A Room With a View as Writing Inspiration

I'm busy writing and editing today. I've passed 35,000 words in my Nanowrimo efforts and as I was writing a love scene, I had to return to one of my favorite lines from Room With a View when Cecil asks Lucy if he can kiss her. She says, "Well, of course, you may, Cecil. You might have before. I can't run at you, you know."

Here's the scene from youtube. The kiss comes around 3 minutes.
And, as a comparison, we must revisit the scene of the kiss in an Italian poppy field. This was what she compared -- Cecil's  kiss and George's kiss.

Love the soaring Italian opera music. I might have stuck with the Italian drive myself but Julian Sands is divine in this.
Which would you choose?
Lovely to remember and enjoy as I continue my solitary life as a writer.

What's Your Favorite Movie?

As an adult, I don't have a lot of favorites. My kids were always trying to pin me down to my favorite color, my favorite food, my favorite child.
But I do have two favorite movies. One of them is recent and the other has been my favorite since grad school.
We've rented Midnight in Paris several times. When the Redbox dvd froze the other night, Earl pointed out that we simply should have bought the movie. I love all the scenes of Paris. We play the "I've been there" game with Grace along, and I got to play it with my friend Ruth the other night too. She hadn't seen the movie. Doesn't like Woody Allen. Doesn't like Owen Wilson.
"Yeah, but that doesn't matter. You'll like this movie," I told her and I was right.
I also love figuring out who all the historical characters are. Of course, I recognized the Fitzgeralds and Hemingway and Gertrude Stein right away. Man Ray? Luis Bunuel? I didn't know about those surrealists or American writer Djuna Barnes.
I see something different every time I watch it.
And, of course, Wilson's fiance in the movie is so dismissive of his love for Paris and urge to finish his novel. I spend the movie trying to convince the screen that he should dump the fiance.

My long-term favorite movie is Room With a View. I find myself quoting this movie or thinking of scenes in this movie all the time. Just this morning I said, "I can't go running at you now, can I?" quoting the Helena Bonham Carter character as she encourages her fiance, Daniel Day Lewis to give her a first passionate kiss.  I think of our French friend Maguerite as the proper maiden aunt Charlotte Bartlett and wrote in my memoir how the family dreaded her visit at the vacation house in Corsica, just as they dreaded having "Poor Charlotte." The movie is so witty and clever, plus it has the first full-frontal male nudity I ever saw in a movie when the men are skinny-dipping in a pool and Helena Bonham Carter, her mother and fiance are walking past. Another hilarious scene. And I frequently find myself wanting to call out "Truth, Beauty..." the motto of the young George Sands character, who yells this from a tree, before the branch breaks and he takes a tumble to the Tuscan countryside. Tourists are mocked. Romances are mocked. The idea of raising children in the countryside to maintain their innocence before sending them on a world tour to finish them, seems like what we might have done with Grace. See how I've embraced this movie.

How about you? Do you have a favorite movie? Why is it your favorite?

Movie Dilemmas

When Earl has a rare evening off, we like to watch movies set in France or Italy, places we hope to live someday.
Last night, we walked to the library and scoured the foreign film section. We ended up with a handful of movies. First, we tried a 1960s movie Divorce Italian Style with Marcello Mastroianni who fantasized about killing his wife so he could hook up with his high school cousin. We watched for about 20 minutes before moving on to another movie.

The next choice was a 2002 French movie called Va Savoir which can be interpreted as "Go Figure." The dvd case described it as a French romantic comedy. We love romance in Paris, but this one was full of angst and overbearing characters. Frankly, most French comedies are not funny to me. Maybe I just don't have that Gallic sense of humor. Why do people die in French comedies? The funniest thing that usually happens is someone gets locked in the closet, which happened in Va Savoir. Earl says I missed a funny scene at around 2 hours, 10 minutes. I had gone to bed by then.
Don't get me wrong, I have liked some French movies, such as Manon of the Spring or Paris with Juliette Binoche, but overall, French movies fall flat with me.
Here's what I figured out. I like American or British movies with American or British humor or romance set in France or Italy -- like A Room with a View (my all time favorite) or Under the Tuscan Sun or French Kiss.
So, I need your help. Please recommend some movies set in France or Italy that I will like.

Springtime Moon

I know if I were more knowledgable about the moon and the night sky, I could explain this, but a couple of times each year, I awaken to find the moonlight drenching my bed. This week has been one of those times.
We have wooden shutters on the bottoms of the bedroom window, leaving the "architectural details" of our Arts & Crafts' house windows uncovered.
As the moon moves through its cycle this week, its light reaches our bedroom window during different parts of the night. Sometimes I'll wake up to find Earl not in bed yet, but the moonlight is there. Other times I'll feel Earl lying next to me with the moonlight pouring onto him.
This morning, after a late night at the theater, I slept in until 6:30. (I know. Pitiful.) When I woke up, the moon was there dousing our room with light. It shone in the navy blue sky, whose only purpose was to serve as background.
The glass of the window distorted the view, but I wanted you to see my morning greeting from the moon.