Auf Wiedersehen

I’m always thrown for a loop when someone I admire has passed away. It makes me think of how short our lives are. Today I heard about film critic, Roger Ebert and recall the many times I watched him flag his hands in the air and took heed to his either thumbs up or thumbs down that became his moniker.  He echoed my sentiments when he said—Old theatres are irreplaceable. They could never be duplicated at today's costs — but more importantly, their spirit could not be duplicated because they remind us of a day when going to the show was a more glorious and escapist experience.

His statement brings to mind the many hours I spent at the Coronet in San Francisco, the Rialto in South Pasadena, the Los Feliz (that has since been converted into a boring tri-plex) that was in walking distance to my home; and the Aero Theatre on Montana that was a short hop to my stay in Santa Monica.  These old theaters were my sanctuary, a place where my dreams were made.

Last night another blow— and another light extinguished—Oscar-winning screenwriter and award-winning novelist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala died.

Her death made me think of my time in Berlin, in 1990, when I walked into a used English book and video rental store and picked up a copy of In Search of Love and Beauty written by her in 1983.  It was published a decade later in the U.S. I was reading European classics at the time, avidly, so much in fact that I was intellectually living in a different world that was around me. Until I discovered her… she brought me down to earth.

I had seen her films and knew of her work as a screenwriter and member of Merchant Ivory Productions but had not read her novels until then.

The characterization of Leo Kellermann as a charmer and manipulator made him shallow and devoid of personality and it was a hilarious read. It was so convincing that he could weave people around his little finger which was an important theme in the book. 

Jewish by birth, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala was born and raised in Germany and escaped to England before marrying an Indian architect and settling in Delhi, so her choice of themes were hardly surprising.

The best of her books were set in India and her novels centered on the petty snobberies, self-delusion and close family ties of post-colonial Indian society, to which she later added the ambivalent experiences of seekers – Westerners who journey to India in search of mystical enlightenment. Her books reflected her own affection for, and impatience with, her adopted country. As a foreigner myself, and living in Germany where she originated, I could identify with her feelings. 

In any event, both their passing is a significant loss to the film community.