Notes on "Breach"

The movie, Breach, is based on the Robert Hanssen spy case. Robert Hanssen was a top FBI agent. In the early years of this millennium he was uncovered as a Soviet spy. The story is told from the point of view of an aspiring FBI agent who was a planted as his assistant and played a significant role in breaking the case. The film spends a good deal of time on Hanssen's attempts to convert the assistant to Opus Dei (the real Hanssen was an Opus Dei member along with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and, according to rumor, FBI head of the time, Louis Freeh.) Curiously, it only mentions the cult by name one time late in the film. The film is structured as a thriller, but the plot is so understated that it comes across as more a psychological character drama.

- J

Notes on "The Gold Coast" by Elmore Leonard

The Gold Coast by Elmore Leonard is a novel set in Florida involving the widow of a Detroit mobster. This is the second Elmore Leonard novel I have read. The other was Cuba Libre, in which an American cowboy gets swept up in the Spanish American War. Elmore Leonard is known for his dialog, and stories tend to be dialog driven. In this he was a good student of Hemingway. From a sample of two I can say that his heroes tend to be blank slates, there is a distinctly sadistic tendency in the villians, and the love interest tend to have duplicitous interests. Fun reads, though.

- J

Notes on "Pericles"

We saw the California Shakespeare Company production of Pericles. Scholars are uncertain to what extent Shakespeare contributed to the authorship of this play. The language of the play did not have the richness, density, or playfulness I would have expected, so I would side with scholars that do not believe he contributed much. The character of Gower, the narrator, had all the poetry.

In general, the production was good. The set was interesting and versatile. The actors performed with energy and enthusiasm. It was well passed. But then there were the accents. The director chose to give the population of each locale of the play a different accent. I suppose this was to help the audience keep track of where we are (we travel all over the Eastern Mediterranean), but for this to work the accents need to be consistent and instantly recognizable. In this case, they were just confusing and made the language of the play more difficult to understand. Lose the accents and one would have a fine and worthy evening out.

- J

Notes on "Mississippi Masala"

In the seventies, Idi Amin expelled from Uganda people of Indian descent. Many had been in Uganda for generations. Mississippi Masala is the story of one such expelled family who ended up in Mississippi. The daughter falls in love with a black man. It is a story about race and racism, but not the traditional story. It is about how suspicions and mistrust can grow between two oppressed minorities. It is a very interesting movie, but a little emotionally flat.

- J

Notes on "The Mountains of California"

The Mountains of California by John Muir is a natural history of, mainly, the Sierra Nevada range. It is that and much more. It covers all that is expected of a natural history: the geological history, the geographical features, the flora, the fauna, and seasonal change, much of this discovered by the author. But it is also a paean to the mountains and the freedom they afford. It is an adventure book, recounting Muir's need to get to the tops of things to have a look around: previously unclimbed peaks, trees in the middle of a windstorm, or Yosemite Falls in January. It is also a polemic for preservation. Muir devotes a chapter to the bee pastures. He never says it, but it is clear that he wants people to believe there is money to be made by leaving things as they are.