with us, as are Ham and Nieto – all have color in their stories. We don’t really need to differentiate between the past and the present, do we? Since none of us live in a world restricted to simple blacks and whites, I am more than happy to share these marvelous stories and remarkably colorful images with you.

Well, Harry taunts and tempts the criminal to think about gambling with his life by trying to escape:

“…I know what you’re thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well do ya, punk?”

When Harry Callahan said it, we cheered from the safety of our movie theater seats, or more recently we were thrilled as we watched the video in the safety of our own living rooms or dens. But what if a woman, holding a handgun, and pointing the business end of it at you, made a similar statement. I don’t want to be in that position, do you?

But apparently many men think of a gun-wielding woman as a special kind of fantasy situation. For some, this is even a fetish. To use Inspector Callahan’s words, but not to quote him here,I know what you’re thinking. Some guys get married to lady police officers, undercover agents, FBI agents, Secret Service agents, and other unnamed enforcers. Others have lady friends on the either side of the law who are packing a loaded handgun as well as a fully loaded bra under their coats. But we all hope we don’t run into these types unexpectedly or while they are ‘working’, right?

Cinema has loved to put weapons into the hands of women because it sells tickets. Let’s see, just for fun, do you remember these recent and not so recent major ass-kickers: Carrie Ann Moss (two above) from The Matrix and Lucy Liu from Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever (above)?

Here’s a few that likely you won’t know. First (above and below) there’s Gigi Leung in War of Desire. In a must-see Thailand bar shoot-out she just can’t miss as she blows away literally dozens of bad guys.

Japanese star Asato Seto (above and below) plays a professional hit-woman who is so adept with a weapon, that she can pump three shots into you in such a way that you will remain conscious as you slowly bleed to death. In the feature, Bullets of Love, you can watch her technique multiple times. She will hit you on one side, then the opposite shoulder, then put one into your throat.

Then there’s Anita Mui (above) who challenges then saves Chow Yun-Fat in A Better Tomorrow III (below left). In post-war Saigon, she helps send an army of bad-guys to meet their maker in a legendary scene. This Tsui Hark directed movie is from 1989.

Our next example of a woman you won’t want to mess with is Almen Wong in Her Name is Cat (above right and below). She’s capable of bone-breaking mayhem with a handgun, a long-range scoped rifle, or just her bare hands.

This column was originally published in the February 2003 issue of Also on Video which is no longer available on the net. But 6 years have gone by so we thought we’d update it with some newer and/or different pistol packing mamas.

Right up there with the baddest of the bad must be Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft.

Don’t mess with her. You’ve been warned. Want some more? In rapid-fire (no pun intended)

Kate Beckinsdale from Underworld (above and below).

Milla Jovovich in Resident Evil (above).

Annie Parillaud (above) as La Femme Nikita in the movie and below is Peta Wilson from the TV Series of the same name.

Cynthia Khan from assorted Hong Kong flicks (below).

Even Jennifer Lopez who is more widely known for the shape of her ass than for any bad-ass roles got into the act (above).

and Three of the MOST memorable – Sigourney Weaver as Ripley in Alien,

Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor in Terminator 2,

and finally, Pam Grier who had so many roles with guns, that we will call this a Lifetime Achievement Award.

More recently, from Japan, and not nearly so ‘theatrical’ as Jolie’s Croft is Ryoko Shinohara who starred in the police television series Unfair in 2006. Actually Detective Yukihara had the highest arrest rate in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. She’d blow away a bad guy when necessary or even when not necessary a la the aforementioned Inspector Harry Callahan. Needless to say, she was often in trouble with her superiors on the force.

Also from Japan, we have Gun Crazy . Supermodel Ryoko Yonekura stars as the gun toting heroine Saki who is on the trail of the vicious crime lord, Tojo. The police won’t arrest him and the military won’t go near him, but in this dangerous game of cat and mouse, Saki knows you don’t send a man to do a woman’s job.

An over-the-top example would certainly be Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s Planet Terror which was part of the Grindhouse double feature. Rose McGowan sported something other than the standard pair of legs that most of us are equipped with from birth. Somehow, I can’t see McGowan’s character Cherry being successful in a seduction, can you?

In 2008, Japan upped the ante on Tarantino. The movie was called Machine Girl. In this film blood spurts become blood sports, limbs are severed as easily as pruning a tree, and there’s more mayhem than you might see in a cattle slaughterhouse even on a busy day.

Actress Minase Yashiro, who has graced our pages as a gravure model here, seeks revenge on the mobsters that killed her parents. So she goes after them, and loses an arm in the process.

Faster than you can say Ironman, or Robocop, she returns to the fray with her missing limb replaced by a machine gun. That’s what you might call a real trigger finger.

When watching this movie, wear your imaginary plastic raincoat because you’re going to get drenched in blood.

All in all, the last thing you expect when you are trying to get a woman into your arms is the feel of cold steel pressing against your forehead. There are much nicer ways to end an evening. But you never know. That mild mannered ‘secretary’ may be more, much more than you thought.

If you have an opportunity or choice between foreplay or gun-play, there’s not much to think about is there? So, to have a look at some kinder and gentler babes who are much more likely to rigged up in a bikini, like Minase Yashiro above, than a bullet proof vest, and, I guarantee that they will make you smile rather than run for cover – visit our pages often.

Long ago Mankind found a way to travel across the seas or what ever body of water they found themselves at. Back then it might have a simple straw boat, or maybe a complex straw boat, like the one below. Or maybe it was

a dugout tree trunk, or a rudimentary raft. Then came boats with oarsmen, sailing craft, steam boats, then motorized vessels, and even boats that could travel below the sea’s surface. Today we have supertankers, nuclear powered submarines, ships so big they are called floating hotels, as well as naval ships that can launch weaponry to attack enemy strongholds on land while hundreds of miles away from any shore.

Sea travel or crossing water is here to stay – be it a daily ferry commute, or a lengthy sea cruise as a vacation. Others earn their livelihood at sea; be it fishing, or transporting cargo. Pleasure boats have gotten bigger and faster. People race sail boats for honor, prestige, and glory. Boats are used in the commission of crimes, or to capture criminals,

like when Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx, as undercover vice-cops used a fast boat as part of a mission to bust a drug lord in the Miami Vice movie,  or simply just to have a day on the water and get away from it all. And let’s not forget that all countries with a sea coast possess a navy that contains warships. Probably not like those picture below, more likely a tad newer.

