Z [1969)

He lives!

[in ancient Greek]

A letter was banned.

Q.

Why did Putin have the letter Z emblazoned on every military vehicle (particularly tanks) invading Ukraine?

Z mean “he lives” in ancient Greek.

Why did Putin have the letter Z emblazoned on every tank entering Ukraine?

There is no Z in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet.

There is likewise no Z in the Ukrainian Cyrillic alphabet.

If Z stands for Zelensky, why not use the Russian or Ukrainian equivalent of a Z?

Why use a Roman letter?

My gut feeling tells me this was psychological warfare.

The obvious answer would be a campaign to scare Zelensky.

But I feel there is more to this story.

Find out.

Did Vladimir Putin like movies?

Yes.

What kind of movies?

Soviet spy movies.

Is Putin a fan of the James Bond franchise?

Yes.

007.

Putin retired as a Lieutenant Colonel of the KGB in 1991 after 16 years of service.

At least five of those years were spent in East Germany.

Putin speaks German as a second language.

This film predates the start of Putin’s KGB career by six years.

Z was taken up by the followers of Yves Montand’s character after his murder in this film.

The Z was painted on the street during a clash between protestors and police.

What is Z about?

Corruption.

At the highest levels.

Durham.

Zorro.

Z.

Revenge.

Righteous vengeance.

May 2, 2014.

Trade Unions House in Odessa.

32 pro-Russian activists died of suffocation.

They were burned alive in the building.

The doors were barricaded so they could not get out.

An additional 10 pro-Russian activists jumped to their death from windows of the building as it was on fire.

Seven of those who died were women.

One was a 17-year-old boy.

As activists tried to escape, they were beaten by Ukrainian “unity” (pro-Maidan) protestors.

The pro-Russian activists were vastly-outnumbered.

46 of those killed in the fire were Ukrainians from Odessa.

The other two were Ukrainians from other towns.

The true story of Grigoris Lambrakis.

And his death in Thessaloniki.

Z.

The first letter of the Greek word, “Zi”.

“He lives”.

A graffito from 1960s Greece after the death of Lambrakis.

But Z is also the last letter of the English alphabet.

Biblical.

I am the alpha (first letter) and the omega (last letter).

The end.

The end times.

The last battle.

The last straw.

The hill to die on.

2/22/22.

The 26th letter of the English alphabet.

Invasion on the 24th of February.

What was the planetary alignment on 2/22/22?

Ezra Pound went by Z.

As you can see why.

Zorro.

An outlaw.

Who avenges the helpless, punishes cruel politicians, and aids the oppressed.

Putin on a horse.

Tornado.

Zorro is Don Diego Vega.

A fictional character created 100 years ago by Johnston McCulley.

An important detail.

Zorro’s mother is dead.

Putin’s mother died of tuberculosis when he was 18.

The dead moms club.

Zorro is a metaphorical chess master.

Intelligent.

Master of complex strategy.

Master of planning.

Planning before a battle.

But also a master of improvisation.

Zorro is not about brute force.

Zorro uses psychological warfare.

Zorro provokes his opponents into errors.

Zorro prods his opponents to seek revenge.

And be blinded by vengeful rage.

Zorro is a master of provocation and setting traps.

Zorro is a spy.

Like Putin.

Zorro provokes anger.

Like a punk rocker.

To keep his enemies off-balance.

Don Q, Son of Zorro.

1925.

Douglas Fairbanks.

Q Z.

Don Trump.

Z, son of Q.

World War Z.

Virus.

Biolabs.

Lavrov confirmed.

https://t.me/GeneralMcInerney/2400

Zombie pandemic.

The last war.

Philadelphia.

Bill Gates.

Smallpox.

Merck.

Costa-Gavras.

The most important thing about this film is Raoul Coutard.

It was just one month ago that the world lost Christos Sarzetakis.

President of Greece 1985-1990.

Let’s not forget that Greece was ruled by a military junta from 1967-1974.

So this film (1969) came at a particularly tense time in the country’s history.

And it was made in French.

Not Greek.

I agree with some of this film.

#NoMoreNATO .

Agreed.

#USAoutofNATO is my preferred tag.

Jan. 6 was a set-up.

9/11 was an inside job.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/68bDf5v7OSzGE43SWlq2Oc?si=9b6adeef05b94d4d

-PD

Senso [1954)

How does love turn into hate?

Does it ever work the other way around?

Hate into love?

Because the natural course seems to be love into hate.

Vulnerability into hurt.

Hurt into resentment.

And somewhere along the continuum, God forbid, revenge.

Senso, despite its extravagant period costumes and generous budget, is still a product of neorealism.

Sure…it’s hard for most of us to relate to a Countess.

That’s why I can’t read Tolstoy.  I can’t read Fitzgerald.  Not even out of curiosity or hatred.

I can only read Dostoyevsky.  I have only ever related to the outlaw.

Of outlaw literature.

But cinema does a funny thing.

