Gore Vidal At The VIFF Vancity Theatre - Two Gems
Monday, July 07, 2014
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| Gore Vidal on the Doge's throne - Photograph Tore Gill |
In my youth, it seemed that every American
had an Aunt Fenita. No matter where one’s family lived or was from, Aunt Fenita
was always from Ohio.
As she grew older, she tended to move east to New York
State or Connecticut, where she would settle in a
white-frame house in a town with a name like Plandome. By definition, Aunt
Fenita was of a certain age, as the French say; and a widow or spinster, she
lived continually alone. She had enough money to travel, and that was what she
did best – and most. Since European travel was still and adventure for
Americans before WW II, Aunt Fenita was positively glamorous in her knowledge
of steamship lines and railroad schedules, hotels and pensions. She was what
was then called a globe-trotter. Had anyone collected her postcards, he would
have had a panoramic, even Braudelesque, view of just what it was that our
innocents abroad most like to look at; in Aunt Fenita’s case, the Matterhorn
loomed rather larger than the Louvre; but then she never saw an alp that she
didn’t like. Of course, we were Alpine folk.
Aunt Fenita was the self-appointed emissary
between the family in America
and the family in Europe. Before World War II,
we were remarkable in that the European branch was far more distinguished than
the American. Things had not gone well for the first two generations in God’s
country. But in Europe, titles abounded; and
although she always got them wrong, Aunt Fenita was an eager, even obsessed, genealogist.
Postcards of castles where relatives lived, or allegedly lived, would arrive,
such as Schloss Heidegg in Gilfingen. A neatly-drawn arrow, pointing to a noble
casement, marks ‘Your grandmother Caroline’s room. On Aunt Fenita’s death,
trunks were found filled with Brownie snapshots of houses, castles, stout
ladies, bearded burghers, coats-of-arms, pressed flowers from gardens of
relatives in Feldkirch, St. Gallen, Unterwalden, Lucerne, and a list of the
doges of Venice – her greatest discovery and the family’s Rosetta Stone – of whom
three were called Vidal or Vitale, the magic name triply underlined in Aunt
Fenita’s triumphant porphyry-purple ink. There were also postcard views of, variously,
the church, the piazza and the Rio S. Vidal.
Vidal In Venice – Gore Vidal 1985
Today Rosemary and I went to one of Vancouver’s cultural gems, VIFF (Vancity Theatre) on 1181 Seymour Street,
half a block north of Davie.
We saw Gore Vidal – United States of Amnesia, a documentary directed by Nicholas
Wrathall with: Gore Vidal, Christopher Hitchens, Tim Robbins and Robert Scheer.
Since both Rosemary and I lean to the left
we enjoyed the show firmly ensconced in the best (very red) and most
comfortable theatre seats in our fair city.
I have read many of Vidal’s books including
Messiah, Empire (and I must admit The Smithsonian Institution – A Novel and Live from
Golgotha) and that gem Vidal wrote about Venice
with beautiful photographs by Tore Gill.
The closest I ever got to Vidal was to
photograph the man who called him a queer on TV. That was William F. Buckley. I
believe that out of camera range Buckley and Vidal might just have liked each
other. Interesting for me is that I have also read quite a few of Buckley’s
novels. Both Vidal and Buckley had an unusual command of English with the added
dollop of extreme elegance.
Rosemary and I who are now in that seventh
decade of our life have come to understand that we have each other and little
more (and that is plenty). So we watch good films which I get from Limelight
Video or the Vancouver Public Library and now we will be frequenting the VIFF
more often. Not too long ago I read about the “so called” FBI informer James
Bulger in my NY Times and now on July 9 there is Whitey: United States of America Vs James J. Bulger directed by Joe Berlinger. Some of the more obscure
little films reviewed by the NY Times show up at VIFF a week or two after.
Roosevelt [Theodore] produced his most dazzling smile. “I may be a hypocrite, Mr. Hearst. But I am not a scoundrel.”
“I know,” said Hearst, with mock sadness. “After
all, I made you up, didn’t I?”
“Mr. Hearst,” said the President. “history
invented me, not you.”
“Well, if you really want to be
highfalutin, then at this time and in this place, I am history – or at least
the creator of the record.”
“True history comes long after us. That’s
when it will be decided whether or not we measured up, and our greatness – or its
lack – will be defined.”
“True history,” said Hearst, with a smile
that was, for once, almost charming, “is the final fiction. I thought even you
knew that.” Then Hearst was gone, leaving the President alone in the Cabinet
room, with its great table, leather armchairs, and the full-length painting of
Abraham Lincoln, eyes fixed on some far distance beyond the viewer’s range, a
prospect unknown and unknowable to the mere observer, at sea in present time.
Empire – A Novel
– Gore Vidal 1987