We take the sea for granted although we are not unaware of it’s dangers. Storms,

shoals, and sea scavengers also known as pirates who lay waiting in safe harbors before venturing out to sea what the tide has brought them, or to take forcibly from those who have crossed their path.

Yet we embrace the sea. People will continue to challenge the sea while others, standing on whatever shore or coast, know that somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, on another shore, someone much like themselves is standing on a beach, or a dock, or a jetty, with the same thoughts.

The seas and waterways across the world are so much a part of our daily lives that we have included them as parts of our leisure time, even when we are nowhere near any body of water. Today there are many examples from the world of art, books and movies about the seafaring life. Even music can be related to the life at or near the sea. A prime example of this is the so-called ‘Surfin’ music. This music was born and grew in Southern California, where surfing (above and below) is a way of life for some.

Over a period of a few years, The Beach Boys song writer Brian Wilson, along with musician Van Dyke Parks, and a couple of others, wrote a song called Sail On Sailor. It was first recorded in 1972, though some say it was 1971 and was then released as a single in 1973. Though it did not achieve much success as a single, it still has its place in the annals of music as well as being a part of this column. From the lyrics:

I sailed an ocean, unsettled ocean
Through restful waters and deep commotion
Often frightened, unenlightened
Sail on, sail on, sailor

With those lyrics as our cue, we’ll look at some examples of being on the water. Some will be pure exhilaration. But not all of them will be pleasant or have happy endings. For many, their lives ended while at sea and their finally resting place was not a plot in a cemetery but somewhere on the bottom of a vast ocean.

American artist Winslow Homer (1836-1910) painted working men at sea as well as seaside vistas. His works are usually darker, and in some way foreboding, possibly due to his method of scale and size. While fully realistic his works are not noted for their detail. Check out Breezing Up (above top), Watching the Breakers (above), and The Herring Net (below). All of these convey both Homer’s fascination with the sea as well as its strength and power.

And speaking of fishing, Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss starred in one of the most famous movies about what could happen when you are at sea. Of course we are referencing Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975)

from the Peter Benchley novel of the same name. Who will ever forget what Scheider as Police Chief Martin Brody said after seeing what they were going to do battle with:

You’re going to need a bigger boat.

Just as memorable if not more so was the chilling and unforgettable monologue by Robert Shaw as Quint as he remembered and spoke of what happened to the U.S.S. Indianapolis on June 29th, 1945. His conclusion: -

I’ll never put on a life-jacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water; 316 men come out and the sharks took the rest…

In case you were thinking, those guys were looking for the shark, fishing isn’t all that risky, how about The Perfect Storm (2000)

which starred George Clooney as Captain Billy Tyne

and Mark Wahlberg as Bobby Shatford. These guys went looking for fish. They needed a monster catch.

Instead they ran into a monster storm. They failed to heed the weather warnings.  Back in Gloucester, old-time sailor Quentin, after hearing where they were heading for said:

The Flemish Cap? Went there once…’62. Lots of fish…and lots of weather…

Not all sea captains meet the fate of Clooney’s Billy Tyne. We’ve discussed Captain Bligh from Mutiny on the Bounty in another article some time ago, so we will give him a pass this time. Sea captains are a hardy lot. They must be full of courage and they must know how to handle their men. Some are adored by their crews and revered while others are simply hated and reviled. Let’s start with a very recent Captain who was so favorably accepted by the movie going public, that he was given two sequels to the original movie.

Of course this can be none other than Captain Jack Sparrow, of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Sparrow was played memorably by everyone’s favorite buccaneer Johnny Depp.

In a scene with the comely Elizabeth, Jack had this perfect description of what his ship and the life at sea meant to him,

Elizabeth: And you’ll be positively the most fearsome pirates in the Spanish Main.
Jack Sparrow: Not just the Spanish Main, luv. The entire ocean. The entire wo’ld. Wherever we want to go,we’ll go. That’s what a ship is, you know. It’s not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that’s what a ship needs but what a ship is… what the Black Pearl really is… is freedom.

Yes, freedom on the seas, and the freedom of the seas. Worth fighting for wouldn’t you say. In Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), Russell Crowe portrays Captain Jack Aubrey. This Jack, unlike Depp’s Jack was a naval commander in the British Royal Navy. But he too was adored by his men.

This movie was set during the Napoleonic Wars.  Crowe pushes his ship and his men to their limits in pursuit of a  powerful French warship around the horn of South America.

His rallying cry to his men:

England is under threat of invasion, and though we be on the far side of the world,this ship is our home. This ship *is* England.

On another ship, in another war, the good guys and the bad guys are not clearly defined.  The Caine Mutiny (1954) from the Herman Wouk novel is the story of a US Naval Captain who showed signs of mental instability that could jeopardize the ship. He is relieved of command by a subordinate officer who will then face a court martial for mutiny.

Captain Phillip Francis Queeg was played by Humprey Bogart. Queeg was part dictator, part captain, and part supreme egotist. Speaking to Lt. Stephen Maryk (the late Van Johnson) who would later take command, Queeg said:

Mr. Maryk, you may tell the crew for me that there are four ways of doing things aboard my ship: The right way, the wrong way, the Navy way, and my way. They do things my way, and we’ll get along.

Maybe Queeg was a megalomaniac. He also said:

Aboard my ship, excellent performance is standard, standard performance is sub-standard, and sub-standard performance is not permitted to exist – that, I warn you.

So the case went to a court martial. Maryk was defended by Lt. Barney Greenwald who was portrayed by  Jose Ferrar in a brilliant performance. Greenwald did his job. He torpedoed the hapless Queeg in the courtroom, and Maryk was acquitted. But Greenwald was not happy about getting his client off. In a powerful concluding scene at a party celebrating Maryk’s acquittal, Greenwald faces Lt  Tom Keefer who was played by Fred MacMurray

I wanna drink a toast to you, Mr. Keefer. From the beginning you hated the Navy. And then you thought up this whole idea and you managed to keep your skirts nice and starched and clean, even in the court martial. Steve Maryk will always be remembered as a mutineer.

