Revisiting Elizabeth, I am reminded of why Cate Blanchett’s fans are both rabid and justified in their love of this woman.

A formidable performer, Blanchett often finds her way into curious films with little to do (Bandits?). She also seems to have a gift for being the brightest light in any otherwise dull film (Veronica Guerin?). Her Oscar last year, on her second nomination for The Aviator, didn’t exactly come as a shock as she is seemingly beloved by her peers in the industry. And she was, after all, playing Katharine Hepburn in a Martin Scorsese film (And let’s face it: The Academy would have probably done anything to give Hepburn that final “fifth” Oscar).

What amounted to essentially a cameo in The Talented Mr, Ripley, in a role written specifically for her, added to her mystique while even in small gems like The Man Who Cried she managed to make her presence known despite little fanfare. In fact, the actress has pretty much made a career out of her presence, mystique and of course, her technical prowess all allowing her to fit easily into the skins of some of the world’s most prickly, unusual women.

After a bright leading role debut in Oscar And Lucinda, the Australian actress was given a gift most female performers throughout the history of cinema have relished: the privilege of playing Queen Elizabeth I. In an unprecedented move the exact same year, Judi Dench played the older, wisecracking Elizabeth in Shakespeare In Love, for which she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Glenda Jackson, Jean Simmons and Bette Davis all set a royal standard before her, while Helen Mirren put her stamp on the role this past year. But it was the unlikely Blanchett that gave her Queen Bess an inner light that had been missing from the other women’s characterizations. If any of these various Elizabeths truly deserved to win awards, it was Blanchett’s powerful, willful monarch.

While the film may rely heavily on fiction versus history, it is nonetheless completely enthralling in its telling. Many historical biographical period pieces can end up as great bores, but this one succeeds on many levels. Shekar Kapur brings a vivid flourish to his direction, which detractors might call “flashy”, but it invigorates the genre and breathes a bloody new life into it. The grandeur and the sweeping, romanticized re-telling may rely heavily on the imagination of the filmmaker and the actors, but it’s so visually appealing and suspenseful that it is actually great fun to watch - despite some soapy moments. Elizabeth doesn’t shy away from the more risqué themes: war, brutality, patriotism, gender politics and especially sex and lust. It is also about one woman proving to her detractors that she can survive anything they throw at her, despite lying and secrets surrounding everything she does.

Beginning the story as a naive little girl who fears daily for her life (she is, after all, a Protestant), Blanchett disappears into her creation, blending a potent talent and sensuality with a steely royal gaze (in her early scenes, you can see the kindness in Elizabeth’s eyes, she is soft and trusting). As the film moves on, Blanchett’s demeanor miraculously changes and she becomes more in control and more commanding. It’s a really subtle transformation that culminates in the glorious final shot of Elizabeth’s pancake-made-up face, all bone white and emotionless. It is suggested she wore the extreme make-up as an homage to Mary, the mother of Christ, after gazing at a statue. She wanted to give her subjects something equally divine so she chopped off all of her hair and became that visage. She would never again allow her emotions to dictate her decisions. It is a chilling moment when she declares “I have become a virgin”, letting go of all of the mistakes and lapses in judgment and becoming what her country needed. “I am married to England”, she decried. She went on to make the country one of the world’s greatest powers.

The private life of a queen is appealing to fantasize about and Blanchett’s willingness to play her as worried, curious, and enjoying her reign is indeed brave. Her need for solitude and the cold reality of her actual lack of privacy are interesting touches, and though a tad melodramatic, the sexuality of the “virgin queen” is handled with provocative taste (One of my favorite scenes, which is quite heavy on atmosphere, is the one where Elizabeth is attended to by her ladies in waiting while a storm brews outside the castle. They peel away her layers and corsets as the thunder and lightning rings ominously in the distance. It is beautiful).

Blanchett also gets many great “actor’s” moments: Her first big speech about unifying religion is electric and the declaration that she is “no man’s Elizabeth” is properly aloof and powerful (“I may be a woman but I can have the heart of a man if I choose” might be the actresses’ most powerful and telling line in the entire film). The viewer can see Blanchett’s mind working on screen, the finely crafted wheels turning with every decision. A rare performer that can make viewers suspend their disbelief as they travel back to an unusual time in history, Blanchett makes her version of this infamous monarch more accessible than all of the other women who played her previously. This Elizabeth, while still true to her origins and legends, is given a new, modern perspective that never feels like a dull lecture on history.

