I am always captivated by Love is the Devil, a most excellent film about the painter Francis Bacon. which I watched on DVD three times in the background while I was doing other stuff today. It has food content in that there are oyster slurping scenes set in a seafood restaurant: Bacon was a nightly regular at the now closed Wheeler's of St. James, traditionally a rich man's haunt. In print, I just finished The Devil's Picnic by Taras Grescoe, a wonderful journey exploring taboo food, drink and plant life. And I'm on to a new book, by Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Delight, which is well written and interesting but far less engaging than Picnic mainly because Grescoe's prose is illuminatingly precise and economical but personally engaging unlike Pollen's fan dancish style, though it is full of fascinating facts, and, reader friendly. I look forward to Grescoe's new book on seafood. Picnic and Love are different media and it it amuses me to join the two in this entry as the word Devil figures in both titles. They both speak to life on the edge and are about dark and disturbing things.
Yesterday my mother told me she was going to make 200 deviled eggs for a wedding. At her age she should not be making eggs deviled , or sainted for that matter, but for her own family. And especially not the deviled ones since she is a devout Christian.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
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I've always longed for some revival house to do a festival that has as its theme food. Food has certainly played a central role in many a comedic scene in films both serious and comic. Who can forget the seduction scene in Tony Richardson's TOM JONES, where the sensuous ingestion of various foods provides a hilarious hint of the bedroom shenanigans that were surely to follow, thus eliminating the need to actually portray them; that dinner was sexier than any hard core porn could ever hope to be. For the purely comic, choose any film that ends in a pie fight, or maybe John Belushi's gross encounters with cafeteria fodder in ANIMAL HOUSE. And which Monty Python film is it that renders the old saw "If I eat another bite, I'll explode" in literal and grotesquely comedic terms? I can never keep them straight. Or Chaplin's poignant yet hilarious consumption of his own shoe (and laces) to address starvation in THE GOLD RUSH. As a counterpoint one might also consider films that treat food as an instance of degradation. Any film by Luis Bunuel would provide ample examples. From the early post-Surrealist documentary LAND WITH OUT BREAD through his fertile late-in-life French films of the 70s and early 80s, dining was often used as a dramatic context. Perhaps the most memorable example would be his scabrous re-enactment of the Last Supper by societal miscreants in the brilliant VIRIDIANA. In THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE, the six upper middle class central characters (three couples), all of them involved in heroine traficing via the diplomatic services, constantly interact via lunches, dinners and trips to restaurants. I also recall a scene in one of these later French films where the digestive process is stood on its head, and the characters in the film assemble at a dining table, only to drop their undergarments and seat themselves on a circle of toilets as they exchange pleasantries, then chastely excuse themselves and repair to small enclosed rooms where they eat in private. LA GRANDE BOUFFE, another French film from the 70s, explored similar themes. And what would any film festival with food as its theme be without a film or two that explores cannabilism? From the seriousness of the "monkey meat" in Kon Ichikawa's grueling FIRES ON THE PLAIN, to the side-splitting scene in John Waters' PINK FLAMINGOS, where an attempted swat team assault on Divine's trailer ends with law enforcement as the main course at a post-assault barbeque, Divine gleefully gnawing on some hapless cop's femur. Then of course there's the theme of food as a means to murder, of which there must be countless examples. But perhaps we've strayed a bit too far from the conventional definitions of food as a necessary adjunct to maintaining life, something to be enjoyed and celebrated, like Errol flynn offering a demur Olivia deHavilland a bite of his ridiculously huge stag's leg in ROBIN HOOD, or Steve Reeves re-enacting the same scene in the campy muscleman epic HERCULES. But like most necessities, food often finds its most intersesting presentation while being considered in its more perverse terms, some of which I've mentioned in this diatribe. If I've sullied your innocent ruminations Jonathan, please accept the apologies of a frustrated wannabe film programmer.
Scanning quickly through noted mention of your mother. Fond memories of her fantastic Southern Fried Chicken enjoyed oh so many years ago in Willingdon.
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