Sunday, August 23, 2009

The Better Bogart Within

...life can be lonely and sad sometimes...but you know that already...so I’ll move on to another topic...

It's still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die...
Herman Hupfield (as sung by Dooley Wilson)

...there’s this guy...crusty, bitter, cynical...concerned with nobody but himself...corrupt...mercenary...but, underneath all that, though he himself refuses to admit it...might not even know it...he's still an idealist, a romantic...caring...full of love and compassion...when the chips are down, downright heroic....Clive Owen played him a few years ago in Children of Men...Harrison Ford in Star Wars...Paul Newman and Jack Nicholson a couple times each...though nobody as often...or nearly as well...as Bogart...


...watching Casablanca on a tired, rainy evening...can relate to Bogart’s Rick...the ugly attitude and bottomless bottle of booze...not about to stick his neck out for anybody...turning away from the young woman desperate for his help with a terse nobody ever loved me that much...certainly far easier to see oneself in than Paul Henreid’s Laszlo with his apparently bottomless sense of purpose, courage, virtue, and understanding...

...but, of course, Rick’s better self emerges...he helps the girl and, in the end, sacrifices his own happiness for a higher purpose, leaving corrupt Casablanca behind to rejoin the cause, somewhere out in the desert...even inspiring Claude Rains’ gleefully corrupt and amoral Captain Renault to join him...

...I think maybe the yoga thing is kinda like a Bogart movie...about working through the hard, crusty exterior shell...the outer Bogart...freeing the better Bogart within...

...but, y’know...without the cigarettes...and, preferably, without shooting anybody...and, no, I can’t really imagine Bogart doing downward facing dog...so, maybe it’s not a perfect metaphor...ah well....guess we’ll always have Paris...

15 comments:

Lydia said...

I'm sorry but all I can think about now is the song Don't Bogart That Joint My Friend.....

Mariana Soffer said...

yes will always have paris is an amazing sentence, there is another one that is highly remember from that movie also which is play it again some, I do not know why it became so popular, cause is not that interesting the meaning than the one you mention in your blog, although it is true that that sentence triggers important things in the relationship among them two, and also it was something that was present in paris, so is a part of the first metaphor.
I have to confess that I love this movie, I watched it a hundered times, and I do not get tired of it, I often wonder what happen with the black guy that plays the piano and sings the songs, cause he did not became famous, nevertheless he was a wonderful musician.
This is all for now my friend, I loved the subject of the post, I love to remember the movie and share it.

crpitt said...

I was nodding my head in agreement when I read this title, until I realised you meant a different Bogart than I was thinking.

I was thinking more along the lines of a Boggart kind of Bogart, whoops.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boggart

Well at least I have found something new to write about and doodle :)

the walking man said...

Brilliant

Brooks Hall said...

So funny! The path of yoga is the path of the sexy hero! Love it! ...the hero who works through his "flaws" to the point that he's open to connecting to someone else or a cause bigger than just his lonely, crusty, rascally self... It's true, men!

Deborah Godin said...

Really liked where you took this post, a lot (in spite of the fact that it'll take a while to get the unwelcome image of Bogey on all fours out of my head...)

Janet said...

Good one :-)

MYM said...

can't wait for claire's post - never heard of that kind of boggrt, lol.

As for this Boggard, I dunno. Guy movie. Never one of my favourites. I guess that stereotypical male you described can also be a woman (no shit) it's just that at the end of the movie she's not helping some male in distress. But other than my dislike for the movie ... lol ... I totally get what you're saying.

YogaforCynics said...

Note to readers: over the past day or two, I've approved a couple of rather insulting comments on a previous post. Generally speaking, I believe in taking the good with the bad--so, if I'm gonna publish the nice stuff, it's only fair to publish the not-so-nice stuff, as well. Turns out, though, that these comments were written in bad faith by a troll who took the name of and linked to a fellow blogger, Helen Wheels, apparently in an effort to get back at her for rejecting his nasty comments on her own blog. The real Helen Wheels and her blog, Just Ain't Right, had nothing to do with those comments, which have been deleted.

Aviva DV said...

I was listening to a people talk this weekend, at a conference-like gathering of sorts, and disagreement emerged throughout people's speeches about the nature of humanity and people's capacity for good and/or evil...one contingent arguing that there are bad people out there in the world, so you have to watch your back, and some folks insisting that everyone is innately good. I tend to follow the former philosophy, but your post reminded me that it needn't be so absolute, that maybe I can watch my back and believe in innate goodness, too.

Eco Yogini said...

hmmm. nasty trolls eh? I also believe in putting the 'good' with the 'bad'.. but then I'm really trying to cut out unnecessary negativity from my life... which includes non-constructive comments. However, at the same time I've been pretty fortunate to only have a few so far :)

I would probably delete insulting, non-constructive comments- they aren't there to help. Maybe that makes me a bit of a blog-wuss lol.

Doesn't having a Troll officially make you 'blog-famous'? :)

ps- never saw Casablanca... same as above comment, the stereotypical stuff just irks me. ANother avoidance. lol.

Lana Gramlich said...

Sorry for the troll troubles. Never a dull moment...

Kim said...

I definitely think you've stumbled upon something here. Yoga can be a lot like freeing the better Bogart. It could be the start of a beautiful friendship...

YogaYoke said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Melinda said...

Hey Jay--I just have to say--Casablanca is my ALL TIME favorite movie. So, you are batting 1000 here. Lost in Translation AND Casablanca--one right after the other.

You *are* good!

Melinda