The Odd Couple....revamped

Azure blue skies.... itinerant wisps... ugly black letting loose with flippant fury.... dripping off the rails in viscous slow-motion... pockmarked surface, swaying reeds... soaked to the bones, gotta make it fast...damn! late again, flaccid muscles loath to budge....sweet slumber, wash over... gentle, persuasive oblivion... too silent, who's there? just that cantankerous fool... perennial pest... pungent zing, that concoction... impenetrable reds... that impossibly lovely curve of the calf....

Bang! Key turning in lock, ceremonious feet-wiping session, followed by an assortment of sounds, a hearty sneeze, noisy clearing of throat, logging on to Windows, that officious peal.... The light that then floods the room, insinuates itself into the system, banishing the last vestiges of sleep, and the supine self twists into an uncomfortable position.

Effectively, it is farewell to elusive sleep, second night in a row. I curse passionately under my breath; it is incredible how vile the incensed senses permit themselves to be on occasion. The guilty party meanwhile settles himself cosily in his chair and proceeds to immerse himself in the magellah of mediocrity, the latest hit from the homeland cinema stables. (Restraint compels me not to divulge details of the above, for fear of alienating certain close friends of mine, by seeming biased). This is the kind of product that defies the constraints of devices such as headphones, pronouncing the cacophony in syllables just as clear as though they were spelled out.

In short, I am at the end of my tether, awakened rudely from beckoning sleep by a boorish roommate, whose finer traits vanish in the light of his recent crimes. I cannot sleep, and there are few things quite as infuriating, as well qualified to drive one to distraction, as sleep lost. I lay awake, practising various patterns of obloquy, all muttered of course, for decency forbids, after all.

To add insult to injury, he commences a voice chat. Now I am a very light-sleeper, even a warble suffices to stir the senses into unwelcome activity. This is far from the last straw, this is dropping down the ravine of wakefulness at a furious pace, the last straw glimmering in the far distance. I affect discomfort, toss about, mumbling a bit and sundry other such signals. Promptly filtered out by the headphones, of course. Now becomes all the more apparent the phenomenon of how someone under headphones tends to jack up the speech volume almost inadvertently, although at this moment all I can think of is how all this is a devious and wretched ploy to get back at me for..... wait, he cannot have a grievance against me surely? The epitome of cleanliness and order, the very soul of consideration(:))..........

So I am forced to eavesdrop on a conversation in that most comical of Indian tongues, with its uncouth drawls and vowel endings. Predictable to the letter, it touches upon food, acquaintance and work in that order, with an attendant lack of mirth that is almost somnolent....almost. It has me fairly worked up, and in a murderous state. Oh! Why did I sneak that afternoon nap? Woe betide me if I ever do so again... False, blatantly false ring those claims that the body demands a daily aggregate of sleeping hours, as opposed to a continuum.

So while I am wide awake in bed, for the 5th hour nearly, the clock hands outlining 3 am at the moment, I try desperately to clear the mind of the million thoughts that plague it. Focusing on a blank screen has produced some results in the past.... But the mind's eye wanders, the screen lends itself to chimerical flights, absurd connections and persisting insomnia.

Unfortunately, books in bed only stimulate these senses, rather than lull them to sleep. So that's that. Counting sheep assumes interesting dimensions of its own. The sheep morph into Quixote's adversaries, starting me on another trail, no less compelling than its predecessors.

I try under the bedspread, then over it, sideways, on the belly, full stretch, curled up, and other postures I seem incapable of during exercise sessions. But to no avail. Of course, how long can this last? But vengeance will be mine.

The mornings are my domain, when I may return the shenanigans of the night with interest. I awake noisily, push the bed around, croon discordantly, adjust the chair, shut the door a couple of times and jog on the spot, all the while observing the effects out of the corner of my eye. i draw the curtains, one of his pet peeves(he hates dust and sunlight), and adjust the blinds so the first shafts of sun illuminate his corner with the joyous intimation of dawn.

Ah, bliss.... He turns, tosses, I see the lips move, do I perceive a curse? I redouble my exertations, filled with the satisfaction of the frog who strangles the stork on his way into the gullet. I tell you, there is nothing as pleasurable as sweet, sweet revenge, especially when apparently nonchalant.

To cap it all off, while he slips off to the toilet for a minute, I exit, lock the door and remove myself from the scene for an hour, aware that his keys lie within. Later, on my return, I am greeted with an inscrutable glance, typical of him, which I interpret as constipation. I smile sunnily, and let him in. Maybe I should have stayed away longer.....

