Movies in 2026 65

 

Ugetsu, (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953)

The other movie that I managed to watch yesterday during the general madness of the day was Kenji Mizoguchi's Ugetsu. It is drawn from two ghost stories, "The House in the Thicket" and "The Lust of the White Serpent," from Ueda Akinari's 18th century Tales of Moonlight and Rain - with a little of Guy de Maupassant's "How He Got the Legion of Honor" thrown in. As with all Mizoguchi there's a lot more going on, including a critique of the growing greed of the post-war Japanese population and the general mistreatment of women. I have a feeling that a Kenji Mizoguchi deep dive is starting. In 1941 he had made a pro-war propaganda film, The 47 Ronin (which is happily also in the Criterion Channel collection), and Ugetsu is also a commentary on the folly of war and militarism, which means the film is also in some ways a statement of regret. Highly recommended. 

Deal Justly

 " . . . then marry such women as seem good to you, two, three, or four, but if you fear that you will not deal justly, then only one . . ." 4:3

Here's another line from my early morning Quranic study that jumped out at me, although I've clearly thought about it a lot over the years. It's also a line that we discussed in my various classes that dealt with Islam or the Islamic world, because it gives context to the notion of polygamy. There seems to be this perception on the part of folks who no almost nothing about Islam that all Muslims are running around with several wives, and one of the reasons why is that Muhammad gave them this privilege and encouraged them to do so. The reality is that a very small percentage of the 1.7 billion Muslims in the world actually have more than one wife. It's hard to come up with an exact figure, but it seems to be less than two percent. This revelation, from Allah through Gabriel to Muhammad, did not increase the number of wives, but instead limited it. What jumped out at me this morning was the balancing act between the transitory and the eternal, between the particular and the universal. Polygamy is an ancient practice, and it was especially prevalent in pre-Islamic Arabia, made more common by the constant warfare of that period. Essentially, there were a lot of widows, and one way that you took care of so many widows was for men of certain wealth to marry them. There are other things going on in regards to polygamy, obviously, but the number of "extra" widows was a driving force in the number of polygamous marriages at that particular time. Most of the Prophet's wives were widows. Anyway, while it's interesting to consider that this revelation limited the number of wives, as compared to increasing them, what inspired this post today are the words "deal justly." I'm a historian, so of course I'm going to think that time and place and context matter, even in religious texts, but even if I were not a historian I would think that time and place and context matter, even in religious texts. The number of wives represents the conditions of a particular time and place, and in some ways (most ways) I think it should stay in that time and place. One of the reasons why we study the Quran, or any religious text, is to get at the deeper meanings, which are more eternal and universal. So, if we're looking at this passage as a justification to take a second wife (in a country where that is an option), then I think we're missing the point. The key, the transcendent, eternal, universal key, is that emphasis on dealing justly with your spouse (because part of that search for the universal has to be going beyond a message told to dudes in a patriarchal society). 

Movies in 2026 64

 

No Greater Love: The Human Condition I, (Masaki Kobayashi, 1959)

Yesterday was a pretty wretched day, mainly because of those stupid things that life throws at you: yet another big snow, burying my car as I tried to get out of the driveway before my plow guy had come (leaving my Subaru thinking about flipping over and ending up down the hill) - our plow guy eventually came back later and heroically pulled the car out, Janet had to miss out on a book club discussion of Faulkner that she was really looking forward to, I didn't get the trash to the dump, the water heater stopped working (the repair guy came around at almost 9:00 p.m., and happily fixed it), the toilet was clogged, a mouse happily ran around the basement while the cats looked at it in a disinterested fashion. Yes, it was one of those days. However, in the midst of all the chaos, I was still able to get in my Quranic study, my Italian lessons, several hours of crucial writing on the epics manuscript - and, most importantly, spent some quality time with Janet. I was also able, while killing time waiting for our plow guy and the water heater guy to show up, to watch a couple movies. The first was No Greater Love, the first installment in Masaki Kobayashi's unmatched trilogy, The Human Condition. I just re-watched the entire trilogy (all nine and a half hours) last fall, but I'm going to use part two of No Greater Love in my Images of Fascism class this week, so this was partially class prep (and also a love of labor, obviously). The militarists and radical right wing hated (and still hates) the movie, just as they hated/hates the Junpei Gomikawa novel that it's based on. In my preparatory email to my students, I told them that as we watch the film to think about Stanley's How Fascism Works and our evolving understanding of Fascism, but also the question of memory, and what we owe to the present and the future to remember the horrors of the past. I firmly believe, and I don't think you can budge me on this one, that Kobayashi's The Human Condition is the greatest trilogy of all time, and one of the great films of all time. Clearly, watching it is not only highly recommended, it is essential. 

