10. Revelations sometimes come too late
I.
The Cannes Film Festival is in full swing. Lots of actors on red carpets and films having their premieres. Including Killers of the Flower Moon, the new film by Martin Scorsese. Deadline had a long interview with the director and the text ends rather heartbreakingly. Revelations sometimes come too late.
DEADLINE: Youāre 80. Do you still have that fire to get right back behind the camera and get the next one going?
**SCORSESE: **Got to. Got to. Yeah. I wish I could take a break for eight weeks and make a film at the same time [laughs]. The whole world has opened up to me, but itās too late. Itās too late.
DEADLINE: What do you mean by that?
**SCORSESE: **Iām old. I read stuff. I see things. I want to tell stories, and thereās no more time. Kurosawa, when he got his Oscar, when George [Lucas] and Steven [Spielberg] gave it to him, he said, āIām only now beginning to see the possibility of what cinema could be, and itās too late.ā He was 83. At the time, I said, āWhat does he mean?ā Now I know what he means.
II.
The new Indiana Jones had its premiere. Reactions are somewhat mixed, it seems. But it appears to be better received than The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Harrison Ford has already indicated that this is truly the last time he will step into the shoes of Jones. āI really need to sit down and get some rest,ā de Volkskrant quotes him as saying. āI love working, I love this character. But itās not like Iām looking back and thinking: gosh, Iād really like to be that guy again. Iām content with my age. Being young was great, but I could just as easily have been dead. And Iām still working.ā
In The Dial of Destiny, Ford is digitally de-aged for a flashback. Ford was initially against the idea but has since come around to praise the result. āThatās exactly what I looked like thirty-five years ago.ā
The new Indiana Jones also has a Dutch connection. Bodybuilder Olivier Richters plays a role. In the film he has to land a punch on Jones. When Ford first met Richters, that moment must have flashed through Fordās mind. āI quit,ā was the first thing he said to Richters.
III.
I finished De Mitsukoshi Troostbaby Company. A hefty tome by Auke Hulst about love and loss, but above all about how a snowball melts in your hand. The inevitable fate. The harder you try to change it, the less happiness you will find.
In the book, science fiction writer Auke van der Hulst and his girlfriend Mila break up. It no longer works. She doesnāt want his child; not long after, she has a baby with someone else. How do you deal with that? The plot is not entirely unfamiliar to me, Iāll just say that. Although Van der Hulst actually loses a child and cannot accept it. So he takes in a robot child. A seven-year-old girl modeled after his unborn daughter. She would have been the same age now. āI wanted that one child I almost had, but never had,ā writes Van der Hulst.
De Mitsukoshi Troostbaby Company is made up of two interwoven stories. We read Van der Hulstās account of events in his life, but we also read the novel he is writing: De Lasso van de Tijd. A science fiction story that attempts to reverse the pivotal moment in his life. An alternative timeline. What if everything had gone differently and the child had arrived? Earlier in the book, Van der Hulst writes about that doomed scenario: āHow could we have a child together if she didnāt even want to be with me?ā
Deep down, Van der Hulst knows he must let go. But he is willing to go to extreme lengths to learn that lesson. āThe goal was not to cure the grief,ā writes the author. āThe goal was to gain better insight into that grief and find a way to live with it more gently.ā But does he succeed? Earlier he writes that swordfighters say you should hold a saber the way you hold a bird. āNot so tight that you kill the bird, not so loosely that it flies away. Does the same apply to a loved one?ā
To ask the question is to answer it.
IV.
Sometimes the internet throws you into strange corners. I stumbled upon the fourteen-year-old video below. Back when people used to spend the night queuing outside an Apple Store whenever a new iPhone came out. The video has been watched 1.1 million times.
A woman pulls up with a stack of cash and gives the guy at the front of the queue 800 dollars to take his spot. She has a masterplan: buy a box of iPhones and sell them for a fortune on eBay. That doesnāt quite go according to plan.
In the comments under the video, one name keeps coming up: Marc Rebillet. And a nickname: Loop daddy. It turns out thatās the guy in the video. Fourteen years later he makes electronic improvisation music and travels the world with it. During the pandemic years, millions of people watched his YouTube videos, in which he made songs dressed in a bathrobe. A month ago he performed (with a bizarre act) at Coachella, a few years back at Amsterdamās Paradiso.
Life takes strange turns. (And about that woman, conspiracy theories are swirling online. Was she hired by Apple for a viral video?)
PS.
The Bear was one of my highlights of 2022. The series gets a second season in June, and thereās already a trailer.
111 years on, research into the Titanic continues. For the first time, a complete and detailed 3D scan has been made of the worldās most famous sunken ship. BBC has the first images.
Thereās a new album coming from Blur. Thereās another reunion tour from the British band on the way, and although they have enough old hits to coast on, new music is coming. The first single leaves you wanting more: The Narcissist. Thereās also new music from Abel, Lana Del Rey and Weyes Blood.
The Smiths bassist Andy Rourke has died. 59 years old. So play The Smiths very loud a few times and read this beautiful piece from Rolling Stone: His playing was the most underrated element in the bandās sound ā and a big reason you wonāt forget the songs that made you cry.
For NU.nl I wrote about Appleās apparent absence from the AI race (sorry, reading behind a free login). We read about ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Google Bard everywhere. Apple is certainly working on AI, but seems to be playing a different game.
Thatās it! Want to receive the newsletter free in your inbox from now on? Subscribe below. Until next week!
*This newsletter is produced as a weblog on my website. You can read along there throughout the week as I add to it.*