But you, you’ll publish your novel, you’ll make a million bucks, you’ll marry a big movie star, and for the rest of your life you’ll live with your conscience, if you have any. Here’s to the real author of the Caine mutiny. Here’s to you, Mr. Keefer. [Splashes wine in Keefer's face] If you wanna do anything about it, I’ll be outside. I’m a lot drunker than you are – so it’ll be a fair fight.

But sometimes a story on the high seas is not about the navy, or history, or even a mindless predator like a shark. Sometimes  it is about the most dangerous of all species. Man.

Sam Neill, Nicole Kidman, and Billy Zane played the leads in Dead Calm (1989). This was, in no uncertain terms, a thriller on the high seas. Neill and Kidman play a married couple who sail off into the Pacific Ocean to try and forget about a tragic accident. In some dead calm waters, they come upon a mysterious yacht with Zane as the sole survivor. Of course they had no way of knowing that later they would have to fight for their lives

as the man who they helped, Hughie, was a homicidal maniac. This movie had a couple of memorable tag-lines:

High Seas – Deep Terror & In the middle of nowhere, there is nowhere to hide!

How about  one more – one more movie, one more famous ship, and one more Jack.

Can you guess what I am referring to?  I alluded to this way above in the 3rd paragraph when I mentioned ships so big they are called floating hotels. Yes, it can be no other then Titanic (1997) directed by James Cameron. To those of you who guessed Aquaman, I’m sorry  that is incorrect.

The Titanic only sailed once. Its maiden voyage was its last voyage. Though this is the story of an ill-fated ship,

it is also a classic love story between Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater.  The movie’s tag-line was:

A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets

There is a wonderful exchange between Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack, and Kate Winslet’s Rose which perfectly encapsulates their attraction:

Jack: Where to, Miss?
Rose: To the stars.

Later, in their last moments, there’s a memorable line by Rose, as she’s letting go of Jack’s hand as he has already perished,

I’ll never let go, Jack. I promise.

Since the movie begins with an elderly woman, who was a survivor of the Titanic, reminiscing, or should I say still struggling, years and years later, to come to terms with what occurred that fateful night,

we know what is going to happen over the next two plus hours of the movie. Her words are unforgettable, and a fitting way to close this article which I have chosen to call Three Jacks.

Fifteen-hundred people went into the sea, when Titanic sank from under us. There were twenty boats floating nearby… and only one came back. One. Six were saved from the water, myself included. Six… out of fifteen-hundred. Afterward, the seven-hundred people in the boats had nothing to do but wait… wait to die… wait to live… wait for an absolution… that would never come.

Thanks for reading.

Mother of Cities to me,
For I was born in her gate,
Between the palms and the sea,
Where the world-end steamers wait.

So Bombay was not only Kipling’s birthplace, but was also the port of entry for most of the Europeans who emigrated to India in the times when one traveled to India by ship. Bombay Gate, likely where those steamers  Kipling refers to made port, is just steps from the stately and regal Taj Mahal Hotel which was a target of those recent attacks.

—-

A pair of movies about illicit love had come to my attention recently, before the news emanating from Mumbai, and we will get to them shortly. But first, to set the scene, and to provide a historical background, let’s look at a bigger and an older picture.

For many years, the entire Indian subcontinent which now includes Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, was considered to be simply India. As you can see in the above map, from the pre-independence era, Pakistan, and Bangladesh did not exist as independent nations, nor were they on any map.

India was and is a huge and diverse country containing a multiplicity of languages, religions, and customs. Centuries ago the land was made up mostly of princely states, and small kingdoms, each with its own ruler. And even though the land was big enough, the sub-continent was not unified.

Though the country is millenniums old, it was just in the last three hundred years that the British arrived. First as the British East India Trading Company, and then by the mid 19th Century, ‘India’ was colonized as a holding of the United Kingdom. While the British unified the country, and while they helped to build a land with a codified legal system and an efficient administrative arm of the government, it was good but only on the surface. The people of India ultimately chafed and resented the yoke of British colonialism that had been placed on them.

Gandhi and Jinnah

Nehru and Gandhi

 Nehru appeals to his audience

Eventually, the British had to give up the control of India, and the modern state of India officially came into existence. It was created as a consequence of years and months of public statesmanship, political maneuvering behind closed doors, non-violent protests, and the Quit India movement. At the stroke of Midnight on August 15th, 1947,  India was at once independent and partitioned. Jawaharlal Nehru gave a famous speech called Tryst With Destiny, which began:

“At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.”

Simultaneously, the independent nation of Pakistan was created to the northwest. An eastern wing of Pakistan was also created and located to the northeast. This parcel later fought for its own independence and became the nation of Bangladesh in 1971.

But boundaries on a map, and real life are two completely different things. In fact The Partitioning of India did not go down easily at ground level as millions of people were displaced, having to abandon their homes to move to a place where they would be amongst their own coreligionists. Violence and extreme communal strife occurred.

This is of course is just a brief and extremely elementary surface sketch of the history. But once the layers of government, politics, economics, and religion are peeled back, and we look at the men and women of India, at the level of individual persons, we see that they are still susceptible to the attractions of the opposite sex. Often people were still attracted to each other despite the communal, religious, racial or ethnic differences, as well as the lack of societal approval. It seemed that when when passion reared its head, other considerations might be forgotten.

I’m going to look at four examples, all of which were set in India, of the effects and aftermath of events when fictional members of one race or creed sought to mix, or wanted to mix with a member of the opposite sex as well as a member of a different ethnic or religious group. In these examples we will find that art once again is only an imitation of life.

A Passage to India was a novel written by E.M.Forster in 1924 and was brought to the screen, sixty years later, in 1984, by the famed movie producer/director David Lean. This is a story about tensions between Indians and the colonial British which come to a boil when a white female tourist, Adela Quested, accuses a young Indian, Dr. Aziz, of rape during a visit to the Marabar Caves.

Aziz’s trial, and its run-up and aftermath, bring out all the racial tensions and prejudices between indigenous Indians and the British colonists who ruled India at the time.