Needless to say, this is the first time I have shared a room this long. Pathological dislike of his species aside, the sneaky politics is fun, and to be sure, I am sleeping well again.

Adaptation... a role model

I just watched Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood, starring the legendary Mifune. It was simply breathtaking, with an overpowering visual sense and such stark, cool cinematography that it needs no dialogue, the images propel the narrative admirably.

Importantly, the film is a direct adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth. And a mighty fine one, too. Of course, Lady Macbeth is not portrayed as the domineering, unhinged original, but as restrained and coldly calculating, erupting in a moment's decision, her placidity only heightening the sense of disquiet created by every vile insinuation. Also, the indoor scenes are purposely underplayed, with a static camera and long-shots, but this again adds to the claustrophobic atmosphere that eventually stifles Macbeth, sorry, Washizu.

An interesting observation about the film is how 'what goes around, comes around'. Indeed, in his superior's murder, Washizu is merely emulating him, and such an act of betrayal is apparently not uncommon in medieval Japan. Contrary to Shakespeare, where the serpent of Lady Macbeth taunts him over his indecision and his virility, to carry out the awful deed.

The eerie witch scenes in the forest are shot in high-contrast, giving them a surreal, otherwordly feel, which only blurs the line between reality and the subconscious: was a prophecy ever made, or did Macbeth take fate into his hands to chart his destiny as he saw fit?

I must mention the plot device of the 'moving forest', which is rather effective here, perhaps more so than the 'none of woman born can harm him' angle in the play. Check out the film, it is one of Kurosawa's best. And a model of intelligent adaptation, as well.

Adaptation....lessons in shameless bowdlerization, courtesy Hollywood

What a lovely movie... knowing, sly, crazy, ill-paced and offbeat.

Sorry, folks. This isn't meant to be a eulogy to the odd little film, which itself I deem too oddball for its own good. Indeed, it even has the screenwriter for the protagonist, with an antipode for a brother, or is it the other way? Never mind. On to the subject of this post.

I have never really been the biggest fan of Hollywood adaptations of well-established literary works. It is a blessing that the most successful and appealing films freely and quite adeptly adapt popular fiction and, on the weight of starpower and cinematic wizardry, create more out of nothing. Which is why John Grisham ought to be a screenwriter(really, who even remembers The Firm or The Client on paper?), Stephen King is better remembered for Spacek's telekinetic vengeance in Carrie and the atrocious The Shining( not too many are aware of Shawshank Redemption's King-connection) than for his monstrously weak body of work, and the mediocre nostalgia-piece To Kill a Mockingbird made for an effective and evocative film, even with its racial stridency.

Not all adaptations tread the treacherous path, though. Some worthy adaptations actually achieve the rare feat of eclipsing their inspirations. The oft-quoted example of The Godfather must necessarily be brought up here. More on that presently.

Other notables include The Remains of the Day(the political undertones of the Ishiguro novel, a model of internalisation, are clumsily circumvented, but it is a lovely film, with great performances), Apocalypse Now(the despairing, chaotic tone of Conrad's short story is powerfully captured), The Wizard of Oz(the subtle device of a dream with the familiar standing in for the fantastical, is particularly good), The Age of Innocence(easily Scorsese's masterpiece), Minority Report(a short story, but the film is deeply provoking and original) and some others. I must mention the fantastic adaptation of Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. A gloriously lurid drama, with the largest consignment of vitriol this side of Husbands and Wives. Course, plays are likelier to play better on the big screen, for obvious reasons.

But the fact remains that for every triumph there are a dozen debacles deserving of being relegated to the Hall of Gall.

For starters, the most heralded: Wuthering Heights, A Passage to India, Dracula(never mind Lugosi , where is the mood?), L.A.Confidential(yes, it sucks!, Ellroy's hard-edged prose is replaced by reels and reels of gloss), Great Expectations, Oliver!(Dickens plus sex-and minus Dickens- and saccharine respectively), A Room With a View(snooze...) ..... Perhaps the reason for lacklustre adaptations is the inability to reinterpret material to suit the sentiments and mores of the times. I am reminded of the recent disaster The Scarlet Letter, whose infidelity to the text Demi Moore defended by gushing,"How many have read the book anyway?"

That is about as pitiful as it gets.

