in which I find that young coconut water is not easy to come by

Went to the Rock Journalist's house to watch a Tennessee Williams double-bill: Suddenly, Last Summer and The Night of the Iguana. I had planned to bring fixins' for rum-cocos, the drink of choice at Ava Gardner's hotel in Iguana, but they are made with young coconut water, and none of the large grocery stores, including Trader Joes, seemed to carry such a thing. Mostly, I got baffled stares. So we ended up with daiquiris, Mrs. Venable's "medicine" in Summer. Dramatic readings from Gore Vidal's Palimpsest beforehand. There was much drooling by the other guests over Elizabeth Taylor and Sue Lyon, but Ava is the woman of the day for me--I love the way she smoulders. Talk afterwards about how US filmmakers today, Hollywood or otherwise, would be afraid of that sort of acting and that sort of overripe dialogue--all true, but what also strikes me as lacking in film today is a seriousness towards spiritual struggle. God as a ravenous monster in Summer predates the spider-god of Through a Glass Darkly. The spiritual torment of Iguana would never be handled in such a manner today. Most filmmakers now (and then, too, and always, really) approach their art with a tacit atheism--not a philosophical approach, like Bunuel, or a true atheism like Cronenberg or Egoyan, where there's no reason to address things that aren't there, but a deliberate ignoring of things they feel might be there but that would make it inconvenient to tell the story they want to tell. And if spiritual issues are addressed, it is usually in such a smarmy, feel-good way that it has no power over the viewer after they leave the theatre: as in any religion, religious films are happy to do all the thinking for you--all conflict is resolved.
Later, while doing laundry, I watched both versions of Alan Clarke's Scum. I have the Alan Clarke DVD collection, found in a used record store's skuf pile, for much less than half the cover price. It appears to have been at least twice owned by others, as there are traces of removed price stickers on the cover (why would anyone divest themselves of this? and how could it be owned by two different people so inclined?). I bought it as a gift, but, as I've always wanted it myself, I've decided to watch the whole thing myself first, and maybe the prospective recipient will buy her own copy before I get done previewing the whole thing. I mean, it was a skuf, right? I'd better make sure it all plays before I give it away. So these two versions really point out why I generally don't like to watch movies on tv. The first version, made for the BBC, seemed incredibly realistic, despite the rather spartan (even for a borstal) settings. The second, theatrical, version, is heightened in every way. I'm not sure I would have noticed in a theater, but the acting is more emphatic, the violence is more vicious, the performers are better looking (although the great, very young, Ray Winstone is in both, his face is so much more mature and handsome in the theatrical version that he's almost a different actor), and generally, after watching the quick, dirty BBC version, it just seems so much more like a movie. The one improvement, of course, is that the sets are detailed, so you get a real feeling for the kind of work the boys would be doing in the borstal. The biggest loss to me is the abscence of David Threlfall as Archer, the non-conformist working the system. In the BBC version, he reminds me of Harris in Freaks and Geeks, a strange, but ultimately very cool (in every sense) young man who is enjoying the way he can manipulate the world; a wise man, a guru, a teacher. In the theatrical version, he's a handsome, robust chap, with a sneer for the authorities--he's a movie character; he could be played by Bruce Willis, as his anti-authoritarianism is just a mask for wanting to assume authority on his own. Again, without having just viewed the earlier version, I might not have disliked this second version. And, seen in a theatre, I might just have accepted the movie conventions. But I generally find that films made for television are the ones that play best on television, and, although many of them can work equally well on the big screen, a film for the big screen can't function as well on television. Cinema depends on images, and television depends on story and performance--I realize I haven't remembered what the Final Shot of any of the four movies I saw yesterday was, because I wasn't thinking about image at all while watching them. I think: one pan away from the main characters to a nature image; one embrace; two tableaus. I won't bet on that, though.