It was a rough night. Once again I fell asleep to a DVD movie, Roman Polanski's MacBeth. No director understands cold rain, mud, and peasant agriculture as well as Polanski, perhaps because of his early life in Poland. Watching this movie is a great thing to do when you want to glory in the misery of unpleasant weather.
Around 1 in the morning I awoke to find the electricity off in the RV. I was curious, so I walked out to the edge of the rocky shelf that serves as a driveway here and saw -- not just another hateful night of cold, stygian rain and gloom -- but the entire town of Ouray CO pitch black. Another Colorado summer: Out, out, brief candle. Against this visual emptiness, the noise from the Uncompahgre River stood out alarmingly, enraged as it was by a night's rain.
The movie overwhelms the viewer with oppressive rain, mud, and cold. Remember that special efforts were required in that pre-CGI era to make rain register on a movie screen. Just before MacBeth had his best friend Banquo murdered, there were two remarkable speeches back to back. (The movie screenwriter changed Shakespeare's play to put these speeches back-to-back, and in a different character's voice.)
The two speeches referred to ambiguity and confusion about the sky at sunset in the northern latitudes of Scotland, combined with a little late medieval superstition. The moody cinematography of a northern sunset accentuated the Bard's words, or was it the sad and ominous cadence to the actors' delivery of those words?
The worst thing about this miserable, socked-in weather that we've been having lately is the lighting of the sky in Ouray, because the town is nestled into a hole in the San Juan Mountains; and now suddenly, this disturbing ambiguity of night and day seemed like a thing of great beauty. I remember a great load being lifted from my shoulders when this realization hit me, and broke out into a smile and sigh.
In the Southwest proper, each day starts exhuberantly the second the sun cracks the horizon. You hurry to get out and enjoy a perfect morning before the heat and wind of mid-day. So it was natural for a Southwesterner to be bothered by the pale and extended dawns and dusks of Ouray. But no more. Only in the uncomfortable here and now, high above the enraged, black roar of the Uncompahgre, would these things have combined into an awful beauty.
Around 1 in the morning I awoke to find the electricity off in the RV. I was curious, so I walked out to the edge of the rocky shelf that serves as a driveway here and saw -- not just another hateful night of cold, stygian rain and gloom -- but the entire town of Ouray CO pitch black. Another Colorado summer: Out, out, brief candle. Against this visual emptiness, the noise from the Uncompahgre River stood out alarmingly, enraged as it was by a night's rain.
The movie overwhelms the viewer with oppressive rain, mud, and cold. Remember that special efforts were required in that pre-CGI era to make rain register on a movie screen. Just before MacBeth had his best friend Banquo murdered, there were two remarkable speeches back to back. (The movie screenwriter changed Shakespeare's play to put these speeches back-to-back, and in a different character's voice.)
The two speeches referred to ambiguity and confusion about the sky at sunset in the northern latitudes of Scotland, combined with a little late medieval superstition. The moody cinematography of a northern sunset accentuated the Bard's words, or was it the sad and ominous cadence to the actors' delivery of those words?
The worst thing about this miserable, socked-in weather that we've been having lately is the lighting of the sky in Ouray, because the town is nestled into a hole in the San Juan Mountains; and now suddenly, this disturbing ambiguity of night and day seemed like a thing of great beauty. I remember a great load being lifted from my shoulders when this realization hit me, and broke out into a smile and sigh.
In the Southwest proper, each day starts exhuberantly the second the sun cracks the horizon. You hurry to get out and enjoy a perfect morning before the heat and wind of mid-day. So it was natural for a Southwesterner to be bothered by the pale and extended dawns and dusks of Ouray. But no more. Only in the uncomfortable here and now, high above the enraged, black roar of the Uncompahgre, would these things have combined into an awful beauty.
Comments