more thoughts…

So, I’m taking this class right now about poetry and art, and how one inspires another and vice versa. We’ve been reading poetry by Verlaine for the past couple of weeks, with many references to Baudelaire, and then references to the engravings or paintings which inspired Verlaine. At the same time, I have watched a few French films in the past couple of weeks and therefore have been thinking about film as art. I think that since I came to France, I’ve become much more aware of the oftentimes emptiness of Hollywood film and yet the demand is for these meaningless films… we have turned into a culture of passivity in our film viewing and it just worries me. I suppose what brought this on was a psychological thriller that I watched last night called Enduring Love, and even now I am still thinking about this film and sort of what conclusions to draw from it. But the thing is… it didn’t really leave the viewers with any solid conclusions to draw. I suppose that is the genius of the psychological thriller… life is not always so cut and dried, a place for everything and everything in its place – so why should we portray it that way in film?

Anyway, I know these aren’t terribly revolutionary ideas, and I’m sure many many others have said the same thing but much more eloquently… but this is just me thinking through things via a blog.   

Current thoughts…

Well, first I ought to apologize for my lack of updating… but you know, I’m in France.

Next week will be a week of vacation for Marc Bloch students, and so I (along with my English sidekick Hollie) am going to visit Amy in Dijon and then will continue to Geneva to stay for a few days. I’m pretty excited to have a change in scenery, and I have always wanted to go to Geneva… so this will be perfect! I will probably not update the blog then until I return to Strasbourg.

In other news, I had my first visit to a French hospital (not for me). Hollie fell off her bike on Friday and fractured her arm, so Neelam and I escorted her to the hospital where we were promptly informed that we were obviously at the wrong place and needed to take the tram to Hautepierre (about a ten-fifteen minute tram ride). It was a strange and surreal day, but we’ve all signed Hollie’s cast now… and we will be cooking for her for the next several weeks.

I found out a few days ago that Sarah Jane, aka my best friend since first grade, is coming to Strasbourg for her spring break. The week before that I’m hoping to get to Berlin to see some Purdue friends on their spring break, and then a couple weeks after… my family will be here. So, I’m really pretty excited to have all these American visitors! I haven’t quite figured out when I will come back to the US, but at this point it seems like it will be mid to late May.

I’m noticing a difference in my comprehension of French film / television… it’s a pretty cool change, compared to the summer. I just hope to have some francophones to speak with when I come home!