Over the years this novel has brought forth discussions on whether, given the time when the book was published in 1924, an Indian could be friends with an Englishman. Or were the British actually racists? Or how could the western minds, which generally need to categorize everything, get its arms around the stunning diversity of India. While I did not read Forster’s novel, I did see the movie and do recommend it. And yes, though the novel was written more than 80 years ago, you can still buy it today,

The Jewel In the Crown - was a TV Series based on Paul Scott’s novels collectively called “The Raj Quartet”. This series of novels explored the ramifications of the British presence in South Asia. While this is about the social and political atmosphere across India, the stories are told both on a personal as well as a national level. To be sure, desire, duty, and destiny repeatedly intersect. The outcomes are always dire, often disastrous.

In the first novel in the Quartet, which was entitled, as was the TV series, The Jewel In The Crown, Daphne Manners, portrayed by Susan Woolridge, a young lady from England,  had come out to India to find herself and to find her fortune which might include a husband. But she found life a struggle in India. As the first book opens, Daphne has been raped in the Bibighar Gardens in the fictional Indian city of Mayapore.

Hari Kumar, whose role was acted by Art Malik, was a British lad of Indian heritage who had spent all but two years of his entire life in Britain. He “fit in” in England. He had enjoyed a public school education (in England this actually means a private school) and enjoyed what was considered a privileged life. But when he came out to India as an adult, he decidedly did not fit in. In his own words, Hari/Harry was both ‘English and black’. He could not communicate in any of the Indian languages which isolated him from the Indians themselves. And for the British in India, he was simply another Indian. Never mind his British education and sensibilities. He will be accused of the rape.

Lt. Colonel Ronald Merrick, (performed by Tim Piggott-Smith) was the police Inspector who held Hari responsible for the rape. He kept Kumar imprisoned, he tortured him, and all the while, he knew Kumar was innocent. Merrick resented Kumar’s excellent British education, which he didn’t have, and all the advantages Kumar had in England. Merrick was also a rejected suitor to Miss Manners.

And there you have the main players, at least as the first novel of the Raj Quartet, as well as the TV Series, begins. This rape was the linchpin that started Scott’s novels, as well as the TV Series, which was produced by Granada TV. But the Raj Quartet and TV series were more than just the stories of Daphne Manners, Ronald Merrick, and Hari Kumar. Daphne later dies in childbirth. Kumar becomes incidental, and Merrick’s homosexual tendencies became known, and he will die in disgrace. But the story began with the forbidden attraction to Hari by Daphne.

The overall agenda of both the novels and the TV series was the final days of the British Raj (ruler-ship) in India. The novels were a vast look at what was happening, globally, nationally, and very locally in India at the time. Remember, when Paul Scott wrote the 1st book of the series, it was 1966. The British were only a single generation removed from India’s Independence and the partition of the subcontinent. There is no doubt that those events pre-occupied many people for many years.

As for Mr. Paul Scott, the author of the books, it was merely twenty years after India’s independence when the first book of the Quartet was published. Was he obsessed or not is a question I cannot answer. I personally read each of the four novels, as well as watched the entire mini-series which was was 14 episodes. It was broadcast from January 9th 1984 to April 3rd, 1984.

Think of all that is apparent as well as what might be below the surface in this quote from the book,

“Ah no, waste no pity on young Kumar. Whatever he got while in the hands of the police he deserved. And waste no pity on her either. She also got what she deserved.”

The above was spoken with something other than affection, wouldn’t you say? And isn’t it a telling remark about the people’s reactions to that tragic event in the Bibighar Gardens, or on a larger scale, weren’t those remarks a key indicator of the differential between colonial masters and an indigenous population?

Before The Rains (2007) is a movie set in southern India in the late 1930s. This provocative tale traces the story of three people caught in an inexorable web of forbidden romance and dangerous secrets. The English spice planter, John Moores (acted by Linus Roche), seemingly represents all that is good about the colonial times.

Despite the growing resistance by the Indians to the British, Moores provides jobs and incomes for the local people by deciding to build a bigger and better road than the existing one, which as you can see in the above image, was barely big enough for a small lorry.  This would enable more spices to be sent out from the plantation in larger quantities and much faster, which would increase profits and be good for everyone. At least that is what he thought. He must have this road built before the rains (monsoons) come. But other thoughts also occupied him.

While his wife and son are away in England, he begins an affair with his housemaid, Sajani, as acted by Nandita Das.

Sajani is caught between her traditional Indian marriage, and the certainty that she would be cast out of her own community if her affair with Moores is discovered. But, facing this deadly ostracism, she makes a decision which has tragic consequences.

Between Moores and Sanjani, is the plantation’s foreman, T.K. (Rahul Bose) He desires the increase in status and lifestyle that his job with Moores brings him. Yet he is bound by the customs, rituals, and mores of his own people. He will face a monumental decision when he must choose to either cast his lot with his boss, Moores,

or help his own people determine what was Sajani’s fate. His risk – nothing short of his own life and freedom. As the film’s tagline says, Passion has its price.

The Bengali Night (1988) – a very young Hugh Grant, in his first starring role,  is featured as Alain, a French engineer,

who becomes entangled in a forbidden romance with his Indian employer’s eldest daughter, Gayatri, portrayed by Supriya Pathak. As their passion ignites, the East-meets-West clash of cultures leads to surprising and tragic consequences.

While this wasn’t a particularly good movie, the real-life back story was. The original source material was a 1933 novel by Mircea Eliade called Bengal Nights. Eliade the author, who left Europe in 1930 to work in India

was in fact the real life source for the character of Alain. But there was a real person behind the Gayatri character too. Her name was Maitreyi Devi, who met Eliade in the early 1930′s. She was the inspiration for Gayatri. She only became aware of Eliade’s book some 40 years later in the 70′s. Following confrontations with Eliade , though they had time to take a photo together,

she thought she had exacted a promise from him that the novel would never be published in English. In 1974, Devi published her own version of the story in Bengali which went to great lengths to dispute the implications of Eliade’s passionate novel.  The English title of her book was It Does Not Die.

Devi claimed that at least some Eliade’s novel was a fantasy – a product of a fevered imagination, roasted by the steamy and exotic Calcutta, and a distortion of the real events between them . Years later, after watching the movie go into production in Calcutta, she brought a lawsuit against the producers of the movie, and actually it got to court. She claimed the movie was insulting to Hindus, and pornographic, and sought to bar it’s release.

