Jason's Blog, page 145

Jetlag

Change can be good, I think. I was sitting on the plane, bored. The film they showed was a Jack Black comedy. I started writing some ideas on a piece of paper. At the hotel I woke up at three in the morning. Since I couldn't fall asleep again I used the notes and wrote a 20 page dialogue scene between Dan Delon, the detective in Lost Cat and a woman he meets. It's an important scene that I only had had a general idea about before. Now the words flowed.

The first thing I had seen stepping out of the metro station to find my hotel earlier that day was a Lost Cat / Chat Perdu note. Was it a sign? Maybe, except that the French title of the book probably will be Le Détective Triste, The Sad Detective.

Submarine

Ah, to be a teenager... Actually, can you believe someone who claims they were happy in their teens? First love. And the mystery of parents - who are these people I live with? The director, Richard Ayoade, obviously has a couple of Hartleys , Andersons (Wes) and Jeunets in his collection, but without copying any of them. The film is stylish, without that getting in the way of the story - it's not just surface. The two main actors are very good. Also Noah Taylor as the dad, who I remember in an Australian coming of age film he did in the 80s called The Year My Voice Broke. I don't remember much from that film except that I liked it. I should find a copy and re-watch it. 
Anyway... Submarine is a real film, and they're rare to find these days. Even better - it's funny! I've tried smoking a pipe and flipping coins...

Window, summer 2

Saw a small lizard on my window ledge last night. It was around 5 cms, probably a common wall lizard. I've  seen lots of them before, usually bigger and usually out in nature, often in parks, not some lizard I could invite into my apartment for a beer.

There's a white cat, or two actually, I think, often walking across the roofs on the other side of the street where I live. It sometimes jumps onto some other roofs, something that always makes me a bit nervous. I don't want to be witness to it falling. Be careful, okay, cat?

The mystery of the pigeon babies. Where are they? Well, I saw one on the sidewalk today, looking a bit shabby. Probably fell out of the nest. Hope it will be able to fly soon, or it will be killed by some of the cats around here. Maybe even the white one, who just landed in a parachute, who knows.

And... washed my clothes at local laundromat / laverie, something that usually is a chore. But the 20 minutes it took for my clothes to dry in the spinner, I sat in a chair outside the entrance, pretending to read in my paperback, but in reality looking at the women walking by and enjoying that it's summer.

One last cigarette

Lord of The Flies

When I grew up in Norway in the 70s there was only one tv-channel, showing only one feature film per week, on Monday nights. I only now figured out that maybe there would be a list of the films shown on the internet somewhere and... of course there is! Lots of films I remember very well. Barefoot in The Park, Yellow Submarine, To Sir With Love, Alice's Restaurant, Zorba the Greek, The Purple Taxi, Taking Off, The Last Wave, Next Stop Greenwich Village, Flight of The Phoenix, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Avanti, Mr Roberts, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, the French films Le Grand Blond Avec Une Chaussure Noire and Le Concierge and so on. Plus lots of films I don't remember. Probably they lasted too long and I had to go to bed. Some of these films I've re-watched later, some not. One film I remember clearly is Lord of the Flies, especially the ending. Checking the list of shown films, I see it was shown 17,4,78, 34 years ago. I was 12 years old, around the same age of the boys in the film. The theme of the film went completely over my head, it was just an exciting story. I got the dvd recently and re-watched it for the first time. It's a bit awkward, the acting is so so, but it's still a powerful film. Together with other films it made a big impression on my young mind and probably contributed just as much to me becoming a cartoonist, wanting to tell stories, as whatever comics I read at the time

Window, summer

and page 38

Sketches

It's the Day of Music in Montpellier, with live music all over town. I went out and did some drawings in my sketchbook, trying to do less buildings and more people this time. But it's difficult - they keep moving without my permission! The one of the woman in the wheelchair turned out okay.

Midnight in Paris

I was planning to see Calamari Union by Kaurismäki, only to discover that the dvd I bought in Oslo was empty. The same with Crime and Punishment. No discs! Damn you, Platekompaniet! So yes, that was a bit annoying... Oh well. I rather put on Midnight in Paris. 
People have told me it reminded them of my comic book, The Left Bank Gang, so I was curious to see it. There's even a scene of Zelda Fitzgerald talking about being bored. I should sue Woody Allen! I actually enjoyed the film, after giving up on Allen around Shadows and Fog, and disliking the couple of his films I've seen after that. Typically, he shows the romantic side of Paris, as he also did in Everone Says I love You. There are no people crowded together on the Paris metro in a Woody Allen film. Woody Allen has probably never taken the metro in Paris in his life, he can afford cabs. It sometimes rains, that's as far as he goes. Raining in a romantic way, of course. I found it a bit unfortunate that he, in a conversation in the film, too obviously states the message of the story: the inherent lies of nostalgia. Thank you, Mr Allen, I think I got that on my own. And the quarrel between Owen Wilson and his girlfriend where they walk in and out of the shot is a scene we've already seen in a million Woody Allen films. Okay, maybe not a million. But it's a funny, appealing film, looking almost a bit too pretty.

Page 37

... of Lost Cat.