Getting back to this...surprise surprise, right...

"An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way."
- Charles Bukowski

Okay, so I fibbed a little. I'm only getting back to one part of this. But it's a good part, I swear.

I love that statement, that distinction, between the intellectual and the artist. Lately I've been thoroughly overwhelmed by the sheer brilliance of a number of different works, and it's made me think about the mediums of art.

I saw Edward Albee's Peter and Jerry the other day. I had read the second act, The Zoo Story, before, and seeing it played out on a stage by two astounding actors was amazing, especially with front row, center seats. But I was even more floored by the first act. The Zoo Story was written in 1958 - it was Albee's first play - and I love it for its timelessness and for its daring, for the way it calls society out on the way they reject eccentricity and those who don't fit into their neat, structured world. Homelife, the first act that Albee wrote in 2001, was quite possibly even better.

In it, Albee looks at one of these picture-perfect people - Peter, who represents The American Dream in The Zoo Story - and looks at the flaws of his relationship with his wife Ann, at the cracks in the egg. Peter has an executive position at a publishing house, two daughters, two cats, two parakeets, and a brownstone on East 74th Street or so. He and his wife live comfortably. Yet, in Homelife, he discovers that though she appreciates the secure, smooth, orderly little world he has built, sometimes it's not what she wants. Ann reveals insecurities, fears, loneliness, and desire that she has been hiding for years as she explains that it's not that she's unhappy, not that she doesn't love him - she just wants more. She wants a little chaos, a little something different. She wants to shake him from his placid perch and rile him up a little - she wants him to act more like the animal he is.

You can see Peter struggle to comprehend this and accept it, and when the second act begins and Jerry presents another threat to his perfect little world, the meaning of it is a thousand times stronger. As is Jerry's final declaration to Peter: "You are an animal - not a vegetable." The depth, the focus, the layers, the intensity of the meaning and the incredible statement about life that these two acts make together - it's amazing to me, not only that Edward Albee wrote it, but that forty years passed between when he wrote the second and when he wrote the first, and that the more recent one is possibly even sharper and more astute than the first. The critic who reviewed it for the New York Times called Homelife a slap in the face and The Zoo Story a punch in the gut. He nailed it. But truly, the playwright is an artist - one with incredible skill and talent.

The other night, then, I watched an old movie called Holiday for the first time. The screenplay, which was by Donald Ogden Stewart, had been adapted from a play by Phillip Barry, who also wrote the play upon which the film The Philadelphia Story was based. Though The Philadelphia Story was better than Holiday, I still enjoyed the latter immensely. It was fun. Playful. Delightful and charming.

Yet, at the same time, it had a lot to say. The main character, Johnny Case, is in finance, and comes of no background worth mentioning. His plan is to make enough money to take a holiday, and then quit his job, and take time to discover himself, and to discover what it is he's working for - he wants what he does to mean something - he wants to find meaning in general. His fiancee Julia Seton is a rich heiress, spoiled and coddled, and she doesn't agree with him at all. Her sister Linda, though, is frustrated with wealth, society, and her life in general, and she rebels and does whatever she can to escape, including spending most of her time in the old "play room." Their brother Ned shares Linda's views, only chooses to avoid his life by seeking solace in alcohol instead of dealing with things or trying to change theme - he lives with a resigned, sluggish attitude.

Aside from making a statement about how people view life and choose to make it worthy, it cleverly shows how people can be blinded by "love" and see a person as they want to see him, not for whom he truly is. Yet, the whole thing is humorous and overall, very amusing. It's marvelous.

In both of these cases, the writing is superb. But what makes them a thousand times stronger to me is the fact they are both also performances. Theater and film are both aural and visual, combining sound and speech and music with setting and physical expression. In Peter and Jerry, you can see what Albee is getting at in his writing. You can understand the words and know what is meant by them. But to see those feelings written on the faces of the characters, in their body language, to hear them in the tone and inflection of their voices - it's so powerful. And in Holiday, Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn and the rest of the cast fall into rhythm perfectly. Their timing as they sail through their repartee over and over is great not only in terms of how they relate to each other, but for capitalizing on every comedic possibility. Their reactions, their smiles, their pauses, are all perfectly synchronized.

Seeing that, as well as a few interviews with actors on working with another director, Nancy Meyer, reminded me how much a film or play relies on the pacing and the rhythm. Movies and plays are really just intricate dances, like a full company number in a musical. Timing does so much - it not only sets the pace, but thereby also sets the mood, the feeling, the undertone. It just really made me appreciate so much more everything that goes into a truly great play or movie. There are so many individual threads that need to be good in order for the whole thing to be great. When you really think about it, it's a wonder that there are as many great films and plays as there are. But I guess you can appreciate them that much more.

P.S. Sorry this is wicked long.