I can’t tell you the results of that lawsuit but the film itself, a French production, was shown only once in India, at a film festival, and was never released to theaters in the USA. However, now it is available in DVD. Eliade’s novel was not published in English until 1994. In fact, a lengthy article was written in 1996 by the Indian authoress Ginu Kamani,

and published by The University of Chicago Press. Its title was A Terrible Hurt: The Untold Story behind the Publishing of Maitreyi Devi, and is available online. So the story of a young Frenchman who arrived in Calcutta in 1930, went on to become an erotic novel, then 40 plus years later, a second book was published as a response and contradiction. Fourteen years after that, a movie based on the original book was made, which was followed by a lawsuit, and then,  a half dozen years after that, a lengthy article was published about these events. All of this stemmed from what may have occurred on a Bengali night so many years ago.

Since beginning this column, another movie came to my attention. The Namesake (2007) was directed by Mira Nair, and its source was the novel of the same name written by Jhumpa Lahiri.

 Mira Nair

Jhumpa Lahiri

This is a tale of a Bengali couple who immigrate from Calcutta to Queens, NY. It is a generational picture, and eventually the couple’s first child, who was named Gogol by his father, after the Russian author Nikolai Gogol, matures and seeks to find his own way between the cross-cultural experiences that he grew up with and faced as a first generation US citizen born of Indian parents, and the lifestyle he chose for himself as an adult.

Gogol is played by  Kal Penn who is best known for his work in the Harold and Kumar films. As Gogol, his path leads him to two wrenching love affairs. His first love was an American girl named Maxine, played by Jacinda Barrett,

with whom he lives until he finds out that she has cheated on him. His second love turns out to be the westernized but hot-to-trot Moushimi. Ironically, the role of the Indian girl Moushimi was cast with Zuleikha Robinson, an actress born in London of mixed ancestry.

Though this film is not about forbidden love and the recklessness that towering passions bring forth, it does place the viewer in a position to feel and understand the struggles of Gogol to find his identity as he straddles both cultures and follows his own passions. In fact, there are two taglines for this movie. The first is: Two Worlds. One Journey. The second tagline is: Know Where You Came From to Get Where You’re Going.  This film was given awards for excellence by a few film boards.

Mr. Kipling also wrote:

Oh East is East and West is West and Never the Twain Shall Meet

Those words have passed the test of time in the sense that while we may not always remember that these were the words of Kipling, we do find those words memorable. In his lifetime (1865-1936) Kipling was considered one of the finest and most popular writers in poetry and prose. He even was awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. But later on his works came to viewed as controversial. Some claimed he was prejudicial and militaristic. Others said his words promoted British imperialism.  In fact Kipling was a lightning rod for discussion for most of the first half of the twentieth century. I wonder if his words had an influence on E.M.Forster, or Paul Scott?

Clearly I haven’t provided any answers to the questions brought forth by these books and films. Nor did I intend to. I have merely presented these to you. To sample them, or to try them on, or to weigh and measure your own sensitivities to this topic is an action that each of you will have to decide to do on your own. But of this we are certain, that when people with cultural differences meet, and heady passion is added to the mix, this recipe may very well become a combustible event.

They weren’t your standard version of a Hollywood couple. In fact, at the time of his death, they had lived in Connecticut for many years.

While many of you are very familiar with Mr. Newman’s work as an actor; Cool Hand Luke, The Sting, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and The Color Money are some of his best known films and readily come to mind. I think only some of you may recall that Joanne Woodward is an Oscar winner herself.

She won an Oscar for Best Performance by Actress in 1958 for her role in The Three Faces of Eve. This was the story of a 1950′s Georgia housewife who was brought to a local psychiatrist. Her symptoms – headaches and an occasional blackout. The 1950′s doctors hadn’t the same amount of knowledge and prescription drugs that today’s MD’s have, so that when three distinct and different personalities emerged from the same person, it was a newsworthy event.

It was also a spectacular role for an actress, and Ms Woodward walked off with the Oscar. She played a mousey housewife (Mrs. Eve White), a sultry and sexy seductress who called herself Eve Black, and a sensible modern woman who called herself Jane.

It was a dream role, and brought into focus not only mental disorders and illnesses, but made men think of how the women in their lives also played multiple roles like wife, best friend, and lover; all hopefully without acting.

My topic is not really this movie, or is it about mental illnesses like Multiple Personality Disorder. The reality is that everyone of us had a mother, every female was a daughter, and women fulfill the roles of friends and lovers all over the world. All of these are possible and are so no matter how brief the time frame was. Men tend to see women in a variety of ways such as a parental figure, a boss or an employee, a sexual partner, a rival, a friend, a daughter, or as a sister. Of course there are variations of all of the above, and the ageing process has a role in that.

But once you remove the trimmings created by environment, economics, and social order we can safely ‘categorize’ our loving partners into three main subsets: tradition has them as WIFE, MOTHER, & LOVER. In short if you marry a woman, you’ll end up with all three. Given that, it is no surprise to see that in ART, and more often than you might think, we can find the three faces of women, who obviously are not all named Eve, but are all descendants of the first Eve. I’d venture to say that it was no coincidence that the title role in Ms. Woodward’s Oscar performance was called Eve.

In art we see many examples of this. Album covers, pop art, or iconic stone idols are often portrayed in threes. This album cover (above) is from the Australian musical group Vespers Descent. And the album’s title? 3 Faces of Eve.

The next one is obviously light-hearted and is the work of Artist Sonya Paz. And the work below is from the Functionalartist, yet another version of The Three Faces of Eve.

The stone idol is The Three Faces of Shiva.

One more? How about this artful bed quilt. ?

I think there’s a pattern here. And if there’s not a pattern in the art world, we can at least agree that there’s a pattern within this article.

Chinese artist Yanqun Xue paints in the style of Classic Realism. His paintings are almost exclusively of women. Not surprisingly he has three categories for his works: Nudes, Girls, and Portraits. Expressed in other terms, those categories become clearer. Nudes are still Nudes. Girls are clothed but relaxed either by themselves or at play with other girls. And Portraits are formal where the women are looking their very best, and hope that this is how other see them.