Of course, it is a given that books that lend themselves most easily to cinematic interpretation are those with vivid imagery and mundane prose, melodrama and double entendres in place of glorious metaphors and social commentary. The Lord of the Rings translates well from sword-and-sandal page-turner to multi-million dollar franchise. Harry Potter proves that even insanely talentless writing is box-ofice salvation. Sorry Blyton. Looks like two generations make all the difference in pop cultural-hysteria over juvenile trash.

The Godfather is a rare beast indeed. The book is frequently turgid and uninvolving, with sketchy characters and zero charisma. On the other hand, what do I say about the magnetism Brando and Pacino bring to the screen? How do I explain the travesty that is the second book of The Godfather, after the quite taut first? Somehow, all things do gel in the film, and its operatic sweep is undeniable. One for the ages, definitely, despite the dated settings.

Coming to the meat of the post...

The Disney studio has had several monster hits to its credit, all family-friendly Sunday-school tales with cutting edge animation and cunning merchandise-promotion drives. And it is no secret the primary audience is 'the young' and 'young at heart', meaning they are guilty pleasures for just about any adult. The faithfulness of a Disney cartoon to its source is questionable at best, so what is the fuss all about?

The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Hugo's fierce and passionate allegory is a devastating read. Even as those wild and sweeping emotions come rushing back to me, I am at a loss for superlatives....

It is far from subtle. Hugo's vicious denunciation of the Church, and, in reality, all noble(why, all human) impulses, fashions 3, no 4 monumental characters:

• The eponymous hunchback, a brooding, deformed and demented figure, reviled, ostracized and unloved, malevolent, brutish and bitter, who 'merely acquired the weapon that had been used against him', namely public loathing...
• The free spirit Esmeralda, pure, lovely and naive to the degree of an unshakeable belief in the power of love, even before the vagaries of men. Truly the moral centre of the book, she moves through it like the moon through an inky, starless sky, purifying the firmament with a breath, unheedful of her charms, gay, flighty and irresistible.
• Notre Dame herself, possessed of as many secrets as can the soul harbour, and many more, with its impenetrable sepulchres, piercing angles and forbidding demeanour, an edifice to chastity, and yet pregnant with thoughts evil and dark.
• Claude Frollo, the archdeacon of Josas, deeply conflicted, a model of virtue in quest for knowledge, torn apart by a lust so overwhelming as to render reason void, religion naught, and restraint petty. Equal parts rage, frustration, covetousness, treachery, unexpected tenderness and helplessness, Frollo is truly one of the most tragic of literary figures.

Set in a corrupt and seditious Paris, populated by kings, priests, cutthroats and whores alike, the book pits beauty against apathy, deformity against censure, desire against abstinence and the Church against the people. In its inexorable spiral towards the supremely tragic denouement, it achieves a staggering intensity, and strangely, an almost poetic justice in the destinies of the protagonists. From the heavens of passion does Frollo descend to the depths of depravity, of abject cruelty. From the heavens of joy does Esmeralda plunge to the dregs of despair, even so clinging to her childlike faith. From the heavens of self-absorption does Quasimodo perceive a bliss infinitely rewarding, married to it in the glare of hatred and divorced in the twilight of intolerance. And from the heights of splendour and virginity does Notre Dame get reduced to a spectre, conceived in glory and raped and pillaged in the space of a single night witness to the darkest, basest aspects of man.

There is much more, Hugo's bitter censure of modern architecture and classical teachings, of ignorance and superstition. Ruthless to the very end, the book spares none: the Beast, vanquishing Beauty, finds his moral ground untenable, and falls to his beckoning doom, even as true Love gets kicked in the shin, fear begets animosity and vindictiveness, and vice versa.

Along the journey, we encounter characters such as the dreamy philosopher Pierre Gringoire, whose utility extends to more than just the ornamental, believe me, and the Sachette of Place-Greve, whose tale will break your heart, even at the centre of the whirlwind Hugo kicks up around Frollo and Esmeralda. We behold perversity, sin, carnage, destitution and celebration, sometimes all in the same scene, and ironies abound, stunning, cruel, pitiless ironies(what more so than the Sachette's final stand?).

