Where are the wolves in this Picture? Killers of the Flower Moon

Long anticipated I saw the noon showing, all three and half hours opening day in Easley SC. My nephew who immediately places it top five of the 21st Century and his entourage saw it the Evening before in a theatre next door to Taylor Swift which caused his Dad to utter a couple OMG s. I think they are going back for a better experience

    Where are the wolves is a line in the movie that detonates the nitty gritty. Same as the great line uttered by Holland Winchester in Ron Rash's One Foot in Eden: " I got electricity."

    Come back to this blog as I will refine it next few days. About the book now out in paperback the London Observer said: "Sometimes Cormac McCarthy writes a great American novel; every so often the Coen Brothers make a great American film--and in the best traditions of American journalism someone comes up with a story that cuts to the kernel National Narrative; here is one of the those"

    I think the Movie rises to the occasion. The beautiful NY Times review calls KOFM "an unsettling masterpiece." 

     Based on David Grann's book whose blurb I quote.

    My nephew says there is a site That Guy. You are watching a movie and every so often a bit character reminds you of previous  role.  Our That Guy in KOFM is Gene Jones, the don't put it in your pocket fellow in No Country for Old Men, another top five of this century with There Will Be Blood Number One 

     Robbie Robertson recently deceased of The Band delivers on the Soundtrack. Toward the end of the Movie my sister and I both recognized a Beautiful Life we often sang at the Helton Reunion in the 80s. Ty Mitchell as John Ramsey  who shoots the guy in the back of the head instead of the front, big mistake, is perfectly cast; as perfect  as Huey Long's assassin the last version of Robert Penn Warren's Great novelAll the King's Men.

    The Collinsville Film Society now has nine members. It is an august body for a small town in Northeast Alabama. Three have read the book, one with an autographed copy.

      I will be reporting on their take as they report in the next ten days or so.

      Not all are as enamored. High School classmates of the class of 71 of Gaffney High School, Becky Cudd and Becky Osment liked it okay but found it long. They couldnt take DiCaprio's accent and found him a little too square faced. I thought he came across as an affected version of a lesser Brando; as physiognomy, not what he brings to the character. I think he is Oscar Worthy as is the film, the wife, the assassin, the soundtrack, pretty much kit n kaboodle.

     All kind of implications for this movie including whether or not Clemson trustee and Presidential candidate Nikki Haley will allow it to be shown and discussed in the public Schools of South Carolina. I imagine Moms for Liberty and the Eagle Forum will have a problem with it and Ken Burns recent doc on the Buffalo. Tim Tebow Mom was Eagle Forum Woman of the year 2018 and their caricature of CRT make them ripe to denounce this movie as they did the teacher in Chapin SC.

     Should be some interesting conversations ensuing.

Ron Rash spellbinding reading in Easley SC

    Ron Rash turned seventy years old this year, same age as me. We were only 16 miles apart most of our secondary hs years, he in Boiling Springs (Gardner WEBB) NC and me in Gaffney SC as he says only the Broad River Between. But I didn't know of him till 20 odd years ago when my friend Sam Hodges then book review editor for the Charlotte Observer told me he was an up and coming novelist.

     Ive read most of his stuff and the reviews, published an interview of him and was on the strong margins of an attempt to bring his novel One Foot in Eden to the screen. At one point Jeff Bridges and the Oscar Nominee Alicia Vikander were attached but after ten years of arduous conversation and financing it evaporated.

    His latest novel after seven years hiatus is The Caretaker. Critics say it is among his best. Oct 6 at the Easley Library before a crowd of 200 or more, Rash gave a spellbinding reading from his latest creation. Rash is one of the best writers in America these days. His favorites include Cormac McCarthy, Mark Powell of Wahalla SC  and Yale Div, and Joe Fosse of Norway. He also like Annie Proulx a good bit.

     Rash seemed to be at home among several of his former students from Tri County Tec and the Dark Corner of Upstate SC plus lot of regional fans of their local boy done good. For the first time in my hearing at least, he told of being a HS teacher for two years while doing grad work at Clemson (mid 70s) at Salem HS. Salem is about ten miles from the Lake Jocassee Dam. He said it was the stories of his Salem students and their received oral history from their families in the damming of Jocassee in 1970 that inspired his novel One Foot in Eden.

     Before the presentation I told Rash of a recent interview by U Michigan of Mark Powell. Powell said the friends he grew up with workers and children of textile mill workers, farmers etc in Oconee county are politically confused. The world has changed fast for them and they deserve more than to dismissed as venal Trump populist. He shares the onus, the weight of the blame on cynical politicians who manipulate their values.

    I asked Rash what his thoughts were reminding him he once said he tried to take distance from such discussions as not long ago Zell Miller was as big a fan of his work as his fans in France and other parts of Europe.

    Rash said he would leave it with Faulkner who said most folks do the best they can with the circumstances they were born.

    I'm not inclined to readings, but Rash was grand. Read the book, but if he comes to your vicinity go hear him read. As Grand as Lincoln is in print think about how it must have been up front for the Gettysburg address. And Jesus with the Beatitudes