RUTH GORDON- WORDS OF WISDOM

Interview with Ruth Gordon

Conducted by James Grissom

By Telephone

1984

Oh, there are a lot of lousy people in the world. Also, a lot of terrific people. You've gotta remember that, and you've got to move in the right circles. I have days where I just want everyone to go fuck themselves or walk off a cliff, but I only say that to myself, and I smile and I walk home and I have some tea, I talk to Garson [Kanin, her husband], I might take a nap. Then I wake up and I write, and in writing, I wipe away all the unpleasantness of the day, of the people, of the city, whatever. We have it in our power to overcome assholes, and I think we have them thrown into our path to see if we have the chops to handle them.

Handle them.

DIANE KEATON- AFI

JEANNE MOREAU: EACH MAN KILLS THE THING HE LOVES

— Jean Genet (Querelle)

The lyrics of the song that Jeanne Moreau sings are from Oscar Wilde’s “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” which was written in 1897 while in exile after his release from Reading Gaol prison. The line “Yet each man kills the thing he loves” was inspired by the hanging of Charles Thomas Wooldridge, a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards, who was convicted of slitting his wife’s throat.

Every man kills what he loves

Yet every man kills what he loves,
And we all know it:
They kill them with a look of hatred,
The others with caressing words,
The coward with a kiss,
The hero with a sword!

They kill their love when they are still young,
Others when they are old,
Some strangers strangle him with the hands of desire,
Certain others with the hands of gold,
The best ones use a knife, for that
The corpses will freeze.

You love too much or too little,
Love sells or buys,
Sometimes the crime is done with infinite tears,
Without a sigh,
Because each one of us kills what he loves
Yet he is not forced to die.

From "The Ballad Of Reading Gaol"
By Oscar Wilde

Soundtrack of Werner Fassbinder's film "Querelle" (1982)

GASLIGHT

Gaslight

 1944 mystery-thriller film, adapted from Patrick Hamilton's 1938 play Gas Light, about a woman whose husband slowly manipulates her into believing that she is going insane. 

The film was nominated for 7 Oscars including Best Picture, Best Actor, & Best Screenplay; 

it won the Academy Awards for Best Actress and Best Production Design.

The psychological term gaslighting, which describes a form of psychological abuse in which the victim is gradually manipulated into doubting his or her own reality, originated from the play and its two film adaptations.

 Gaslighting, today, mostly refers to one of the methods of abuse used by a narcissist to emotionally control a victim, through which the narcissist gains pleasure.

GASLIGHT- 1940- ENGLISH VERSION

MARY TYLER MOORE- RIP

TV icon Mary Tyler Moore died on Wednesday after being hospitalized in Connecticut, her rep confirmed to The Huffington Post. She was 80. 

“Today, beloved icon, Mary Tyler Moore, passed away at the age of 80 in the company of friends and her loving husband of over 33 years, Dr. S. Robert Levine. A groundbreaking actress, producer, and passionate advocate for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Mary will be remembered as a fearless visionary who turned the world on with her smile,” her rep Mara Buxbaum told The Huffington Post in a statement. 

Moore, who was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1936 and grew up in Los Angeles, rose to international fame starring on the 1960s sitcom “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” She later starred on the beloved 1970s sitcom “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” which is one of the first shows to feature a never-married, working woman as its central character. Moore played single, 30-year-old TV news producer Mary Richards.

READ MOORE-