Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Movie time! Crafty time! Free time!

I fell in love with Katharine Hepburn in 1997, when I read her autobiography Me: Stories of My Life.

I can't express in an eloquent manner why Hepburn mattered. Before there was Wikipedia and Google, I spent the summer of 1997 learning as much about Kate Hepburn as I could from books. Her independence, her intelligence, her unusual personal life, her devotion to her family - these were all qualities that resonated with me. Her beauty is being taken for granted for the purposes of this blog entry. I've only ever seen two of her films by that time, but I loved her on screen as well as on paper.

*As it was just pointed out to me by a commenter, a Kate Hepburn Cultural Arts Center is being constructed as we speak in Old Saybrook, CT. I think I shall visit over the summer...

Last year, in honor of her 100th birthday, I wanted to watch all the Hepburn films that Netflix had to offer. Then life interfered, as it often does. So I am starting now - I figure a film a week should not be too taxing, and will take me the rest of the year - there are 25 of them in my queue. Having to report them here should also keep me honest/and posting regularly.


So tonight I watched "Little Women" and while I understand it received an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, two questions stick in my mind:


a) Did people in 1932 interact quite as artificially as they do on screen? Or is that just a film convention from the time period? Or are they trying to be very proper for portraying 1864?


b) Did Louisa May Alcott *write* such a contrived ending for the novel, or was this the fault of the adaptation? I've never read "Little Women", so I can't tell. But I can't possibly believe that Jo would be happily accepting a marriage proposal from Fritz Behr if events proceeded as they did in the film.


OK, now that I've got that out of my system, here's the other part of the post.


About a month ago I have come to the conclusion that I own entirely too many articles of clothing which are ill-fitting. However, I also have the know-how to *make* them fit, and just needed the time to do so. Summer is my off-season time, and here's what happened last week:

LK gave me this cute T-shirt in the winter, but trouble was, it was meant for extremely short-torsoed people (which I am not) - see Exhibit A


Well, when combined with this home-made shirt (ahh, what did we ever do without CafePress?)...


...it becomes quite wearable! and sporty! and you can't see my belly button!


The other one is a bonus. A shirt that was a hand-me-down for a reason (could it BE more shapeless?)...


...with the help of some clever darting becomes quite lovely!


I even wore it to an event and received compliments.



So that makes my other summer resolution - I am going to alter a couple of items a week, thereby gaining new summer clothes without spending any money - yay.

we'll see how long the resolute behaviour lasts (she thought sarcastically)

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Ani.
Just read your blog and wanted to tell you about the soon-to-open (Dec. 2008) Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center and Theatre in Hepburn's summer time home of Old Saybrook,Connecticut.
We are busy raising money and I would love it if you would link to us.
www.katharinhepburntheater.org
Thanks!

Matthew Katz said...

We Just watched Summertime last night. Quite good, it wasn't dated as per style as most films pre-1970 can be. Also interesting that she was 48 when she made the film, and it was about finding romance in Venice. Except for the ending which made her come across as not exactly moral... but I guess that was the point.

Smithie said...

The ending of LW is not solely a creation of the filmmakers, but to my mind both movie versions (Hepburn and Rider as Jo, respectively) completely destroy the courtship of Jo and Fritz, which leaves the intelligent watcher saying WTF when she agrees to marry him...

--Lydia