Nude 216

Nude 205

Since we all know what Nudes are, let’s begin with them. Actually I think these are the least interesting of his works. Even though the nude models all have wonderful bodies, none of the poses are dynamic, nor do we see much in the way of detail. It’s like he’s trading with us – I’ll paint them without clothing, and you can expect the least amount of detail.

Before The Painting

The Afternoon

As for Girls, we might also call them Traditional Girls. These women are not in modern dress. But don’t let that stop you.

The Music

The Earth No. 4

Please note the rich blues and deep red.

The Sound of Bamboo

I also call to your attention the sharp creases of the lady’s garment in The Sound of Bamboo.

The Dancer

The Folding Fan

Finally, notice how detailed the Portraits are – for example, the intricate lace patterns in The Dancer  and The Folding Fan . Or the delightfully patterned chaise lounge in Lili.

Lili

The wonderful design of Christine‘s dress along with the wood trim of the sofa and the curtains behind her.

Christine

A Lady In The Picture

I also like the elegance of a Lady in the Picture as well as the sophisticated silk dress that Linda wears along with the white chair that she is seated on.

Linda

These works of Art are indeed Yanqun Xue’s three style modes and are a wonderful tie-in to our theme of three faces. I guess you can see the skill and heart that went into creating these works. Bringing them to your attention is our pleasure. Thanks for visiting.

Rio Natsume – Rio Bravo (November 20, 2008)
Line Communications/I-One
Catalog # LCDV-40343 – Region 2 Disc – 4:3 Aspect – MPEG-2
Running Time: 60 minutes

Nearly 50 years ago, in April of 1959, Academy Award winning director Howard Hawks released a Western or cowboy movie called Rio Bravo. It starredJohn Wayne as a Texas town Sheriff who has locked up a bad guy on a murder charge. The bad guy’s family hires a score of thugs. They intend to bust this guy out of the local jail no matter what.

Wayne as Sheriff John T Chance has just a few people to help him: an old geezer (Walter Brennan as the comical Stumpy), a young gun (Ricky Nelson as Colorado) and the drunken deputy (played flawlessly by Dean Martin as Dude). The female ‘love interest’ was played by Angie Dickinson as “Feathers”.

This film was an interesting character study about how a few good men could, would, and did stand up to a gang of ruthless and evil men. Hawks was nominated for and was given the award for Best Direction by the Director’s Guild that year.

This film might be considered slow moving and/or boring by many based upon today’s standards of testosterone filled action sequences of explosions, car chases, and bullet shell casings being expelled from a weapon in slow motion . Instead, this is a thinking man’s Western. The action comes sporadically. The movie is quite long (two hours and twenty minutes) but at the heart of the movie is the bonding of the heroes and how each of them met and faced their own particular demons.

It has been written somewhere that having Dean Martin’s character Dude climb out of the bottle and face his nemesis (alcoholism) by pouring his shot glass of whiskey back into the bottle, is one of the most redemptive movie scenes of all time. While many claim that this movie is nearly the perfect western – I’ll step down a notch from that lofty statement and say that it is very good and is worth your time.

And speaking of perfection,  I’ll use this an opportunity to launch my review.

The Skinny: The career of the fabulous Rio Natsume keeps steaming along. She’s been on the Idol track ever since her first DVD, Pure Smile, was released by Takeshobo in June of 2003. Well received then by legions of admirers, it is now more than 5 years later, and apparently there’s no end in sight. The big shots of the major idol video production houses in Japan are still rolling out Natsume DVD’s; and doesn’t that make us happy!

Over the more recent years, Rio’s output has been a few steps away from the straight bikini-ed babe on a beach genre. Oh, she’d still play on a beach, or trot out more than a few bikini’s, but it seemed like she’d take a chance and release DVD’s that were more ‘arty’ than straight gravure.

In this release Rio Natsume has finally stepped into adulthood. Though she is only 23, in most of her prior releases, she looked younger (facially) then her true age. And when she went for the glamor, or vamp. quite often she looked like a kid dressing up in grownup’s clothes. For sure she had the figure for it, but she just couldn’t pull it off. Now she looks like a grownup. I won’t be able to call her ‘everyone’s favorite  young niece’ any more.

This DVD has a very nice tempo and feel to it. Rio is very willing and comfortable showing off as much of her body as she can given the restrictions of the gravure idol genre. So it’s a real pleasure to find Rio on the beach as the main chapters begin. She’s never been much of a runner. She swings her arms to much, and given the hefty weight of her chest ornaments, it’s no wonder she tires easily. But that was then – in this video, her endurance is much improved. After running she’ll tease us by building the huge mounds of sand that she will then crush with her imposing bust.

Two finds her in a small indoor swimming pool. She wears a muted orange bikini and it’s a pleasure to watch her climb in and out of the pool. Sometimes the camera is placed above as she climbs out and we look down into her cleavage. Or at other times there’s a cameraman in the pool so we can look up at her butt as she climbs out of the water.

Three  is poolside. Rio wears a red scarf over her massive breasts a la Miri Hanai. I’m sure this scarf is taped to her boobs, but she still has to be somewhat careful about her movements.

Four begins with Rio pumping up a beach ball. It is the only thing that needs something added in the scene. Rio’s bikini top is very well filled out thank you.  How about an equation: large beach-ball + busty girl = ? And the answer is bouncing busty girl! We’ve seen it before, and we’ll see it again. But with Rio as the one bouncing it is quite enjoyable.

Nurse Rio is next, and she has treat for us. She listens to our heartbeat with a stethoscope. The she asks us if we’d like to listen to hers. Of course we would because she’ll have to open up her nurse outfit to expose her beautiful bra encased breasts. And then we do hear her beating heart. I mean actually.

Six begins with Rio indoors in a large room. She’s twirling a lengthy satin ribbon. We’ve seen Mikie Hara do this and we’ve seen Yoko Matsugane do this. But neither of those models wore a clingy top like Rio does in this scene. Her boobs are really accentuated.