One Hour of Reflection

 "One hour of reflection is better than a night's vigil." Muhammad, Hadith

One of the many beautiful things about Ramadan is the continual revisiting of text, and the new lessons that you draw from them. On the one hand, I suppose this is a duh statement, because I draw different meanings from every re-read of The Book of Disquiet or In Search of Lost Time or Bleak House, so I guess it shouldn't be different if the text is of divine origin; I'm still a human trying to work my way through the words and meaning, no matter their origin. Sometimes the different meaning comes from a passage that you somehow had glossed over, even if you've read the work many times. That said, I think it's interesting how yet another re-read will inspire a new understanding, even if you've tagged the passage before. For example, I was involved in my early morning Quranic study, and was devoting myself to both the Quran and also the voluminous notes in Seyyed Hoissein Nasr's wonderful Study Quran. I came across a line that I had underlined (who knows how many years ago): "A hadith states, 'One hour of reflection [or meditation, tafakkur] is better than a night's vigil.'" Obviously, I thought it was important previously because I had already underlined it, but for some reason it really spoke to me this time. This is doubtless true because it is a message that continually resonates with me: in Ramadan if we're only focusing on getting in all of our prayers and and fasting, and not devoting more time to Quranic study and reflection then we're missing out on an extraordinary opportunity for growth. One of the things that I'm looking forward to as I face down retirement is the extra time that I'll have every day to read and study and reflect more. Of course, this also places greater responsibility on us. Nasr quotes Hasan al-Basri as having said, "If one's words are not wisdom, they are vain. If one's silence is not reflection, it is absent-mindedness. If one's thought is not contemplation, it is play." 

Movies in 2026 63

 

Jules and Jim, (Francois Truffaut, 1962)

Yes, I've clearly been trapped in the Criterion Channel's French New Wave collection lately. The other night I watched Truffaut's 1962 film Jules and Jim, a film that I somehow don't think I had ever seen (which seems unbelievable). Jules (Oskar Werner) and Jim (Henri Serre) spend years being drawn into the snare of Catherine (played, brilliantly and sulkily, by Jeanne Moreau). Seriously, has anyone paired with Jeanne Moreau in a film ended up happy or even undamaged? I have this theory that you had to live through the French New Wave to truly get the French New Wave, in that often a work of art or a series of works of art ca so change the world that it almost makes it impossible to appreciate how significant they are.

16

 We're getting desperately close to reaching the halfway point of my last semester. It's been a pleasant semester so far, and my students have been (generally) on their best behavior. I even received an initial inquiry from a university press, which, no matter how it plays itself out, was great news.

Thanks to Matt Dunigan for loaning me his number sixteen as part of my countdown to retirement. Dunigan was born in Lakewood, Ohio, which I supposed I've driven by dozens of times on my drives from Vermont to Indiana over the years. He attended Louisiana Tech, for heading north (mainly) to play for a number of CFL teams: Edmonton Eskimos, BC Lions, Toronto Argonauts, Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Birmingham Barracudas (during that ill-fated CFL expansion into the states), and Hamilton Tiger-Cats. He is a two time Grey Cup Champion, winning once with Edmonton and once with Toronto, and was elected into the CFL Hall of Fame (I'll have to check out his plaque on this summer's trip to Hamilton) in 2006. He's also served as a studio analyst on CFL broadcasts.

Piety

 Surah 2 is the longest surah in the Quran, making up something like 12% of the entire material. As you know, there are 114 surahs, so for one to take up over ten percent of the entire mass of the text that's definitely saying something. Of course, so many of the later surahs are only a few lines long. There aren't too many important subjects related to the faith that don't show up in one form or another in al-Baqarah ("the Cow"). Here is one of my favorite passage, relating to the concept of piety.

"It is not piety to turn your faces toward the east and the west. Rather, piety is he who believes in God, the Last Day, the angels, the Book, and the prophets; and who gives wealth, despite loving it, to kinsfolk, orphans, the indigent, the traveler, beggars, and for [the ransom] of slaves; and performs the prayer and gives the alms; and those who fulfill their oaths, when they pledge them, and those who are patient in misfortunate, hardships, and moments of peril. It is they who are the sincere, and it is they who are the reverent." 2:177

As Seyyed Hossein Nasr adds in his commentary, "Piety is understood as the obedience to God that is well established in the heart or as the sum of acts of obedience and devotion that led us closer to God." I'm always drawn more to the esoteric than the exoteric, and also to what someone does as compared to how they are performing for others, so there is so much about this passage that speaks to me.