Can you go wrong asking the robot, "Alexa, play Prokofiev?" Maybe, though I don't know how. This morning, she dished up the
Lieutenant Kijé Suite, which ranks up there with Peter And The Wolf and the March from For the Love Of Three Oranges* as accessible highbrow music -- and those two are by Prokofiev, too.
Lt. Kijé is The Officer Who Never Was, created by a slip of the pen, but enjoys a brilliant career despite not existing -- or his close associates and wife do, anyway. And then one day, the Emperor sends for this loyal and clever officer, now a General....
How is it that SF film makers have overlooked this amusing, twisty plot? Sure, Hollywood is not too bright collectively, but there are a few with wit here and there. Bigtime, sweeping space opera is overdue to be sent up and this delightful lampoon of Imperial bureaucracy, connivance and managerial befuddlement both accidental and deliberate would be just the thing.
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* An opera for people dislike opera. Find all that stagy singing and stomping about in Foreignese too high-toned and stuffy? Sergi'll fix it! He was supposedly a good Marxist (or willing to go along) but for this work, it's Groucho, Harpo and Chico, not Karl. (Perhaps more Chico Marx, as the story comes from an Italian play based on an Italian fairytale, which is at least twice as Italian as Chico.) I can't find a synopsis that does it justice; the cast includes a lonely Prince, an evil witch, giant enchanted oranges, three beautiful Princesses, an over-involved Narrator, and planted audience members who appear to believe the opera is real life and try to "help" the protagonists out of the difficulties the plot puts in the way. Prokofiev being Prokofiev, the opera mixes bittersweet and slapstick -- and gets away with it brilliantly.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
3 comments:
Hollywood is collectively bright enough, it's just that it is also collectively as detestable a swarm of knaves and classless yaldsons as ever laid its eggs in the body politic so its young would have something to eat when they hatched. Going by recent news reports here.
It doesn't look to me as if people with wit or taste get to call the shots there. Hundreds, thousands of great stories are available. It doesn't matter. They'll have Paul Verhoeven direct the film version of Prokofiev's Lt. Kijé, and you end up with another Starship Troopers. At least British productions seem to make an effort to honor source material. The miniseries versions of "Color of Magic" and "Going Postal" were really good.
Being twice as Italian as Chico Marx isn't much of a feat, since he was about as Italian as Andrew Dice Clay.
Monty: I see you followed my New Math: Italian fairytale + Italian play = 2 Italians, compared to Chico's 0. But that was all part of the fun, wasn't it?
Hollywood has one of these scandals every so often, after which there is a public wringing of hands and rending of garments, public confessions and tearful promises that The Industry Will Do Better, after which they go right back to business as usual.
And M*A*S*H filed the serial numbers off and created the episode "Tuttle".
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