I finished reading The Rise of Silas Lapham, which didn’t quite deliver on the exploration of “the capitalist ethos of the American Gilded Age” as promised on the back of the Oxford World Classics paperback. The analysis amounted to titular character, a mineral paint magnate, confronting ruinous competition cheerfully, without holding anything against his rivals—West Virginian brothers—who through sheer good fortune will be able to under sell him and reduce him to a niche producer: “A strange, not ignoble friendliness existed between Lapham and the three brothers; they had used him fairly; it was their facilities that had conquered him, not their ill-will;a nd he recognized in them without emnity the necessity to which he had yielded.” It was nothing personal, just capitalism, which is here presented as an indifferent force of nature that uses mere mortals as its playthings. Lapham had also been victimized by a series of poor investments in “wild-cat stocks” and an unfortunate case of eminent domain in which the railroad seizes his property for a pittance. The justice of this is much questioned; they are just introduced as the workings of malevolent fate, and possibly the nefarious meddling of Rogers, Lapham’s onetime financier. Howells wants to stress Lapham’s able business capabilities and differentiate them from the issues of finance, which he associates with the scheming Rogers, who is ever on the watch for people to dupe (yet strangely never manages to accumulate anything for his wiles). The inexplicable perplexity of finance does Lapham in, for it’s a realm in which his virtues—diligence, hard work, honesty, genuine enthusiasm for his product—do him no good.

Much of that story is told belatedly and quickly, in the last few chapters, after Howells apparently grew bored of the romance he meticulously set up between Corey, the wealthy heir, and Lapham’s two daughters, one pretty and simple (Irene), the other smart and “dark” (Penelope). Howells invents a book within a book suddenly—the sentimental “Tears, Idle Tears”—as the romantic plot comes to a head seemingly in order to mock his own plot line. We are brought to invest ourselves in the outcome of this misbegotten love triangle only to be encouraged to see it as so much foolishness. The Laphams believe Corey wants to marry Irene, and they all encourage her to love him, but then he goes and proposes to Penelope, who has been far more interesting all along. Penelope feels obliged to reject him, for her sister’s sake. Silas tells his daughters’ trouble to a minister, who then fulminates against the “false ideal of self-sacrifice” and “the novels that befool and debauch almost every intelligence in some degree”—see, I knew there was a reason I stopped reading them. But though this rejection of self-sacrifice has to do with the love story, it seems like its really about the economics story, as enlightened self-interest, the opposite of frivolous self-sacrifice and a hallmark capitalist ethic, is presumably the engine that has fueled Lapham’s rise, along with the rest of the wealthy Boston society we are shown, and the whole of American industry in general. And yet Lapham himself turns his back on self-interest and refuses to knowingly and legally defraud others to save himself. Presumably he is a model of how capitalists are supposed to behave, even absent any checks to their self-interest. Perhaps Howells lampoons the sentimental novels because he believes more novels should be written like his own, which hurriedly models appropriate ethical behavior for fat cats.

The other aspect of the novel is the conflict between the old money Coreys and the nouveau riche Laphams—this feels anticlimactic, in that the Coreys simply decide to hold their nose and tolerate the Laphams, not out of economic dependency but out of their pretentions of gentility. So their ability to rise above what might be construed as self-interest (preventing a son from marrying beneath him) seems to be depicted not as noble sacrifice but a warped pride. So I’m tempted to conclude that the novel wants to advocate self-interested behavior across the board and sees Lapham as a hero only ironically—he’s a relic, and in the end Howells devotes a lot of space to describing him as moribund.

The novel ends with the minister saying it’s too complicated to figure out what’s responsible for “evil” in the moral world, even in that diabolical case of failed businesses. “Its course is often so very obscure; and often it seems to involve, so far as we can see, no penalty whatsoever.” Translation: when people get cheated out of money or economic disadvantages are leveraged against the less fortunate, no one is at fault, really. Certainly it’s not capitalism’s fault anymore than it’s nature’s fault if your house gets struck by lightning and catches on fire. “Your fear of having possibly bhaved selfishly ... kept you on your guard and strengthened you when you were brought face to face with a greater…emergency,” the minister suggests to Lapham, in consolation for having lost his riches. Lapham reiterates his inability to be anything but a straight dealer and declares he has no regrets.  I can’t be the only one to regard this as stubborn pride. We have to wonder, as he struggles in his rural shack with no heat, just how much Howells is endorsing his choices. So either I’m far too cynical (likely) or Howells is being a tad more ironic than you’d think in his title.

