Hitch

I'm watching Christopher Hitchens on the Daily Show. He looks amazing for someone who reportedly still (still? He looks about 36, but isn't he around 50?) drinks and smokes a lot every day. He has pink cheeks, bright blond hair and is not as bloated as some heavy drinkers -- he's not bloated at all. He looks calm and alert, and he jokes reasonably nimbly with Jon Stewart, though he may be slightly sedated -- there's a slurred sound to his voice. Stewart is quicker than him though Hitchens comes through with some sturdy wit, cocktails and all.

Hitchens has a great piece on Slate right now about Mormons. Right when PBS comes out with a giant, sober two-night thing about Mormons' cracked beginnings and crazier proceedings, Hitchens pops up with this hilarious book chapter about what a narcissistic nutter Joseph Smith was and how dumb and credulous his followers were. Hitchens' contempt is evident in every syllable, but he's so surefooted he skewers them with light finesse, needing nothing more.

In other news, I had a cold this weekend and I watched The Double Life of Veronique (Kieslewsky, spelling approx.), The Aviator's Wife (Rohmer) and Before Sunset (Linklater). Ranked in order of excellence: Before Sunset, Aviator's Wife, Double Life of Veronique. The Kieslewsky is visually beautiful and artful, and sometimes poetic, but also precious and ultimately not very moving. There are too many tricks with the narrative - you can't get involved with any of the characters, though I loved the singer Weronika and the song she sang with the choir -- she sings so passionately she seems to die of ecstasy. Unfortunately the story loses much of its intensity after that.

The Rohmer was lighter than air but midway through the Veronique movie, struggling to keep straight the parade of identical-looking, long-faced, artistic men who fall in love with the admittedly stunning Irene Jacob, I felt nostalgic for its light, playful touch. And even if the characters in the Aviator's Wife aren't profound or artistic (ick what an equation), they're interesting because we're right in close to them, seeing them smile and wince, feeling their feelings with them.

Before Sunset has left me stunned three times now. It's just an amazing movie, a swift emotional roller coaster that moves you in different ways depending on what points it glances off you each time. This story that seems so simple, about a couple who meet on a train in Europe and have one of those incredible times where you're talking as fast as you can with someone who is as enchanted as you, and every moment is suffused with some perfect rightness and the whole world recedes while you pursue this attraction, and then they meet again 13 years later with all their walls up, their faces thinner and more accustomed to frowning, but they can't stop smiling from delight at seeing each other again, yet it is so dangerous to go near that intense feeling again, as they've learned in the intervening years how deeply they were struck -- the whole thing is so everlastingly wrenching and touching and universal that it will stand with the best of Renoir as a deeply felt exploration of what it is to be human and to love.