Comes the proposal of rapine. Disney wishes to adapt the book to make the 'darkest, most adult cartoon yet'. The wordless beast Quasimodo becomes a tragic, misunderstood, garrulous figure, and cuddly as a bear. Frollo becomes the archetypal villain, with no rhyme or reason for his villainy. Esmeralda swings from revolutionary to feminist, utterly bereft of the singular pulchritude Hugo ascribes to her, and with the grossly under-read Demi Moore voicing her(not her again!). The weak and fickle Phoebus becomes the hunk of the day, and the stage is set for the love story of 1482.

Believe it or not, the story, with its muddled view of Parisian politics of the 1400's, has Frollo hunting down gypsies and schooling Quasimodo in the ways of the world: 'A' for 'abomination', 'B' for 'blasphemy', 'C' for 'contrition', 'D' for 'damnation' and such atrocities. Soon he lays siege to the cathedral because Esmeralda claims sanctuary within, and Quasimodo saves the day, whereupon he is accepted into the public fold. Pshaw!

I cannot believe I actually fell for this hogwash when I watched it. What a profound pity I hadn't read the book then. This is no mere adaptation. It flogs and decries character complexity, reducing motivations to well-known stereotypes: love, hate, envy. Even despite the excellent animation, and the so-called 'adult' undertones of 'sexuality', 'discrimination' and 'prejudice', this is an irresponsible and sloppy undertaking passing for wholesome entertainment.

Finally, the point isn't even this one trifling transgression of the strictures of intelligent adaptation. Heaven knows there have been worse instances of the same.

I am deeply perplexed. What exactly is the responsibility of a modern artist, especially operating in a medium as conducive to popular consumption as cinema? Is it that of the martinet, to unleash personal opinion and make a didactic statement that brooks no interference? Is this enriching the art form? Is anything permissible in the name of populist appeal? Gainsaying true genius? Banking on the notoriously short memory span and credulity of modern audiences to feed them a skewed, at times banal, and at others grotesquely fantastic view of humanity? Of art? It is bewildering to realise how much we put up with in the name of art, that vague, hazy term interchangeably used with 'pop culture', to imply instant gratification.

Who is to blame? Is it too short-sighted to chastise the modern youth, sleepwalking his way through a soulless, meandering existence with few cultural touchstones and fewer instances of genuine creativity? It is no coincidence that the Classics are dying a comprehensive and all-encompassing death, so much so that they seem like relics from a long-forgotten past. That is not to say nothing of any significance emerges today.

But who is looking? ....

Singapore tales : The big-city 'experience'

Ok, so all excited and pumped-up, I ventured out on my city-explorations. I armed myself with a road map, since the "heritage" spots(read: Little India and Chinatown) are comprised of several crisscrossing little lanes and I wasn't going to spend half the day acquiring lost bearings.

Also, I had chanced upon a very useful little site created by the manager of a backpackers hotel, which detailed the prospects of cheap self-guided tours around Singapore. A series of walking-tours, it advised, would give a casual tourist a better exposure to the unique sights and sounds. Fair enough. This is something I believe in, too, and besides, the pocket signalled its hearty approbation too, with the legs raring to go on a day-long ramble.

'Unique sights and sounds'..... these essentially reduced to, at the end of the day, 'skyhigh steel-and-concrete structures' and 'the Mandarin of economics'. Permit me to elaborate.

I began the walk from Little India. In fact, this may be the high point of the 'cultural odyssey' in terms of evoking any specific culture. True, rates are high anyway, and the shops lack the rustic charm of the pushcart and rushed shanties, but the odd snatch of "Uppu karavaadu", "Aathadi Aathadi" and such instant classics from the Kollywood stable kept me enlivened through the stretch. The much-hyped "Mustafa's departmental store" proved to be as much a Singapore foetus as anything else. Just a run-of-the-mill mall(excuse me, the malls here are super-glitzy and chic)

Nothing like the "elai-saappaadu", at any rate. Since the traditional "--Vilas" restaurants in this area are probably the only bankable vegetarian outlets in the city, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to operate my fingers through a hill of rice, sambar, rasam and curd, with the half-dozen or so assorted curries to taste. It was only as late as then that I realised how well even the most mundane and tasteless of vegetables complement the elai-saappaadu tradition. It is a stroke-of-genius on the part of the forefathers. That was, and will necessarily be, the tastiest meal I had in Singapore.

Something that I find astounding, or better, bewildering, out here, is the manner of promoting the primary tourist destinations. There is very little of historical moment here, and after all, the country can be said to have come into its own only at the beginning of the 19th century, but there were all those Malay rulers before then.....lazy buggers must have been devoid of all desire to leave their imprints in the sand. No monuments from that era. Must see Malacca to gauge the worthiness of the exaggerated hype.

