Wednesday, November 02, 2011


‘Indeed,’ Liebermann replied. ‘A metaphysical opera condensed into forty-three bars.
Death and the Maiden [String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, by Franz Schubert] Frank Tallis, 2011

Today I tried to reserve Bruce Beresford’s 2001 Bride of the Wind which is about Alma Schindler who married successively, Gustav Mahler, Walter Gropius and Franz Werfel. It is a terrific film which I once took out from my Videomatica. There is a moment in this film when a very familiar situation in a café salon freezes into what becomes a Klimt painting.

I was thinking about the film today because I am reading a very good novel (I have previously read Vienna Blood from this series called the Liebermann Papers) Frank Tallis’s Death and the Maiden which features Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt (also a very good amateur operatic baritone) and his friend the psychoanalyst (all this happens in Vienna in 1903) Dr. Max Liebermann (who plays his Böesendorfer very well). One of the protagonists is Gustav Mahler who in 1903 was the musical director at the Vienna Opera. Is the sudden death of an operatic diva suicide or murder?

Meanwhile my Chilean friend and model  C Valparaiso wants to work with me on a project where we would take some photographs of her in the spirit of Klimt paintings.

When I dialed my Videomatica phone number and got a change of number notification I knew my longstanding love affair with this unusual DVD and VHS rental institution was over.

I went to the Vancouver Public Library web site and put in Bride of the Wind. They don’t have it. I went to Netflix and I was offered Princess Bride.


This is certainly an end of an era for those who until now used the services of Videomatica not only for fun but for cultural improvement and for helping educate younger members of one’s family, which in my case, are my granddaughters Lauren, 9, and Rebecca, 14.

I hope all those Vancouverites who are happy, willing and eager to see streaming versions of current Hollywood faire are happy. I wonder if they will ever know how profound their loss is.

I know and I grieve.

So Mama don't take my Videomatica away

Death and the Maiden

Death and the Maiden Redux