Going into this film, I was completely unsure of any of the specifics, which nowadays is pretty great considering all of the readily available spoilers everywhere you turn. I knew it was a sort of love story, but what I got was something beyond my furthest dreams. I was bowled over and totally impressed with the scope and heart of this film.

The film beings innocently enough, in fact, at first I was rather unimpressed. A doctor living in Prague, played with cool sexiness (and big ‘80s hair) by Daniel Day Lewis, is thoroughly enjoying his bachelor lifestyle and his detachment from women. He has a special place in his heart for Sabina, a very sexy artist who he cares for deeply, even as she uses the good doctor every bit as selfishly as he uses her. Soon, the doctor meets a sort of simple café waitress, who he becomes irreversibly intrigued with. Not long after they meet, the two are married and the doctor continues his affair with the sultry Sabina, even as the Communists being to take over Czechoslovakia.

The premise is an old one, yes, but it really works, thanks to the extraordinary, sensitive performances of the three central actors. They put such honesty and effort into their work that any cliché or old convention is thrown out the window. They all play their roles with sexiness, humor and frankness. I was particularly impressed with the very under-appreciated Lena Olin, who is so hot it’s ridiculous. As Sabina, she is able to surrender to the carnal side with intelligence, longing and a spicy sweetness. She was born to play this role. Juliette Binoche also showed me a little of why she is so adored. Usually I am not her biggest fan, but she finds a nice niche somewhere in between being sort of childish and dreamy and being emotionally devastated. It’s probably the hardest role in the film and she comes off really nicely. Her character’s arc is the most dramatic, and she navigates the depths with perfect timing, genuine heartbreak and daffy humor.

Both actresses are not shy about the very erotic aspects of the film, which is wonderful. The nudity in the story is not distracting or out of context. It fits the characters and is essential to the plot, therefore making it the opposite of gratuitous. There is a really emotionally intense scene in which the wife and the mistress photograph each other in the nude that ranks among each of the actresses best work for it’s candor, wit, and exploratory nature.

The story, based on Milan Kundera’s prize winning novel, takes so many unexpected twists that it’s best not to spoil it here. Just when I thought the film would be about marital distress and sexual unhappiness, the Russian army came rolling through Prague to shake everything up and the principles move to Geneva to live in exile. Director Philip Kaufman captures the epic greatness of the story with a masterful, vivid visual expression. His love for the material is apparent. The structure is wonderful, the way the story casually unfolds and the leisurely pace in which everything is resolved. It is definitely a European “art-film” at heart, but one that will surprise you at every romantic turn.

No one can accuse John Cassavetes of being unoriginal. In fact, he is uncompromisingly original to the point of infuriation. Many of his detractors would say that his films often rely too heavily on reality, leaving his actors to “be” instead of perform, but with Opening Night, the indie godfather is able to pull of his greatest feat: a supernatural morality “tale” set literally in a theatrical play.

The incomparable Gena Rowlands (Cassavetes’ stalwart paramour and professional partner in crime until his death) plays world-famous actress Myrtle Gordon, a train wreck of a woman involved an emotionally complicated stage play, who accidentally witnesses the death of a stalker/autograph hound. What follows is a complex, entertaining story about femininity, aging in the entertainment business, supernatural possession and performance.

Rowland’s Myrtle is a raging alcoholic who will do whatever it takes to find her way into the character she is playing. As she so eloquently puts it “I have no husband. I have no children. This is it for me.”. She communes with the spirit of the malevolent dead girl to while trying to find a perspective for her part. Rowland’s performance is stunning and towering. It’s an experimental, thoughtful take on an almost selfish woman who could have descended into caricature and parody in the hands of a less seasoned performer. The improvisational nature of many scenes is amazing and for me, this was a better performance than her critically acclaimed work in Cassavetes’ equally effective A Woman Under the Influence.

Veteran character actress Joan Blondell, who is probably most recognized for her small performance as “Vi the waitress” in Grease, but made over 150 films in her near-fifty year career, plays a distinguished sixty-five year old Broadway playwright. It is so interesting to watch an actress from Hollywood’s Golden Age giving their comments on aging in the business. Blondell essays a clever, meaningful performance that should be remembered more fondly. Legend has it that she had numerous on-set meltdowns because she was used to working in the old studio system, where serious method acting was often discouraged. Cassavetes publicly commented that he had to trick the performance out of her because she just didn’t understand his ways of working.

