German(y) Update

Feeling guilty that I do not have the discipline to keep studying German on my own in absence of a summer class, I decided to return to the Goethe Institute on my old school-night, Monday, and see a German movie, part of their summer series.

The movie was Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain, and the stars included Rod Steiger and Charles Aznavour. When I bought my ticket (student discount - $4), the receptionist said: "You know, there are no subtitles." Of course, I didn't, but I couldn't turn around then, so I simply said "a challenge", and went in. The 7:30 starting time came and went, and about 7:45 the usher came in the almost full theater and said "sorry to be behind schedule, but we still have some people buying tickets, and we want everyone in before we start. thanks for being patient. and thanks for coming out to a movie that is almost three hours long."

Three hours. No English.

I enjoyed the movie, could understand some of the basic conversation (but got lost on the philisophical discussions of life, death, good, evil, spirit, intellect and so forth). Strangely, the movie, made in 1982 reminded me of the recent movie of Ulysses, which I saw earlier this year at the Jewish Film Festival. The cinematography and rhythm were very similar, I thought, and I guess there is some parallel with the stories. Each has a male protagonist, somewhat out of step with the society in which he has been thrown, making his way, surrounded by an odd assortment of caricatured companions.

By the way, getting ready for my trip to Europe, which will include a few days in Berlin, I have found two books that seem, part way through, to be worth reading. Slow Fire by Susan Neiman is the story of a young American Jewish woman who goes to Berlin to study in, I think, the 1980s, and stays for several unexpected years, experiencing the ups and downs of being Jewish in post war Germany, and the other Father/Land by Frederick Kempe, American born Wall Street Journal reporter, who always thought of Germany as his father's land, not as his own fatherland, until he began to dig into his family's history.