 Those Who Need It |
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Last week I flipped to the Josh Groban special on PBS. He left the stage and a pianist and violinist were left, and they started playing something really beautiful. Moments later I recognized it as the music from Il Postino, and I sat up and burst into tears. It was bizarre! It was like it was so gorgeous that I was just overcome. I called my dad immediately, and he was watching it, and if he had not been laughing so hard at me, I would have suspected that he was a mite teary himself. My dad loves Il Postino so much, and he introduced me to it and to its music. Then Josh Groban came out and sang in Italian, and I have no idea what he was saying, but it was pretty awesome. But this violinist was incredible. I don't usually get excited about violins, but honestly, I've really never heard anything like it. All of the hairs on my arms were standing up. And the tears. Actual hot, shooting tears from the beauty. God, I love Il Postino. And strangely I think I might even love Josh Groban a little bit. I am going to digress for a moment to talk about Il Postino. (Note: This is not to be confused with the Kevin Costner travesty, The Postman.) First of all, if you haven't seen the movie, you must. Secondly, I find it so heartwarming that Massimo Troisi was posthumously nominated for an Oscar that I can hardly stand it. He totally deserved the nomination especially when you consider how wonderful he was in the movie when he was pretty much dying the entire time. (Nicolas Cage won for Leaving Las Vegas.) The score won the Oscar, and I am here to tell you that it's just hauntingly, achingly, perfectly wonderful. (It also received nominations for director, picture [not foreign language film, but best picture], and adapted screenplay.) Braveheart won best picture and director that year, and I'm also here to tell you that my big box of Hot Tamales and I walked right on out of Braveheart the moment his pretty pretty wife Catherine McCormack's throat was cut, so I have no opinion of that movie other than I don't approve of anyone slicing that beautiful Veronica Franco's neck open. Emma Thompson took the adapted screenplay prize for Sense and Sensibility and I would never begrudge her that because I love her and I love that movie. So, anyway. Il Postino. Romantic and literary and gorgeous setting to boot. I traipsed through Italy carrying a beautiful black and white poster that I bought for my dad there that's now hanging in his office, and I swear to God I believe that the reason my parents took what has become an annual pilgrimage to Italy was so that my dad could go to that fishing village. I am a total sucker for poetry being read aloud. My sister gave me this once and I cherish it completely. (Edna St. Vincent Millay. Reading "Love Is Not All." Oh yes. It's true.) (Don't know why it's not showing up on that setlist, because it's on mine.) And I still adore my Beauty and the Beast soundtrack with Ron Perlman reading all of that romantic poetry. That is totally how my 8th grade self was introduced to Rilke. I cannot tell a lie. (I only have this on cassette and would pretty much give my right eye to have it on CD. But it is way expensive.) So the Il Postino soundtrack is its own amazing creature. The music is tremendously great, as I've already said. But it also has various actors reading some of Pablo Neruda's poetry, sometimes to bits of the score or sometimes just on their own. Some of them are not so great, such as Julia Roberts, but some of them are fantastic. Andy Garcia's delivery of "Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines" is my favorite, and it kills me, and it causes me to fall to the floor clutching my heart. I'll listen to Ralph Feinnes or Rufus Sewell say anything, anytime. I even love Madonna's reading of "If You Forget Me." And Vincent Perez's "Integrations"? FORGET IT. "After everything, I will love you as if it were always before." And Sting, saying, "Naked you are simple as one of your hands..." God, it is just too much. The whole thing makes me feel like I am melting. I am listening to the Josh Groban version right now, "Mi Mancherai," and it's not even close to being as beautiful as it was live on the PBS special, but it's still perfectly fucking lovely and makes me fill up with love for the movie and for Italy and mostly for my dad. 
About this time in ...
© Copyright 2004 elb |
Poetry doesn't belong to those who wrote it, but those who need it.
Il Postino
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