So then, the mosques and temples. I didn't bother to suppress my amusement upon beholding them. Each is a tiny dollhouse, looking as though a not-very-discriminating kid had been allowed to go wild with a paintbrush on a day's worth of plaster. In fact, the only way I could make out "the beautifully restored Abdul Gafoor Mosque along this street, with its unique Arab and Victorian architecture. Built in 1907"(to quote the site), was by the gaudy greens splashed over the facade. To think that something as utterly insignificant could be trumpeted so was mind-boggling. I resolved to bypass all other such"heritage-spots", including the tacky temples, Indian and Chinese.

Interestingly, a certain Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus, abbreviated as Chijmes, and formerly an orphanage and convent, now houses bars, discos and restaurants! It says so very prominently at the gate. I pondered the morality of the situation awhile and decided I wasn't upto it. The place is a crowd-puller, as is everything else I mentioned above. Yes, all those stinkingly rich globetrotters are fascinated by anything Indian, even the gaudiest of carvings and pagodas. More the shame that we have done so little to market ourselves attractively to the world. Not that we ought to swamp every historical edifice with ravenous eyes and swanky hotels, but better transport services would go a very long way.

The area proclaimed to teem with acivity, "Bugis street" was around 200 m long, and failed to make an impression. Baubles when sold from a pedestal lose their perfunctory allure. Similarly, I wasn't enticed enough to try out the indigenous fruits, the durian and mangosteen when they were being sold off spick-and-span counters with that disconcerintg metallic gleam. I searched in vain for the tiny, fussy little shacks, with loquacious Chinamen with toothy grins and mysterious caverns filled with Oriental excess. I was expecting a Hong Kong or a Shanghai, perhaps. How wrong I was!

Even the eateries rob the occasional adventure with foreign cuisines of the requisite bravado. Everything is dished across counters by gloved attendants. I fairly lost my appetite, not that I had much of one to start with, given the cornucopia of seafood on display and alien miasmas insinuating themselves into my system.

The Fort Canning botanical garden was a much-needed respite. I realised that of all these manmade attractions, the parks and gardens were the best bet. I was bored of endless sights of tall, proud buildings, looming over the city squares and dwarfing everything else. The parks, obviously a desperate afterthought, even with the usual perfectionist touches of an automated culture, were a soothing diversion. They are well-maintained and clean, and walkways are plentiful. The tropical flora are a nice plus, too. Even at the fort, the short and uneventful history of the island is recounted. The bloody battles, jealous monarchies, devious uprisings, all these are a distant concept. The history of the island seems trite, and dull as ditchwater. And yet, they are proud of it. I am at a loss as to whether I ought to feel sorrow for a culturally bankrupt generation which effortlessly dazzles with its consumerist leanings, or deplore the status of a nation such as ours, for not imbibing what is rightfully ours, and is complex, ancient, glorious, influential and eminently desirable.

Maybe it needs such an experience, that of stark contrasts to awaken us to reality.

Chinatown proved to be much the same. Even the traditional Chinese shops lacked the old-world glamour. And everything was colourful and empty, like cotton candy, except for the price tag. But I was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon a video shop which stocked the best rare-film DVD collection I have EVER seen. They were obviously illegal, but they were cheap, and the films were there for the taking! I mean, which place in the world sells(on the street) Ivan the Terrible and Clair's Le Million side by side? And no, these aren't, naturally, the Criterion releases.

I got to window-shop a lot though at several of the high-profile malls, by definition unapproachable for purchases. Suntec City was vast and in essence, captured the spirit of the city perfectly. This was where the city was, not on the street, not on the harbourfront, not among the people. It was here, amidst the bright stalls and stylishly-dressed womenfolk with indistinguishable features, the million scents of branded perfume, the rustle of dollar bills, the dimly lit restaurants charging $7 for a drink and structures shooting vertically for want of space.

I headed towards the Singapore river, hoping against hope that the waterfront would house some of the commotion and noise I missed. Instead, I get restaurant after restaurant, each competitively priced (meaning highly pricey), and nothing reminiscent of the 'nightlife' I was expecting. That term is synonymous, here, with high-class pubs and diners. Again, I was to blame, entirely. How could I look for something the city could not boast, a life of its own? It was essentially an amalgamation of cultures fusing haphazardly, and all the time, suffocated by a burgeoning economy, sustained and inspired by the West. Then there was the offensive Merlion, which carries the most insipid of legends with it. It is the symbol of Singapore, and something more ludicrous never existed, believe me.

