Word: pascal
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...more likely to read Pascal, whom Voltaire hated, or Rousseau, who hated Voltaire, than Voltaire himself, who lives today mainly through Candide. In this black-comedy response to the evils of history, he seems closest to the modern reader, as in his conclusion: Cultivate your garden (modern translation: Do your own thing...
Manifestly, Ginsberg intends his static film to be a set of X rays. Instead it is only a suite of poses. Even the nude sex scenes are filmed in a chiaroscuro that shows far more scuro than chiaro. As does the script. Ginsberg begins with a Pascal epigraph, but on his own he produces bromides: "Why am I telling you all this?"; "I hate men, they degrade you for being a female"; "I crave nothingness . . . not to die, to live! To become! To find myself!" The stars complement the dialogue. The shrink should be dosed with adrenaline; Torn plays...
...Christmas Tree begins, dozens of eager French schoolboys disembark at the Gare du Nord for a ten week summer holiday. One little mop haired cherub named Pascal (Brook Fuller) rushes into the arms of Papa (William Holden) and Papa's fiancee (Virna Lisi). All the kids are happy. All the parents are happy. Even the conductors and porters seem happy. It can never last...
Sure enough, tragedy strikes. On a camping expedition to the Corsican seashore, Pascal is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation from a bomb that dropped accidentally out of a plane that just happened to be flying over that solitary spot in the Mediterranean . . . Anyway, after exhaustive testing, it is determined that Pascal has only six months to live. "What?" yells Papa Holden in a frantic outcry against destiny. "You mean there is no hope?" "I would be lying to you if I told you that there was," replies the aging specialist, with a certain sober sadness...
There is, of course, only one thing to do. Papa forsakes his multimillion dollar business and drives Pascal out to their country place-a little smaller than Versailles, but more cozy-where the child can perish in serenity. Papa assures the faithful family retainer (Bourvil) that Pascal must never know his fate, but the little rascal eavesdrops on the conversation and announces that he has known all along anyway. Everyone sheds a tear as Pascal manfully prepares to meet his fate. "I've never seen anything like that Pascal for guts," reflects the family retainer. "Well," comments Papa...