The men are really just second bananas here, but when they are director/actor Cassavetes himself and legendary Ben Gazzara that’s no small order. Gazzara, as the play’s enigmatic director is, as usual, magnificent, packing a lifetime’s worth of detail into just a few lines of dialogue. Both gents acquiesce to their female counterparts with a startling compassion and chivalry that is absent from present-day filmmaking.

The scenes of the actors performing an ad-libbed play were reportedly filmed in front of a live audience, which adds so much depth to the proceedings. This is a fascinating behind the scenes look at how actors work in theater and the process of putting on a show. It is certainly challenging, but more than rewarding! I think this is Cassavetes’ true masterpiece. The innovation of his storytelling and the clear regard for the performances is just wonderful to watch.

Jon Chait’s recent article in The New Republic about income inequality is definitely worth reading (or if you prefer, read Ezra Klein’s summary here). When using certain customary metrics—stock prices, overall productivity and growth—the economy seems to be doing well, but when polled, Americans don’t believe it. In the electoral season, this leads to lots of Republican pouting about how their ignorant constituents can’t recognize what a great job Bush has done with things. But the problem is that these aren’t relevant metrics of how the economy is doing for ordinary people. As Dean Baker points out, nominal record highs for the Dow isn’t necessary good news for everyone: “The stock market is supposed to represent the discounted value of future profits. If profits are expected to be higher because there is widespread optimism about more rapid growth, then this is genuinely good news, but if expected profits rise simply because investors anticipate further redistribution from wages to profits, then the vast majority of the public has little to celebrate.” Such redistribution—or rather an increasingly uneven and unprecedented spilt of the fruits of growth between labor and capital—is exactly what seems to have happened, as this study by Robert Gordon and Ian Dew Becker shows (and Chait cites). The result, as Chait explains, is this: “The fortunes of the very rich and the fortunes of everybody else have been diverging sharply. Over the last quarter century, the portion of the national income accruing to the richest 1 percent of Americans has doubled. The share going to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent has tripled, and the share going to the richest one-hundredth of 1 percent has quadrupled.” The very rich are getting much richer than everyone else, who are struggling to tread water, wage wise. Perhaps this will at last bring home class warfare to even the privileged: Writing in Fortune Matt Miller suggests that the merely rich are becoming incensed at the ultrarich rendering their positional goods relatively worthless. “There’s only so much of this a smart, vocal elite can take before the seams burst - and a bilious reaction against unmerited privilege starts oozing from every pore. Especially when it’s clear to lower uppers that many ultras are reaping the rewards of rigged systems: CEOs who preside over tumbling stock prices, hedge fund managers who barely beat the market.” And it’s afflicting white-collar workers and the management class as well. Mark Thoma, commenting on an essay by Robert Samuelson in Newsweek, notes that technology has displaced the management strata and eliminated high-paying jobs that once spread more of the gains of growth around:

The question is where these displaced workers (or those who would have replaced them in future years) end up after the transition. Will these workers be able to transform their skills and move up to higher paying occupations or at least maintain their current income, or will the displaced current and future workers mostly move down to lower skill, lower paying jobs?
Given the outcome so far, we need to devote more attention to finding policies that can help workers receive a larger share of the productivity gains as we move to an increasingly information-based, geographically fractured, low-skill abundant, highly specialized, and highly competitive global economy. I’m not sure what fancy name to give “the next capitalism” or if it really needs one, but if growing inequality continues to be one of its main features, calling it “the new gilded age” as many do already might just stick.

This job destruction also explains in part why the “skills-biased technological change” argument for increased inequality (educated people benefit more from computers) that Chait mentions (and disparages) doesn’t necessarily hold. Having a college degree no longer guarantees you a fair share of the growth pie.

So what should we do about it? Klein suggests we support unions as a Galbraithian counterveiling power to capital’s leverage. Tyler Cowen thinks stronger unions would impede the creative destruction necessary to keep an economy competitive and innovative.

I don’t have much value to add here; I just wanted to provide a quick primer on the issue on the off chance that anyone reading is interested. I tend to agree with Klein about counterveiling power but am not entirely sure union gains consistently trickle down to the rank and file. I’m also convinced by Baker’s book The Conservative Nanny State that capital protects its interests by coopting the apparatus of the state, and wresting political power away could feasibly curb the unjustified upward redistribution. What would justify upward redistribution is also a good question.