Sunday, 12 June 2016

Lonesome Dove
(1989)


Elegant and superbly-written drama about ageing cowpunchers on a long cattle drive, portrayed by excellent character actors: Chris COOPER, Robert DUVALL, Danny GLOVER & Tommy Lee JONES.

Although not consistently-brilliant, there are enough good performances to draw us into this elegy. Moreover, the slight plot allows the characters to come to the fore: We get to know them as people - and like them warts ‘n’ all.

Unusually, this contains dark hints that the United States was founded on a so-called civilising holocaust; killing anyone that made the Wild West interesting in the first place.

The old (unlike the young, here) have learned to take pleasure in everyday things and to not dwell too much on their defeats. As in all the best Westerns, women exist to provide men with a justification for their behaviour and reward them in their choosing one man over another.

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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.