1. On Monday, Stephen and went to see three movies by my all-time favorite director Luchino Visconti, playing as part of a retrospective at Lincoln Center.
2. We were celebrating the construction of a new deck we built (read: hired someone to build) that would allow the cats (and us) easier access to the garden, which after an exuberant spring is giving way to the more arduous days of summer.
3. I couldn't remember the last time I had been in a movie theater, and I don't think I've ever done a "triple feature." I felt a little nervous. Would I be able to sit for seven hours in a quasi-public space? It wasn't a problem; the movies, as it turned out, were even more relevant than I remembered.
4. Each of the movies covered themes related to the death of one society -- the aristocracy -- and the birth of a new one. It's not a peaceful process.
5. Visconti is critical of the aristocracy and the social privileges it confers to its members, but he captures its crumbling, decrepit world with a lushness -- apparent in the sets, the costumes, the gestures, and esoteric dialogue -- that showcases its beauty even as it dies (or that arises as a result of its death). The aristocracy is a like a dying bouquet for Visconti.
6. The new (modern) society -- meaning the one that replaces the aristocracy -- is youth-driven, idealistic, brash, and violent, which offers its own dangers and allure.
7. In capturing the tension between these two societies, Visconti documents a kind of change that seems to arise from nature. As much as the aristocracy might like to think otherwise -- and notwithstanding the power and money at their fingertips -- their days are numbered; it's a function of the passage of time, which is a lesson that can drawn from any landscape.
8. Visconti's world is a garden and his films -- the steps we take to reach them -- document the political seasons as one gives way to the next.
