1. Gibbs and I added some distance to our morning walk today -- not a lot -- but we walked back to the bottom of the hill along Mission Ave and made out way to the 4-way stop just south of the hospital. We crossed the street, walked in front of Subway, Sam's, and the nursing home and when we got as far as the church, we crossed the street and returned home. We'll keep doing this, especially in the cool of the morning -- adding steps, adding distance. Our warmer evening walks will be shorter.
2. It heartened me to talk with Debbie this afternoon and learn she had fun performing with her friends at the 3 Legged Crane in Oakridge. Some kind of a street fair was going on and the great swamp rock band Etouffe was playing outside, drawing most of the people who were out and about, but Debbie seemed unaffected by playing for a small audience in the pub. She got to make music. She did it with longtime friends. She had fun. It was all good.
3. The movie Anatomy of a Murder (1959) runs for about two hours and forty-five minutes. It's been on my mind for a few weeks, and I've been waiting for just the right afternoon to watch it. I tend to watch shorter movies in the evening.
So, my studies at Vizio University broadened and deepened today. For me, it wasn't really wondering how the trial that dominated this story would turn out that I found absorbing. No, it was enjoying James Stewart develop his character, attorney Paul Biegler, and the relationships that developed between Biegler and his associate, the capable alcoholic attorney, Parnell McCarthy (played by Arthur O'Connell), the killer he defended, Lt. Frederick Manion (Ben Gazzara), and the killer's wife, Laura (Lee Remick).
As a bonus, Paul Biegler's secretary, Maida Rutledge was played loyally, sardonically, intelligently, and perfectly by my favorite, Eve Arden! I swear, no one in the world of movies can deliver lines better than Eve Arden. I loved every second she was on screen and I loved listening to her every word.
The movie's location is the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the district attorney feels a bit overwhelmed prosecuting this case on his own, especially against Paul Biegler who is the ex-DA, so he recruits an attorney, Claude Dancer, played brilliantly by George C. Scott, to help him.
Shot masterfully in black and white, accompanied by a superb musical score performed by Duke Ellington and his band, this movie also features a bold screenplay that not only infused its grave subject matter with warmth and humor, it broke the codes of decency that had ruled movies for the previous twenty-five years or so and used words unheard in movies: rape, panties, bitch, sperm, and others, all at the insistence of director Otto Preminger, and the effect was strong, not only confronting its audience with the violence of rape, but also giving the audience, in my opinion, a sense of relief that this story would not tiptoe around the gravity of what this case involved by sanitizing the language.
Lastly, I thought this movie was morally and ethically ambiguous. I found myself rooting for Paul Biegler in his defense of Lt. Manion, and, in the process, caught myself question whether I really wanted to root for a confessed murderer to be found not guilty. Paul Biegler was a fascinating character. Underneath his aw shucks country lawyer facade was a drive to win this case at all costs and the movie forced me to contemplate how many of Biegler's tactics were ethical and made me wonder just what kind of ethics govern a courtroom and a murder case.
That I was torn by what played out morally and ethically in this movie made it all the more compelling and enjoyable. The questions the movie raised for me never got answered and it left me feeling just what my day to day life always leaves me feeling: we live in an ambiguous world where it's not always clear whether well-defined principles of right and wrong exist -- or, if they do, how much power those principles really have.
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