Charlotte Rampling and Woody Allen in a scene from Allen’s film “Stardust Memories” from 1980.
30 years later, Rampling and Allen at the Paris Film Festival, July 2010
Maybe it’s because my own birthday came and went in August. Or because when I saw the Paris pic of Rampling and Allen from July I immediately thought of “Stardust Memories” which is one of his better films, and in which Rampling gives an astounding performance and was, perhaps, at her most beautiful. But the juxtaposition of the two pics, and the fact that 30 years have passed between the two, struck me. In the blink of an eye, there we were, and here we are. All concerned in the moment, and then you turn around and, well, it’s 10, 20, or 30 years later. And then, of course, I also then immediately think about our political situation and the lesson of not letting any moment go to waste.
I do hope/believe most of us will be here in 10 years. It will seem like a flash, so let’s make sure we do everything we can now so we don’t look back on 2010 and 2012 with any regret. As we move into the 30 day mark for the midterms, let’s make sure, no matter the outcome of our efforts, we can all look back to this time and know we did everything in our power to make things right 😉 That’s all.
I like your sentiment, Tammy. No regrets…2010 or 2012
Here’s what strikes me. She has aged very well. He has not.
My favorite scene …and why I love Sundays.
Though I adored Rampling in this role, I still reserve my biggest crush for eccentric goofball, Diane Keaton.
We are but pilgrims on this earth Tammy. Just passing thru in the twinkling of an eye. Yes, let’s make it right and make the best of it 😉
This brings to mind Mark Twain’s essay, from 1905:
I think it likely that people who have not been here will be interested to know what it is like. I arrived on the thirtieth of November, fresh from care-free and frivolous 69, and was disappointed.
There is nothing novel about it, nothing striking, nothing to thrill you and make your eye glitter and your tongue cry out, “Oh, but it is wonderful, perfectly wonderful!” Yes, it is disappointing. You say, “Is this it? — this? after all this talk and fuss of a thousand generations of travelers who have crossed this frontier and looked about them and told what they saw and felt? why, it looks just like 69.”
And that is true. Also it is natural; for you have not come by the fast express, you have been lagging and dragging across the world’s continents behind oxen; when that is your pace one country melts into the next one so gradually that you are not able to notice the change: 70 looks like 69; 69 looked like 68; 68 looked like 67 — and so on, back, and back, to the beginning. If you climb to a summit and look back — ah, then you see!
Down that far-reaching perspective you can make out each country and climate that you crossed, all the way up from the hot equator to the ice-summit where you are perched. You can make out where Infancy merged into Boyhood; Boyhood into down-lipped Youth; Youth into indefinite Young-Manhood; indefinite Young-Manhood into definite Manhood; definite Manhood with aggressive ambitions into sobered and heedful Husbandhood and Fatherhood; these into troubled and foreboding Age, with graying hair; this into Old Age, white-headed, the temple empty, the idols broken, the worshippers in their graves, nothing left but You, a remnant, a tradition, belated fag-end of a foolish dream, a dream that was so ingeniously dreamed that it seemed real all the time; nothing left but You, centre of a snowy desolation, perched on the ice-summit, gazing out over the stages of the long trek and asking Yourself “would you do it again if you had the chance?”
Thanks Maynard 🙂 Wonderful stuff. I knew you’d have something to say 🙂
I think Ms. Rampling looks a lot like Elizabeth Hurley in that young picture. They are both beautiful; Woody Allen is a disgusting, narcissistic pig. That is all 🙂
Actually, that is not all that Woody is, but you captured his general essence quite well.
I want to learn about Woody Allen’s “age defying” regimen…then do the exact OPPOSITE.
wow