So after an hour of quayside rambling, when I recalled the markets of India fondly, the hustle and bustle, the confusion, the heat, the incessant haggling, the sheer exuberance, the singular charge such a sight imparts to the senses, I wished someone would do something crazy for a change...

Well-behaved people are no fun. I almost decided to strip and dive into the river with a reckless holler. It was disquieting. Everyone was prim and powdered, sipping wine elegantly and using forks expertly, like on a string instrument. Clearly, this was no place for the casual tourist. You needed to be loaded, and fat and dull and prepared to be enchanted by the most banal of sights. Yes, the sight of huge, imposing structures on all four sides was quite something, but I am not sure I'll carry it to my grave. It bespeaks more ill than good for us, I might venture to conclude.

So Singapore is just another city... the manmade wonders enthrall briefly and are forgotten. People awake to their negligence occasionally, and build a park, a zoo, a nature reserve, all laudable, no doubt(try comparing a well-tended golf course to a jungle), but the fact remains that this is a curiously soulless city, despite its efforts to borrow liberally from the best of all worlds, India, Malaysia, China, the West, you name it.

I look forward to the parks and zoos, though. And some long treks, 'undogged' by the big city experiences. Call me old-fashioned.

"I wanna be loved by you, just you, and nobody else but you....."

The scene: a nightclub in Florida. The focus: a bandstand, regaling a noisy crowd of revellers and thugs. The spotlight: a shimmering vision with a sultry voice to turn one's knees weak, into putty. The viewer: a hopelessly lovesick 20-year old whose heart is doing dangerous and unprecedented calisthenics, whose eyes glaze every other second, whose breath escapes in short bursts, punctuated by long, pathos-ridden sighs, whose mind is fixated on that beauteous form, crooning away to glorious heights, unmindful of the impact she is having.

Ten seconds later, a sudden noise interrupts the scene, that of a body falling heavily to the ground, when the senses have been arrested by a sight too overwhelming to permit consciousness in a state of delirium.

The reel scene: "Some Like it Hot".

The real scene: myself, falling hook, line and sinker for the most gorgeous woman who ever walked the face of the earth....

the incomparable Monroe, Marilyn Monroe. Today being the 80th anniversary of the goddess' birth, read on....

The time: a hot Sunday afternoon at the end of an uneventful, and therefore, tedious week. The overpowering sense of ennui that has set in renders even the least demanding intellectual activity impossible. What then? Turn to the perfunctory charms of cinema to prop sagging spirits and drooping eyebrows. What shall it be? Nothing ponderous and windy, please. High time Bergman and the rest of that specially anointed bunch of 'serious'(read: dull, drab and stuffy) filmmakers were shown their place.... the museum of ostentation. It had to be Wilder...

Billy Wilder has long been a favourite of mine. His films are knowing, satirical and very entertaining, and his capacity for sly bon mots , peerless. The Apartment juggles comedy and drama so adroitly that you can only stare at the screen, breathless. Sunset Boulevard ruthlessly skewers the studio sytem of Golden Age Hollywood, while painting a portrait of the impermanence of fame, and how dangerous one's pathetic cravings for it may turn out. But he did make one film that is unanimous in the reaction it provokes:

It is utterly hilarious... from beginning to end.



Some Like it Hot, the cross-dressing classic that catapulted Jack Lemmon to instant super-stardom and solidified the status of the diva(the subject of this post) as a sex symbol with a disarming sweetness to her, besides other things. Before I rave about her, a few quickies on the film itself.

What can I say? I adored it. It is silly, light and preposterous, sweet-hearted, cunning and bawdy, swift-paced, irreverent and a true gem. It is brilliantly written, and brilliant comedic writing is, as we all know, the toughest thing in the cinema business. Add to all this, 2 gifted comic actors, the irrepressible Lemmon as the bull-fiddle-player who gets a proposal from a multimillionaire.....but don't let me spoil it for you, if you haven't seen it already. ...and...

Monroe. Ah! Monroe....the most photogenic, and easily the most photographed celebrity of the century, maybe also the most troubled, who projected that effortlessly devastating mixture of simmering sensuality and vulnerability that endeared her to millions worldwide. That pout, that still makes any man, me included, wish the ground would open up under him and swallow him whole; that voice, breathy and persuasive; that smile, that radiance it exuded, the warmth it oozed, the coy allure it defined for decades to come.....