Next is a Rio Natsume trademark scene. Yes it is the shower scene. Here Rio wears a fabulous lace bra and panties set. The bra is very deeply cut, so it seems like most of those her huge boobs are going to be on display as she soaps and rinses. This is truly a beautiful scene to watch. I’m calling it the best scene in the whole DVD.

Back in the bedroom is next. Rio wears a small sundress over her bikini, but the dress comes off quite soon. We hear a lot of birds chirping in the background. The scene is basically Rio posing for us on the bed. Pretty much a standard for gravure DVD’s. Except that when Rio is posing, you must throw out the word standard. Our girl will untie the bikini top , and lower the strap, so she has to hold the bikini top against her bust with one hand and arm lest we see those Natsume moneymakers uncovered. She applies a lotion to make it even more enticing.

Bunny-esque Rio shows up in a men’s club next. First she is asked to help out by making some whipped cream. She’s presented with the cream in a mixing bowl so we watch her whisk away. The she’s called up on stage to do a bit of pole-dancing for us.  While this scene wasn’t bad, it is the weakest one in the video.

But they remedy that very quickly with a stirring scene on the beach. Rio wears a dark knit bikini that sets off her butt and boobs quite nicely as she poses first in front of some rocks, and then as she rolls around in the sand.

The last scene follows with Rio back in bed. The scene could be subtitled seduction as that’s what Rio is doing – seducing her fans. It works quite well, as the lighting is low, and the setting is romantic. Rio plants a nice kiss on us(the camera lens) to close out the scene. There’s a four minute coda which has Rio talking to us as she signs a tee-shirt, walks back from the Okinawan beach, sits on the bathtub ledge, and so forth.

Summary: Almost a perfect five, but we’ll bring this one at 4.75. I thought that the bunny-scene was definitely not on a par with the rest of the DVD. Rio has never looked better, or more mature. She’s still only 23 but she has really blossomed in this DVD.

I strongly recommend this DVD. Her fans should love it, and if there’s any one who is reading my columns who is not familiar with Rio Natsume – then this is the perfect DVD to start your collection with.

Vendors:
Amazon.co.jp

As the movie begins, we learn that the Captain of The Red October, which is the USSR’s newest and most technologically advanced nuclear powered submarine, has disobeyed his orders, and is heading for the United States. The question is – is he defecting or is he a madman who will bring about Armegeddon by firing nuclear war heads at major US coastal cities?

Sean Connery portrays the Russian submarine Captain Marko Ramius whose real mission is to defect to the United States and bring with him the invaluable submarine and most of its officers. We learn this from a discussion at a dinner in the Captain’s Mess aboard the Red October.

But back on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. in the corridors of power, they’re not so sure. CIA analyst Jack Ryan, played by Alec Baldwin,

is going to have to somehow figure out Ramius’s true intentions, then get aboard this submarine. But doing so won’t be easy as the Russian naval fleet is trying to prevent Ramius from achieving his goal, and prevent the US from getting its hands on this submarine. Onboard another Russian submarine which is trying to pinpoint Red October’s location, we meet Captain Tupelov who fully intends to sink the Red October. Or as he put it –

“We’re going to kill a friend, Yvgeni.
We’re going to kill Ramius.”

Fast forwarding ahead, a US submarine was able to detect and find Red October, and Jack Ryan was able to make contact with Ramius. Ryan is part of a small three man party that will board the Russian submarine to verify Ramius’s intentions. All of this will happen below the sea’s surface. When the Americans finally board the submarine and are brought to the sub’s bridge and command center, they are face to face with Ramius and his senior officers.

Everyone, except Ramius is nervous. Ryan will ask one of the Russian sailors for a cigarette as a sign of comradeship. While Ryan puffs on the proferred cigarette, we will see that Captain Bart Mancuso, played by Scott Glenn, the senior American officer accompaning Ryan, is fast becoming more and more edgy. He had doubted Ryan’s analysis, and also distrusted the Russians. Yet somehow, here he is, right now, standing on the bridge in the Russian submarine.

At this point, noting Mancuso’s hand only inches from his holstered pistol, Captain Ramius will make a comment to his second in command, Captain Vasili Borodin, played by Sam Neill. Though it is in Russian, we clearly hear the word “buckaroo” and his statement makes Jack Ryan laugh.

Capt. Bart Mancuso to Ryan: “What’s so funny?”
Jack Ryan: “Ah, the Captain seems to think you’re some kind of… cowboy. ”

After it is confirmed that Ramius is indeed defecting, tensions ease. But not for long. The submarine still has to run the gauntlet and reach safe harbor in American waters.

However, there’s a rogue technician, ostensibily on board Red October to service the nuclear reactor. But he might possibly be a plant from the Russian Naval High Command, put in place to spy on Ramius. He is going try to foil everyones’ plans by sabotaging and sinking the submarine. Shots ring out, and in the close quarters, Borodin takes a shot to the chest. As he is dying, his last words are to Ramius:

“I would like to have seen Montana…”

Later, after much heroics, and naval derring-do, The Red October has escaped from its pursuers and has safely made its way into the Penobscot River in the state of Maine. As the submarine, now surfaced, glides upriver, Ryan and Ramius are outside riding at the top of the submarine. It is night.

Captain Ramius: “… and the sea will grant each man new hope,
as sleep brings dreams of home. Christopher Columbus.”
Jack Ryan: “Welcome to the New World Captain.”

And as the music rises, the film ends. I brought this film into AoV as an introduction for this column, as a way to transition from the idea of the West that these fictional Russian submarine officers had dreamt of, a place that they had chosen to make their homes, to some actual art works which bring these concepts to you on a visual plane.

Not so long ago, America itself was the New World. Brave Europeans endured the hardships of crossing the seas to land on American shores. And still later, in quests for open lands and freedom, settlers and frontiersmen pushed their way across the heartlands of America, going further and further west. It wasn’t easy. Many failed and died enroute. In addition to the hardship of the travel itself, the west was occupied by many ancient peoples. They were called Indians.

So the west was the scene of many fierce battles between the Cheyennes, or the Cherokees, or the Comanches, or the Apaches, or a myriad of other tribes who were fighting against the ever increasing hordes of settlers who wanted to claim those sacred tribal lands for themselves. Hence the West came to be called The Wild West. Lawlessness was endemic. Men shot first and asked questions later. No doubt, Ramius and his men had seen many American movies which portrayed the settling of the West, or the destructive wars between the Cowboys and the Indians, which is why Ramius knew the term, “buckaroo”.