We may not be able to really “get into” Il Trovatore or Der Freischütz, but occasionally a talented auteur can make us appreciate the truly foreign:  a higher social class.

In this case, it is the highest.

The nobility.

In English we might (but probably won’t) know it as the Third Italian War of Independence.  How confusing.  That would seem to entail a July 4th (for us Americans) three times a year (assuming there wasn’t a fourth war).

In plain terms, it was Austria vs. Italy (rather like a soccer match).

Football.  Footie.  FTSE.  Yes…

All rather humdrum after the smoke has wafted away.

Idiots, they call us.

Those who fight.

Some join an army.  Very brave.

Others expose themselves needlessly.  What might be termed “impulsive” or again “thoughtlessness”.

What does this?

In both cases, pride (generally speaking).

Sure, a professional soldier makes a decent living (as long as he or she is living), but said soldier is a chess piece of one type or another…always manipulated from above…lacking autonomy.

And yet, perhaps, no price is too high to pay people who are willing to die to defend their country.

But we must define country.

Defending those who cannot (for one reason or another) defend themselves is indeed honorable.

Defending the abstract structures and mechanisms of a state, perhaps less so…

And yet, a pride can infuse the defense of all of this (either separately or collectively).

And then there is the rebel.

Perhaps the rebel will never again find his army in the first world.

In terms of class warfare, then, the United States is a frozen conflict zone.

Just like Abkhazia or some other little-talked-about blip on the map.

Is there a class war?

Should there be a class war?

Shouldn’t wars of all kinds have been evolved out of existence long ago?

Yes?

No…the rebel shan’t find his army in America.

The battlefield has changed.

And as bathos is my witness, “love is a battlefield”!

Discourse on Benatar.

Cannot contain the dodo on his perch.

But never does Luchino Visconti stoop to such poor taste.

No.

Fever pitch, yes.

But poor taste, never.

Because he is telling Spengler’s story.

And he is still telling WWII.

There can be no avoiding that.  Nine years later.

It must be couched in allegory.

And I, like Baudelaire, am nourished by my own misery.

All of this I owe to Walter Benjamin.

Avoid the jalapeno pronunciation.  ~ath do us part.

Alida Valli gets to show more of her breadth here than in the criminally underrated Paradine Case (no pun intended).

Pennies and “the” will be eliminated from the verbal money supply.

Farley Granger is more of a maniac than in Rope (the Hitchcock closest to my snob heart).

Most importantly, Visconti sets the mood with Bruckner’s 7th Symphony.

And now Carlo Maria Giulini’s recording for Deutsche Grammophon makes more sense.

Senso in what sense?

Direction?

Love leaves you with a worthless compass.

The sun begins to revolve around the Earth.

What a perilous pleasure.

That we hope for forever until our end of days.

No matter the hurt…always more.

For the romantic.

 

-PD

Pépé le Moko [1937)

I was alive.

Really alive.

I thought about one way, but took another.

Because the unpredictable had become routine.

We write until we die.

Romantic outlaws.

My crime?

Thirst.

It is a masterpiece from Julien Duvivier.

Jean Gabin is trapped in the Casbah.

Like the digital ghetto known as Facebook.

I didn’t coin the phrase.

But it is not my primary impetus.

It comes secondary.

Pépé from Toulon.  It’s been too long.

Not long enough.

Just as Yves Montand dreamed of Pigalle in Le salaire de la peur.

Here Jean Gabin dreams of Le Métro.

Like Baudelaire’s “La Chevelure”…

Gabin inhales the perfume of freedom.

Sick of his life.

Running.

Hiding.

Sick of life.

But Fréhel teaches the most poignant lesson.

“Où est-il mon moulin de la Place Blanche?
Mon tabac et mon bistrot du coin?
Tous les jours pour moi c’était dimanche!
Où sont-ils les amis, les copains?”

 

Where’s my tobacco shop and my corner bistro?

I dreamt of France for ten years.  Finally I made it there.

And Paris?  I was there for an hour or two.  In the back of a van.  Gazing out the windows.

And like Fréhel I had my day of glory.

The very name of this website.  Pauly Deathwish.  My stage name.

And so, for us, a picture from our youth becomes a mirror.

And we wind the phonograph like the engine of a Ford Model T (pre-1919).

But I have my memories of Doc.

Of the thatched roof.

I thought only Debussy hung the moon.

But it was also dear Ravel who made the birds sing and the flowers bloom.

And so perhaps Ravel’s Piano Concerto…middle movement…in the hands of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli.

Perhaps this is my “Où Estil Donc?”

Algiers.  Alger.  Algeria.  Kabyle.

ⵟⴰⴳⴷⵓⴷⴰ ⵜⴰⵎⴻⴳⴷⴰⵢⵜ ⵜⴰⵖⴻⵔⴼⴰⵏⵜ ⵜⴰⵣⵣⴰⵢⵔⵉⵜ

Berber or Tamazight in the Maghreb.

Yes, there are no English words to sum up the emotion I have for this film.

The secret of the world can be found in French films.

 

-PD