I came home yesterday at around 7 pm, and there was a strange stoppered-up feeling in the atmosphere as I walked the couple of blocks from the busstop. Hovering over my neighborhood (it felt like it was over my apartment building only) was a thick black cloud. You could see the layers of smudge in it, dark grey smudging against lighter grey smudging against charcoal. No rain yet though. Because the cloud was so localized, the sunset was pouring out from between the gaps, but it wasn’t suffusing the landscape with light. It was more contained. And so the city across the river had the look to it that I love best. Stark black silhouettes with a pale creamy background – (it always reminds me of the Chim Chiminy scene in Mary Poppins when it looks like this) – magical, unreal.<\/p>\n
And the Hudson below caught the glower of the clouds, and so it was not silvery, or blue like it sometimes is. It was a dark grey, and the tugboats going by churned up white foam against the dark. Behind me and above me loomed the black thundercloud. The neon “OPEN” sign from the deli on the corner gleamed through the dark air, an oasis of light. And in front of me, Manhattan stood, a black and clear papercutout against the pale sunset shine. It was fantastic. Especially because it was the solstice. The longest day. And yet here I was, in this darkness, this early darkness, the cloud blotting out the rest of the sky. I stood out on my street, and basically watched the sky change, as though it were a movie.<\/p>\n
Then I went inside, curled up in bed, and watched The Quiet Man<\/i> (with apologies to Eamon), my windows open, listening to (at last) the rain pouring down, the wind rustling the trees.<\/p>\n
It was a good solstice.<\/p>\n
I watched the special features and there were some great “making of” documentaries, etc. One anecdote I loved:<\/p>\n
In the last moment in the movie, we see the two of them in their field, waving and laughing.<\/p>\n
Then she whispers something to him, we don’t know what it is, but we can guess, because of his reaction. He pulls his head back a bit, to look right at her, startled, with a sort of urgency to him, a sexual urgency, and she laughs, and runs off, looking back over her shoulder at him. He runs after her, catches up with her, and, holding onto each other, they walk back into the cottage.<\/p>\n
Maureen O’Hara was interviewed and she said that John Ford came up to her and said, “Here is what I want you to whisper to him in this moment.” And he told her. She was shocked, and said no, she wouldn’t say THAT! Ford insisted. “You will<\/em> say that.” She finally said to Ford, “I will say what you ask … but on one condition. That you will never ever tell anyone what you asked me to say.” Ford agreed. So Maureen did it. Ford had NOT told Wayne that Maureen would whisper something to him, he kept that a secret from Wayne (he knew secrets are the most valuable things in an actor’s arsenal), so the moment you see on the film is unrehearsed, and a surprise. <\/p>\n Watch Wayne. Watch him react. It’s subtle, it’s human and real. Hepburn always said that she loved acting with him because he could improvise. He loved to improvise. If you switched things up, or did something unexpected, it never threw him. He always went with it. So Maureen O’Hara, embarrassed, whispered whatever it was to Wayne, and the moment was captured for all time. <\/p>\n O’Hara said later, “Ford could be brutal and controlling – but you loved him … because he was always about the result. And in that moment – he knew the result he wanted, and he knew how to get it.”<\/p>\n Go back and watch that last moment again. And watch him react to whatever it was she said. And then watch what happens after.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I came home yesterday at around 7 pm, and there was a strange stoppered-up feeling in the atmosphere as I walked the couple of blocks from the busstop. Hovering over my neighborhood (it felt like it was over my apartment … Continue reading