I believe Some Like it Hot may possibly be her signature role, for her screen persona was best exemplified in it: the sweet, trusting blonde, extremely desirable and harbouring a secret sorrow... Besides, she was pregnant during filming, which imparted an unearthly glow to her complexion, and accentuated those famous curves to the point of dizziness. And the shrewd Wilder framed her just so as to target the male libido, sending men into a swoon ever after...

In fact, her entry in the film is a classic. Lemmon and Curtis, dressed in drag, spot her from afar(she is on the all-women band the men are travelling with, in drag) and the pout precedes her. When she passes the engine, a plume of steam shoots out, caressing her behind in the process. It is a delicious scene, with her bottom heaving tantalisingly with every step, leading Lemmon to remark :

"Will you look at that! Look how she moves! It's like Jell-O on springs. Must have some sort of built-in motor or something. I tell you, it's a whole different sex! "

There are numerous such quotables from the film, several referring to Monroe herself, who was never more adorable, even in that delightful bit of fluff "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", where she waltzed with the scene-stealing Jane Russell to standards such as "Diamonds are a Girl's best friend", "Bye, bye Baby" and "We're just 2 little girls from Little Rock".

The film itself perfectly demonstrates the theorem that "whenever Marilyn is on screen, she is all the camera sees". Indeed, in the scene where she sings the eponymous song this post is named after, the spotlight is on her, and the peripherals fade into oblivion. This woman was something, I tell you. Even in that jaw-dropping costume(no back, and very sparing on the bust area) she is attired in, she never seems vulgar or cheap. Just lovely, and sexy.

She wasn't the quintessential screen siren, the femme fatale, like her contemporaries, the shapely Russell, the lissome Rita Hayworth, the sultry Lauren Bacall and Lana Turner, or the hugely talented Barbara Stanwyck, though she did dabble in noir once. But she didn't need to. She had crafted a personality all her own, and no one could touch it. And besides, they weren't half as enticingly curvaceous as she was.

The behind-the-screen tales accompanying the film are fun too. Check them out at IMDB. But as some samples:

• Curtis has scenes with Monroe where he pretends to be a rich oil-magnate(to win her over!--for details, watch the film!) with a problem with love. So Monroe tries a kissing cure. Of course, he can't get enough of it...... Curtis complained that she kissed like Hitler! Prompting the response from a breathless nation that Hitler must have been a wonderful kisser!(and Monroe replied: "I think that's his problem")
• Marilyn was apparently notoriously unpunctual and forgetful, especially with her lines. So every scene required dozens of takes. A simple one, where she had to say "It's me, Sugar" needed 47 takes because she always used some such combination as "Sugar, it's me" or "Me, it's Sugar" or "It's Sugar, me". Wilder actually wrote lines on a blackboard so she wouldn't flub takes. 59 takes were needed for "Where's the bourbon?", which the Sugar character said rummaging in a drawer, because she said "Where's the whiskey?" or "Where's the bonbon?". And when Wilder pasted the line in the drawer, she went and opened the wrong ones, so he had it pasted in all of them!

And so on...

Marilyn had a tumultous and eventful life, with 3 marriages and several dalliances with famous personae, even JFK, reportedly. Her overdependence on drugs and sedatives towards the latter half of her career made her unpopular with film crews and directors, and finally led to her death in August 1962. She was just 36. With her died an enduring legacy, that of true cinematic presence, of voluptuous grace and innocence, of worldwide popularity and public interest in celebrity lives. To give you an idea of the extent of her immortality: my mother recalls a foolish little ditty she was taught as a pre-schooler, along the lines of "Marilyn Monroe went to town..." She was of course, everyone's favourite pin-up girl.

Maybe the appurtenances of her unique celebrity, the pressures and demands, were ultimately too much to deal with. Even the actual circumstances of her death are mysterious. But her personal life notwithstanding, what survives is her screen persona, her glamour, her comic flair, and her special aura, that transcended her stereotypical image to create the first real star in film. Her legend is given a loving dekko in the TIME 100 article.

Thanks to her, the average male's fantasy was fulfilled, even if in a world of flickering lights and impalpable figures. And I was a babbling, incoherent mass for hours after the film ended.... and am a lifelong devotee now.