Sue Katz: Consenting Adult

Brief Film Review: Gilda

Short summary: “Gilda” is strangely lacking any emotional impact – I got neither big laughs nor tears. So much was missing (some important voices, an engaging narrative arc) – but most of all her work was missing (except very short snippets out of context.)

I remember the first year of Saturday Night Live. Endearing Gilda Radner had been the very first staff member hired for the show – and for me and many other fans she was at the heart of show, even as she was fighting writer-room sexism to get herself into the skits. She was a total riot!

I remember watching as she got thinner and thinner, although we didn’t know the words for bulimia and anorexia at the time.

I remember when she got cancer, when she came back in remission, and when she got ill again.

I remember when she died. It was shocking. It was painful.

You’ll find very little of the magic of Gilda in this documentary. It’s stitched together in jerky bits and pieces, with many of the talking heads being current SNL comedians who never worked with her or even knew her. I appreciated the childhood photos and commentary – that part of her life was new to me. Unfortunately the tone of the film is distant, dispassionate, more like a resume than the gushy love letter Gilda deserves.

Trailer

Brief Book Review: A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler

A Whole Life is not at all the type of book I usually read – I’m a 19^th Century literature freak. Set in the mid-20^th Century, it was written by the Viennese author Robert Seethaler and translated from the German by Charlotte Collins.

Dark, humid, dank, it tells the story of one man’s life as he lives it – mostly alone – in a wooded mountain valley. He is a man both simple and profound. Despite physical disabilities and injuries, he is strong and resolute, always finding ways to support himself, no matter the obstacles.

The language is unpretentious and rich, dripping with hard labor, and yet the narrative succinctly describes a whole life in just 151 pages. With empathy and benevolence, we meet a man who chooses an utterly solitary life, who adapts to each new impediment, and who teaches us how to face an unwelcoming world. The word in my head as I read the book slowly and over a couple of weeks was “Deep.”

Postscript: Thanks to whoever it was who talked about this book on Facebook. I have a running list of books that have randomly been recommended and this was on that list.