Today, the American West is still beautiful, with vast tracts of unsettled land, or land that has been set aside in perpetuity as National Parks, but the days of the Wild West are history. Yes, we still have Cowboys, but today they are known as cattlemen. Yes, we still have Indians, but today, they are called Native Americans. Now they are more apt to be artists or craftsmen, who apply paint to a canvas, or to some pottery, rather than to place warpaint on their own faces.

Today if you want to look at the Old West, the best way to do so is to go to an art gallery. In this column we will look at some works of art which memorialize how it was back in the days of covered wagons, trappers, and gold prospectors. Back when men lived in and by the bounties found in the forest, when Indian warriors wore war paint and feathered war bonnets, when teepee villages or log-cabins were the norm, and all of it set amidst the majestic wonder and beauty of the American West.

Let’s begin with some works by Martin Grelle. Grelle grew up in a small town in Texas and is now known as one of the finest and most recognized of western artists. This past summer, his painting called Trappers In the Wind River (below) sold for $406,000. Look how much detail there is. Astounding, and an excellent example of Classic Realism.

Next, the above painting is called Apsaalooka Horse Hunters, and isn’t it spectacular. Look at the detail of the grasslands, the shadows, and the colors of the of the lead rider’s coat and blanket. Note the soaring mountains in the hazy background. Below we have the similar Last of the Pemmican. Note the hovering storm clouds above the trees on the mountainsides, and note how the horses look tired. Just superb.

Our last Grelle painting (below) is called Valley Guardian. Here we have a tired scout on his solitary duty to watch the entrance to the valley. Notice the details: the colors of his clothes and gear, the breath from the horse’s nostrils, as well as the angle of the sun and the horse’s shadows. Just wonderful.

Grelle has said,

“I have always been drawn to the mountains because of their grandeur.
Whenever I paint people in a mountain or wilderness setting,
I try to convey the larger-than-life effect that the landscape
must have had on those individuals.”

Just from looking at these four paintings, and measuring my own reactions, there’s no doubt of the impact.

Our next artist is Alfredo Rodriguez. His strength is in the portrayals of the people that inhabited the rich lands of the west rather than the lands themselves. Let’s have a look.

Above is The Search Is On. These men are just a few of the thousands who were caught up in the California Gold Rush. Yes, the search is on, not only for the few gold nuggets that might be amongst the stones and pebbles of the creek bed that is being panned, but also for that night’s dinner which will have to hunted down as well. Rodriguez’s attention to detail is amazing. Check out the tufts of hair on the donkey’s head, the sheen on the cup hanging from the front prospector’s belt, as well as the light and shadow of each of their beards.

Hunting By The Gunnison River is above. This is an old hunter who looks both fierce and gentle. He has won his battle that day with the two wild geese. His red coat might help other hunters avoid shooting him. Also note the amazing blue shirt beneath his coat, the color of the dead tree he is sitting on, his red bandana, and the effect of the sunlight coming from behind him. This is an amazing painting, The more you look at it, the more rich detail you can see.

Rodriguez offers us another old-timer in Running Out of Time (above). With his face in the sunlight, we can see how the many years of struggle have long since aged him. His shirt is worn through at his left elbow. He’s likely to not have shaved in two years or more. But his face is still dignified. His strong hand grips the handle of the shovel. And if he can just stand in the sun for a bit longer, he’ll be fine. Isn’t this a magnificent painting by Rodriguez?

Lest you think Rodriguez is only good at painting grizzled, old men, how about this beauty above. Rodriguez calls this one Aspen Flower. I see the aspen trees but the flower must be the beautiful woman wrapped in the bearskin. Not only is the detail of the bearskin remarkable, but the snow on the ground, and the leaveless trees tell us it is winter, yet the painting is filled with warmth.

It is easy to see why Rodriguez is a successful artist. His paintings convey all we need to know about the dignity of the human spirit. His paintings are filled with majesty of the west and its occupants. Bravo!

Our last artist is Howard Terpning. He is one of the most honored and best loved of all the western painters. His works can be found in the homes of discerning collectors as well as museums. Let’s begin with Thunder Speaks (below). This small troop of Indian braves are about to face a fierce enemy, Mother Nature. The dark brooding storm clouds are indeed ominous. But notice the smaller details like the flowers amidst the grasses, the bedrolls behind the riders, and the twin feathers of the leader’s headpiece.

The Lonely Sentinel (below) tells a different story. Notice how his feather atop his head leans in the same direction as windblown grasses at the horse’s feet. His blanket looks like it might be slipping. You can imagine how it must be to ride with one hand holding the reins, and the other gripping his rifle in the coldness of the winter. And one last detail – his horse’s hide is long and shaggy, no doubt as protection from the cold.

Crossing the Ford (below) is also rich in details. Note how the river bank has been eroded by high waters in the spring. That soil has been washed away to who knows where. Yet the details include individual blades of grass in the foreground. I also see the ripples and eddies of the river itself. And in one impressive bit of imagination, note that the left backleg hoof of the trailing rider’s horse is raised as he is about to take another step into the stream.

Our last Terpning painting (below) is called Chased by the Devil. Look how two riders are riding with just one hand on the reins, how all three riders wear bandannas on their heads, and how all three horses have those white blazes on their foreheads. The dust behind them may have been caused by what we now call thermals, but for those Indian riders back then, to them it was the devil that stirred the air.

Howard Terpning has this to say about his art that fills his voluminous portfolio,

“The American Indian fascinates me;
I could paint two lifetimes without running out of subject matter.
I think it is important to tell the story of the Plains Indians
because their history is our history…part of our heritage.
The history of the West is the only history America
has that is uniquely our own.”

And that ends our short discourse on some of the best painters of the American West. Sorry for such a small sample. But you must admit, these paintings are indeed rich in the flavors and feelings of those bygone times. And we have been enriched by looking back in time through these works of art. And speaking of looking back in time, Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World more than 500 years ago. It is only fitting that we publish this article today, October 12th, which just happens to be Christopher Columbus’s birthday. Thanks for coming by.