The Sheila Variations

Love it! This might replace Tyrone Power's picture as my desktop wallpaper.

Come what maaaay! Cooome, what mayayaaaay, IIIIII wiiill love you, until my dying day!!!

Total SWOON!!!

It's the wallpaper on my desktop as well. How did you guess??

Just look at how intent he is on her.

The photo KILLS ME.

Sorry, one more thing: I love, too, the admitted artificiality of it - with the big stage light in the background.

Hmm, only us? Shows a distinct lack of taste among your readership.

Back off, guys! That's my boyfriend you're cooing over!

Ah, Ewan.

Real life and love should always be like that picture. The only way I'd like it better would be if she were looking back at him, although his gaze is so un-selfconcious, perhaps impossible unless her eyes are elsewhere.

Loved Ewan. Not wacky about Nicole in this part. Not her fault, I just think she was miscast. Still a beautiful shot though. Could look at that movie all day. Just ignore her!

eric - I agree. I wish real life was always like that picture.

for some reason, the fact that she is looking off, into her own glorious fantasy, and not at him ... is part of why the photo is so special. At least for me. That's how I felt when I was the most in love. Held up and supported by him, allowed to be my most fabulous ... I know he's there, he's WITH me, and I NEED him to support me ... he is not taken for granted ... but because I feel so safe I can just go OFF ... and be fabulous, and BIG and giving! Because he's there.

roo - Maybe we should fight for him!!

bren - I loved Nicole in this!!

Let me know if your show is gonna be extended - I can't think about it now - so much going on - but if you go that one more weekend, I definitely want to come out. I need a vacation! I miss Cash-man!

Oh - and we very much missed you at the party.

eric - I love that the word you used for his face was "unselfconscious". That is so right on. In my opinion - it is one of the greatest performances in recent memory, for that very reason - and also, I can't imagine any other actor working today just going for it, like he did.

The DVD commentary was fascinating - it was Baz Luhrman and a couple other technical people - cosutme, set design, cameraman ... No actors! and most of the commentary is aobut all the technical aspects - how they got this or that effect. Only true movie buffs would find ANY of that fascinating. how they found the perfect dress for Nicole to wear in that one scene, etc etc

But then at the end - when she has died onstage, and he is clutching her and then howling up into the air his grief ... all of these technical people, not actors, stopped their talking and watched. And one of them said, finally, in this quiet respectful voice, "It;s amazing to be on the set - and to have worked so hard on all of this technical background stuff - and to see an actor then do what Ewan did. The sounds he made - it was almost like it was embarrassing - It was just incredible." He was trying to say that without Ewan's commitment, his willingness - all of their dickering about set dressing and fabrics would have been just creative masturbation. it took him GOING THERE to make the movie.

Beautiful beautiful work from him.

It's a great movie, and that is an especially wonderful still shot. It's not a genre that would ordinarily appeal to me - I delayed seeing it for quite a while. I suppose if you do something well enough, you can cross an awful lot of boundaries...

Ewan MgGregor is a talent even George Lucas couldn't bury.* Do you know, I didn't even recognize him when I first looked at the picture? Ewan McGregor isn't there--the character is. Amazing.

I flatter myself that I know a little about that look. When it's (the editorial) you that is wearing that look, it's as though you're standing at the heart of the sun...and the heart of the sun is inside you, blazing out, a hurricane of light.

*Pardon the digression, I'll say the same for Ian McDiarmid. That is a talent, um, at which not to be sneezed. I think. ;-)

Go get 'em, Hercules.

And, in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make...

That's a quote.

Oh my God that Stella Adler quote!!!! I'm totally using that for class!!!! Fantastic!!!!!