Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad was born in Berdyczow, a part of Poland under Russia, on the 3rd of December 1657. Typical of Conrad’s work are the atmosphere of adventure and the distant and exotic settings. The sea is the main ingredient of most of his novels and this is obviously a result of his own seafaring adventures as a youth and his experience with the merchant navy.

Conrad’s deep pessimism, which he inherited from the unhappy political situation of his birth country, is often evident in his works. He saw man in the lap of un unforeseen estiny which had the power of revealing his true, often negative, identity. Among his best works there is Heart of Darkness. I read this book three or four times and each time I found a new interesting topic that makes me think about colonialism. I think a certain kind of colonialism still exists in the present-day society. As you can see from the plot summary I will provide you below, the story told in the novel is not so far form the events in our contemporary ‘civilized’ world.

Heart of Darkness

tells the experiences of the main character, Marlow, during a journey up the river Congo in Africa as a commander of a steamer for a Belgian trading company. The experience he tells itself to different levels of interpretation. The darkness of the title, in fact, refers both to the physical journey into Africa and to a journey into Marlow’s unconscious, whereby the more he penetrates into Africa the more he gets a deeper understanding of himself and the world surrounding him.

The novel is a strong attack on the abuses and devastation caused by colonialism. No sooner, in fact, does Marlow arrive at the Central Station than he realizes the ruin and degeneration colonial enterprises both to the land and to the natives. The latter, in fact, are reduced to mere shades, phantoms without a glimpse of life in them.
A device Conrad uses in his denunciation of colonialism is irony, by means of which what is written contrasts with what is really meant. In Heart of Darkness colonialism reveals all his evil aspects, not only because of the economic exploitation it implies but also because of the power it has to free man’s most brutal forces.

In 1979, Francis Ford Coppola directed a film: Apocalypse Now. It was inspired by Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The film is set during the Vietnam War. Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) has been charged by the American secret services to discharge Captain Kurtz (Marlon Brando) of his command. The latter, in fact, has escaped into Cambodia and has created a personal army in the jungle, where he is worshipped as a god. Eventually, Captain Willard succeeds in finding Captain Kurtz, after a terrible voyage up a river amid of devastations, death and ruins.

(photo sources)

Remarkable movies

While searching information about movies I watched during my course of 'Letterature Comparate', I found a blog on Greta Garbo called 'Great Garbo lives'. It's written by philippe who is not a movie critic but is very fond of Greta Garbo. Go and have a look at his blog! It's definitely worthwhile a visit!

Here for you, the reviews of two masterpieces which are all-time classics by Ernst Lubitsch: Ninotchka and To be or not to be. I think that Lubitsch is incredibly brilliant because in To be or not to be he manages to provide a biting satire of the Nazis and the movie itself is priceless. Ninotchka is a very moving and witty love story; Lubitsch has a very gentle touch and he manages to represent the story in a very subtle way.
In my opinion, these are fantastic movies, indeed.

Ninotchka (1939)

'Garbo laughs. So read the advertising for the star's first outright comedy, and it brilliantly sums up the appeal of this remarkable film. Director Ernst Lubitsch has the actress gracefully step down from her pedestal as the stern Communist who warms to the appeal of Paris champagne and playboy Melvyn Douglas. Combining farce, romance and satire, yet still maintaining moments of that soaring Garbo intensity, NINOTCHKA is special indeed.
When three Soviet emissaries (Bressart, Rumann, Granach, whose work could not possibly be bettered) arrive in Paris on a mission, it's not long before Paris arrives on them instead. And so, super efficient Comrade Ninotchka (Garbo) appears to retrieve jewelry in the possession of the former Grand Duchess Swana (Claire). It is the Soviet government's contention that the property of the aristocrats properly belongs to the people. The two women's tussle over the goods becomes complicated, however, when Swana's swain Leon (Douglas) becomes infatuated with the frosty commissar.
Many of Garbo's films rely on her presence alone for their appeal. That's not the case here. Working from a brittle, witty script by no less than Wilder, Brackett, and Reisch, the gifted Lubitsch brings his patented "touch" to scene after scene. From the bumbling emissaries' arithmetic about ringing for hotel maids to Ninotchka's hilarious "execution scene" the film bubbles merrily throughout. Garbo rarely had a paramour as adroit as Douglas, who wears a dinner jacket with the flair of Astaire and the polish of Powell. He plays the gushy romantic dialogue early on with the perfect combination of conviction and playfulness, and one of the film's beauties is watching Garbo shift gears into this mode herself. The lovely scene in a cafe where Douglas cracks Ninotchka up only when he falls off his chair remains a highlight of both film comedy and screen romance.
An adroit satire of both Communism and capitalism, NINOTCHKA still manages a healthy heartiness and a sweet sadness.'

To be or not to be (1942)

'A masterpiece of satire and one of the more controversial films of its day, TO BE OR NOT TO BE is a brilliant example of how comedy can be as effective in raising social and political awareness as a serious propaganda film, while still providing hilarious entertainment.
The film begins in Poland, 1939, where Joseph Tura (Jack Benny), a tremendously vain Polish actor, and his wife, Maria (Carole Lombard), a conceited national institution in Warsaw, are starring in an anti-Nazi stage play that subsequently is censored and replaced with a production of "Hamlet." Maria has taken a fancy to a young Polish fighter pilot, Sobinski (Robert Stack), who is called to duty when Germany invades Poland. In England, he and his fellow pilots in the Polish squadron of the RAF bid farewell to their much-loved mentor, Prof. Siletsky (Stanley Ridges), who confides to them that he is on a secret mission to Warsaw. Sobinski, however, begins to suspect that Siletsky is a spy and flies to Warsaw to stop him from keeping an appointment with Nazi colonel Ehrhardt (Sig Rumann)--an appointment that will destroy the Warsaw underground. There, Sobinski enlists the aid and special talents of the Tura's theater group to save and protect the Resistance.
A satire built around a rather complex spy plot and directed with genius by Ernst Lubitsch, TO BE OR NOT TO BE lampoons the Nazis and paints the Poles as brave patriots fighting for their land, for whom Hamlet's question "To be or not to be" takes on national implications. Released in 1942, in the midst of America's involvement in WWII, the film drew a great deal of criticism from people who felt that Lubitsch, a German (though he left long before Hitler's rise), was somehow making fun of the Poles. TO BE OR NOT TO BE is also remembered as the last screen appearance for the dazzling Lombard, who, just after the film's completion, was killed in a plane crash while on her way to Hollywood for a war bonds spot on Benny's radio show. TO BE was a perfect and brash finale to Lombard's great comic genius, especially because of it's examination of play-acting. Was there ever as playful a spirit on a movie set as Lombard? The film came from an idea by Melchior Lengyel--as did NINOTCHKA. Mel Brooks's remake of the story was released in 1983, with Brooks and Anne Bancroft playing the leads. While not as good, it's a perfectly watchable, if unecessary, tribute to the original, with Bancroft faring better than Brooks.'

(photo and reviews source)